Evergreen Bungalows

Beautiful location, on the beach, with lush vegetation around, palm trees, monkeys, beautiful birds and butterflies. Staff are lovely, food was good. Only complaint, the room, which adequately fitted the 3 of us and our luggage, was rather dark, which meant we couldn’t read in the room, and had to grope in our suitcases to find anything.

My partner and I booked to stay at Evergreen for an eagerly awaited break from the 16th to the 23rd of December 2023. What a disappointment. We took our time looking for a place on the island that wouldn't be over run with tourists, had a good beach, good reviews, reasonably priced, a place to unwind, and from what we could see online Evergreen looked perfect! How wrong we were. Our first night our room was over run with ants and we had a rat running around in our room (we have a video). The bed and bedding all smelt like rat urine as well. On top of the ants and rats, there were mosquitoes and moths which resulted in us having a very unsettled night. On the second day we ordered a sea food platter from the Evergreen restaurant. This meal proceeded to give my partner violent food poisoning which resulted in her being bed ridden for two days and missing out on a scuba dive experience (main reason for coming to Zanzibar). We were later told that it is local knowledge not to eat seafood at Evergreen as there is a very good chance you'll get sick. Again loads of insects and rats in the room that night. The 3rd day I spent most of my time looking after my bed ridden partner which included a trip to the hospital. We were unable to sleep well that night because of smelly bedding and being bitten by all the insects in the room. On the fourth night after another poor meal at Evergreen (Meze platter) we decided to lie in bed and watch a movie. At about 11pm a moth flew into some exposed wiring on one of the lights in the room which caused the lamp shade of the light to catch fire. The room we were in was essentially a tinder box and if I wasn't able to put the fire out in time the whole lodge would've burnt to the ground and any guests sleeping at the time could've been seriously injured as there is no emergency protocol, fire extinguishers etc. at Evergreen. We reported the fire to the staff and went to bed but unfortunately for us Evergreen was still out to ensure we had a life threatening stay! At about 2am in the morning I was woken up by a rat bitting my arm in bed (seriously unhygienic - and these rats were present before we had to bring food into our room for my ill partner). I am aware the host will blame this on us as the guest instead of taking responsibility but you should be able to bring sealed food items or meals into a hotel room without fear of rodents, no matter the location. As the owner of a lodge within a national park, this is something I would never expect a hotel owner to use as an excuse for our experience. On the 21st we decided to leave Evergreen as it was now just getting silly how poor of an establishment this is. At 8am there was no management or ownership to talk to. So we had to message Claudia (owner) on Airbnb to inform her that we were leaving and that we felt that we should get a full refund, not have to pay our restaurant / bar bill and that transport to our newly booked accommodation should be covered as this woul