Travelling Hopefully - Sun, Sand and Terrible Service

Kendwa is at the northern end of the island that even the locals have stopped pretending is called anything except Zanzibar.  We stopped at a resort there for a couple of days.  This was the end of our tour, hereafter I would be on my own.  I won't give the name of the resort but it had large, airconditioned rooms, a breathtakingly beautiful beach and a staff who were friendly, charming and useless.

I hope that the staff have been recruited from the local population as part of an effort to pump some money into the economy.  If they were actually recruited from elsewhere then the managers of the resort might as well hire locals and save a bit of money.  This issue was not poor service along the lines of rudeness, as I say the staff were friendly and charming.  Unfortunately it would appear they were at best half trained and the slightest problem left them unable to cope.  I went without a cappuccino for several hours because they couldn't find any milk.  I ordered a screwdriver at the bar to be told they couldn't make it despite the fact it was on their drinks list and the ingredients (vodka and orange juice) were actually sitting there in front of me.  Meals were good but would arrive at random times with some people on their desserts before others had received their appetisers.  One guy received his meal an hour after I did despite ordering the same thing at the same time.

The silly thing is that the presence of a single, trained floor manager would have solved most of the issues.  You can run a resort with half trained staff and goodwill (which was abundant) if you have just one person who knows what to do and can guide the staff when required.  As it was it was obvious that these guys had been given a half baked (at best) hospitality course and then left to sink or swim.  They sank.

But I quibble, nobody starved or died (although I did get a mild electric shock from the toaster) and cocktails arrived eventually even if they didn't have the ingredients one might expect or bear much resemblance to what was actually ordered.  The beach was perfect, the ocean more so and a sunset cruise on a dhow was a perfect way to smooth over any minor bumps in the hospitality.