Need to know
Rooms
11 residences.
Check–Out
10am, but flexible, subject to availability, tides, and air and sea curfews. Earliest check-in, 2pm.
More details
Rates usually include all meals, butler service, most drinks, a welcome spa treatment, use of your own Mini Moke, laundry and sunset sails on Kisawa’s dhow.
Also
If your search for a kettle is fruitless, don’t panic – that’s what your butler is for and if you want to channel the Queen of England and take tea at whatever time pleases you, they’ll be more than happy to brew up on your behalf.
At the hotel
Free WiFi throughout, gardens, free laundry, gym with Pilates reformer machines and a yoga dome, and a house dhow boat. In rooms: TV, record player and vinyl collection, stocked pantry, outdoor kitchen and shower, artworks and sculptures, sun hat, butler, Mini Moke buggy and Vana bath products.
Our favourite rooms
Honeymooners should book the remote Residence 2, the most secluded of all the bungalows (and there’s some competition), at the top of a dune. For the most acreage, go for Residence 7, which has two pools, three bedrooms, a vast outdoor area and direct access to the cove.
Poolside
The lagoon-like, dune-edged pool segues into the Indian Ocean (they almost needn’t have bothered). It’s open from 9am to 5pm, but your inflatable flamingo will need pre-approval.
Spa
The NWC (Natural Wellness Centre), built to look like a traditional circular village house, is set across different domes, each representing an element or energy. Sign up for reiki, breathwork, energetic healing and Ayurvedic treatments using honey, sea salt, herbs and coconut and almond oil – all sourced on the island. Practitioners in residence include a holistic doctor and a yoga teacher, and various visiting masters call by, too.
Packing tips
This is one occasion when contemplating your desert-island essentials is actually necessary – though you can probably bring a little more than three items.
Children
Kids aged under 11 stay free; for over-12s, it’s €450 a night. The ocean-side residences are not recommended for families with small children, due to the swell. Babysitting can be arranged with 24 hours’ notice; it costs €30 an hour.
Best for
Older children.
Recommended rooms
The ocean-side residences are not recommended for families with small children, due to the swell. There are multi-bedroom residences on their own plot.
Activities
Children will love exploring this remote wilderness and meeting its marine life – activities include mastering traditional fishing, arts and crafts, shell-hunting missions and learning how to camp under the stars. The team will also be able to organise family yoga, cookery lessons and stand-up paddle-board outings.
Swimming pool
Kids must be accompanied by an adult when swimming in the lagoon pool.
Meals
Each restaurant and the room-service menu has special options for smaller appetites.
Babysitting
Babysitting can be arranged with 24 hours’ notice; it costs €30 an hour.
Sustainability efforts
The hotel was designed to blend in with its surroundings, using traditional Mozambican weaving, thatching and carpentry, local timber and the wares of artisans from the archipelago. The hotel has a partnership (and financially supports) an ocean observatory on the other side of the island, the Bazaruto Centre for Scientific Studies. Produce is grown in the estate’s permaculture gardens, or sourced from farmers and suppliers within a 300-mile radius; and things made on-site include bread, cheese and smoked meats.
