Barra Lodge Hotel Reviews Inhambane Mozambique Holiday Tour Accommodation Scuba Diving Fishing Beach
HOTELS REVIEW - BARRA BEACH LODGE INHAMBANE MOZAMBIQUE AFRICA
Barra Lodge is a 3-star family beach resort hotel situated on the warm Inhambane estuary. The lodge offers a range of accommodation options: 19 casitas are made of thatch, brick and reeds and have an ensuite room with shower; the self-catering cottages have 2 bedrooms, lounge cum dining room, shower and kitchenette; 11 campsites with ablution blocks and shared electrical points; 2 budget bunk houses with basic kitchenettes and a luxurious “live aboard” yacht. Facilities include a restaurant and tropical bar. Activities include beach games, horseriding, snorkelling, dhow cruises, cultural visits and diving.
What did you think?
What did you think?
2 comments:
Chose another hotel! Me and my four friends went down to Inhambane to explore the Mozambiqian coast. We were sorely disappointed with our stay at Barra Lodge which was one of the most reputable places in Inhambane.
Hotel Accommodations: Over-priced and run-down Barra Lodge has definitely seen better days and in need of a major face-lift. For example our shower was black with stains and our linens smelled like old sweat.
Activities: Not so bad What the lodge does well is offer a variety of activities that make great use of the landscape. I would not say that they are well organized, after paying about $400 USD to rent a catamaran for a day, we were forced to wait for an hour on the dock when they just discovered something on the boat was broken.
Location: Good Barra’s greatest asset (along with the other hotels on the same strip) is its location. The beaches are amazingly beautiful and have yet to be affected by the mass commercialization of tourist attractions. This is probably the only reason to stay at Barra.
Customer Service: Awful The worst thing about Barra Lodge is the way they treat their customers. From the moment we made our reservation (our reservation was re-faxed two times because of booking errors from the main office) to the treatment I received after I had my belongings were stolen, it was apparent that client care is a low priority.
My camera and wallet were stolen by a staff member and management was not only unresponsive to my situation but was condescending to me as well.
Do NOT stay here and if you should do NOT let your belongings out of your sight! Barra Lodge still has a thief working for them!
We spent a week at Barra Lodge, 2 adults and 4 children (2x15yrs and 1x11yrs). Sharing one of the self catering lodges (as opposed to the casitas) the accomodation was spacious and comfortable (certainly not luxurious) but ideal for us with the kids. There was also a bunkhouse which seemed to be pretty full.The resort has its own pool (didn't seem to be heated), 2 bars, a beach cafe and restuarant. A pool table, darts board and TV room were the only distractions for the kids in the evenings (apart from twice weekly entertainment, traditional singing and dancing from some local youngsters which was excellent).
We visited in August and the vast expanse of empty beaches was a wonder to behold. A few locals trying to sell their wares (shells, shrimps etc) but not pushy or aggressive was the only interruption. A bit of a breeze coming in from the sea but the water was still very warm and the kids loved the waves.Activities included (for me in particular) scuba diving. I had hoped to swim with the whale sharks, wrong time of the year though - but did do the Manta Ray cleaning station which was an incredible experience. Also did a few reef dives and 3 of the children with us did a PADI 1 day course which included a dive at the end of it.
Other activities included:
Quad biking (excelent fun although I did feel for the villagers who's peace we disturbed by roaring past their homes)
Horse riding on the beach - the kids enjoyed this but was advertised as 90 minutes and they barely got an hour.
Sea Safari - we were fortunate in that a humpback whale surfaced right beside our boat (so close that the instructor had kittens whilst we were blissfully unafraid in our ignorance and quite happily snapped away with the cameras for the dureation)
Catarmaran and various other water sports were available, fishing etc. If you wanted to visit Inhambane for a morning/day you could hire one of the minibuses with a guide/driver at a very modest cost.
The proof is in the eating - all of us can't wait to go back, even the kids are willing to sacrifice the commercial type holiday with karaoke evenings and abba impersonaters as nightly entertainment in favour of an evening playing pool as the only entertainment.
What made it for us - the location, the culture, the people - not the money grabbing ethos we've experienced elsewhere. And once you get there everything is pretty cheap by European standards (average cost per person per day for us was £40 which included all meals/drinks/activities such as scuba diving and horse riding etc - and we did at least one of these a day each).
Useful people to get to know:-
Carlos (a waiter): speaks good english and we got the rolls royce service from him (not sure why - perhaps he just likes the Brits)
Petra (not sure what her job was but useful for information about pretty much everything)
Augusto - my wife's favourite, was her driver/guide on a couple of trips out to Inhambane and she's now writing to him (maybe I should be worried)
Karen (the dive guide) - I would guess she will move on soon, but useful having a Brit in a position of authority (in my view).
If you want somehere off the beaten track and are a water sports enthusiast I can't imagine you could do much better than Barra Lodge.
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