17 Mar 2020
I booked a day tour for Stone Town and Jozani Forest for a group of 5 in port for the day from a cruise ship. Hamzee was very good to deal with and answered all my emails promptly.
This was a tender port and after we exited the terminal where the tender docked we looked for our tour guide. The only negative of the day was that we did have a bit of trouble locating our guide (Jumo). This was exacerbated by the fact that my phone would not work in Zanzibar. I found another tourist guide and then a government tourism agent who both phoned Hamzee for me and they managed to locate our guide who seemed to be at another gate further away from where we exited the terminal. In the end we were only 5 minutes late in meeting Jumo for our tour and the rest of the day went well.
Jumo was a fabulous guide - very knowledgeable and happy to adapt the tour to our interests. The walking tour of Stone Town was very interesting and he found us a lovely place to have a coffee on a very hot day. After this we went to Jozani Forest in a mini van that was clean, comfortable and air conditioned. Jumo made sure we had plenty of water and kept well hydrated. The Forest Rangers mandate that you have 1 of their guides for the Forest and mangrove tour but Jumo also came along. This tour was also very interesting.
The drive to the Forest was around 45 minutes and the road was really bumpy for much of the way. We had a lovely driver who missed as many of the potholes as he could!
I would happily use Tima Tours again if I was visiting Zanzibar.