Quick Facts: Property: The Manta Resort. Location: Pemba Island, Zanzibar, Tanzania. Price: Starting around $1,500/night. Structure: Three levels. Top deck above water, middle level with lounge and bathroom, bottom level fully submerged. Access: By boat, nearly a mile offshore.
Nearly a mile off the coast of Tanzania, there’s a hotel room that floats on the Indian Ocean, drops below the surface, and gives you a bedroom surrounded by coral reef. From the outside it looks like a modest platform. Step down the ladder, and you’re looking at Zanzibar’s reef through floor-to-ceiling glass, with fish drifting past your pillow.
What the Underwater Room Actually Is
The Manta Resort’s underwater room is a three-level floating structure anchored off Pemba Island, one of Tanzania’s least-visited and most biodiverse coral destinations. The top deck is for sunbathing. The middle level has the lounge and bathroom. The bottom level is fully submerged, with glass walls on all sides. That’s where you sleep, beneath the Indian Ocean, in one of the more extraordinary rooms on the planet.
Worth $1,500 a Night?
That depends on what you’re after. The room is genuinely remote. No other guests nearby, no internet pulling at your attention, no ground beneath you. Just open ocean, stars above the surface, and whatever decides to swim past your window at 3am. For a certain kind of traveler, that’s not expensive. That’s a bargain.
The Manta Resort is in Zanzibar’s Pemba Island, accessible by small aircraft and boat transfer. It’s not easy to get to. That’s rather the point.
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6 Comments
You are correct, James! We apologize for the error, and have made updates to the article. Thank you!
I’m pretty sure that that is not Tasmania, it’s probably Tanzania. Tasmania is not tropical and does not have coral reefs.
Oh, I really like the black-light outside the bedroom windows for nighttime viewing! I imagine that attracts a lot of fish and maybe a few sharks. That’s a bit over my limit for a day rate though! But, it’s good to dream I reckon.
Thanks for the comment! We’d love to check it out in person.
Wow! how amazing is that? Thank you for sharing.
Reblogged this on Micks Blog and commented:
For me, a wish I was there destination!