Crystal Bay Resort

Crystal Bay is an affordable option in Watamu, and it is on a nice bay with a nice beach. I had challenges booking directly, as response was slow and for two days I wasn’t confident my stay was confirmed (a challenge when you also need to book flights). The accommodations are fine and pool area is decent. We did bed and breakfast and the breakfast was ok but not great (surprisingly poor coffee for a resort catering to Italians). There are some very good restaurants nearby or within a short Tuk Tuk ride for lunch and dinner. The main challenge here is in the catering to Italians. The vast majority of guests were Italian (there’s an Italian tour office in the lobby), and I had read reviews saying the staff favoured the Italian guests. This does seem to be true, unfortunately. In particular, the Italian guests put their towels out early in the morning to claim all of the lounge chairs (by 8am there were towels covering the beach loungers with not a guest in sight). The staff also deferr to them even if they had claimed more than one for themselves (one in the shade, one in the sun), and after not helping another paying guest fund a suitable spot. So if you stay here, I guess you’ll need to be aggressive about claiming loungers yourself. Buona fortuna :|

This place has pros and cons of course and here they are: ✅ PROS: - amazing location and views of Watamu, dream like when you go down the stairs to the beach - village entertainment staff was superb, very funny and always trying to include everyone in the activities, big up for Bea, Ciccio and Antonio! - food by the chef Francesco was always excellent and great healthy variety offered - cleaning of the room always done properly ❌ CONS: - the resort itself needs a deep restyling starting from the rooms to end with facilities for disabled people - electricity sockets outdated - no phone line in the room to contact reception - towels were old (leaving fluff) - avoid the ‘beach boys’ at all costs

Only Italians are welcome on this hotel. Don't go on this hotel if you are not Italian. Kenyans staff are very nice but they can't help you too much because the management or entertainment people are too "superior to everyone". Just avoid this hotel!!

The resort is “resurrecting” from the COVID closure of the past two years and it did offer great value with the unmatched ocean views. The rooms are still gorgeous ( I loved the private balcony’s’) although the bathroom could use some updating for a “resort” but the place makes up for that mishap with cleanliness and great service. It seems like everywhere you turn there is a someone to attend to you. On the down side, the resort is running only one breakfast restaurant . The breakfast meals needs some spruce up, after 3 days one tires of eating the same thing.. On the minus side there is no room service, slippers and kettle in the room. For dinner we had to make do with the adjacent Watamu restaurant ( more on the separate review of restaurant) For a resort closed for “the COVID years” they are bouncing back really well. Proximity to beach , the silence and two swimming pools make for great relaxation!! Can’t wait to go back when it’s fully vibrant or even visit one of the sister resorts as had originally planned ( 7 islands or Mawe Zuri)

Beautiful Hotel with amazing service… I really enjoyed my stay at this splendid beach resort. The rooms were clean and the staff was very kind and helpful. I would definitely recommend crystal bay as a vacation spot and visit again soon. Best resort in watamu

My first vacation in watamu ended up in tears during my first morning at the resort. I am so traumatised I can't bring myself to visit watamu anytime soon. The staff did not have our rooms ready until 5pm and wanted to leave the dirty linensfrom the previous tenants in the bathroom until the following morning when they could do the laundry. I explained how i would not allow that with the covid situation and they finally understood and took away the dirty linens. The owner is a horrible condescending human being, shouting, talked down on my family because of skin colour, pointing fingers, and refused to give us a refund after literally driving us out of there after the first night. The manager knows how unreasonable the owners can be but he can't do much. My msg to the owner : vaf*nc*lo.

The serenity, the politeness of the staff and the place is very central.

Ohh but where do I begin😫😫. There was no one to receive us, take our temperature, sanitise nor usher us in. What we thought would be lunch made at the hotel, turned out to be take out from a nearby restaurant (pizza was half burnt and horrible to the palate). The curtains in the room had stains and some of the windows could not close. My friends and I made the best of the one night we stayed there but quickly changed our reservation for the 2nd night. The staff seemed nice but some really need to work on their customer service. Management really needs to work on the grounds and the general ambience of the place. We were truly disappointed by what we saw.

It was an unplanned rendezvous for 1 night... we just called Crystal Bay and got a good reasonable rate for B&B and booked on the phone. The entrance to Crystal Bay is very welcoming with abundance of color of all the bougainvillea in full bloom. The hotel is well laid out with villa like structures and each villa having 2 to 3 rooms...near the main pool. There are twin rooms on the top floor with a common veranda and balcony overlooking the sea and another small swimming pool. We loved this top floor room as we had the lovely view and also the access to the smaller pool which was more private and easier access to the beach too. The staff are friendly. The breakfast basic. The rooms and baths are average but function well and overall comfortable. The linen and the veranda furniture and materials are a bit dated however in trying times it's difficult to maintain everything. I would still visit again.