Sentidos Beach Retreat - Design Hotels

We came from Harare to travel to Mozambique, Inhambane via Nelspruit South Africa. Mozambique is beautiful and our seaside holiday was brilliant. We stayed at Praia Azul during out stay and used Sentidos Beach retreat to book our activities which included quad biking and deep sea fishing. We had been on the fishing trip and quad biking a year before with Sentidos and were well impressed with their staff and decided to use them again this year. The fishing trip this year was very disappointing as the guides were not very helpful and did not have any motivation to help us catch a fish. They did not have the correct fishing gear or knowledge on how to catch fish. The time of our fishing trip meant to be 6 hours, but we only fished for 2.5 hours before we were heading back. Whilst we were fishing, our wives were at the restaurant. To make matters worse their bill was equivalent to about $50 for a two very small omelettes, fruit juice, coffee and tea. 1 cups of basic tea was charged out at $4 which was a teabag in a pot of water. Unfortunately, tea was not shown on the menu and when we queried the charge, we were told teas are charged as iced tea charges. Explaining our concerns to the manager was met with a couldn't care less attitude. We were going to go on another trip with them cancelled to go with another company.

Outstanding! Don't hesitate, such a magical place, the location, the accommodation, and most importantly the staff and people! Staff - could not have done more! Lwana, the GM, went above and beyond to help us out, the dive team, particularly Zeca/Legogo/Ria were all FANTASTIC! Francisco in the restaurant....ahhh man, just perfect, such a gentleman! Not excluding the rest of the restaurant staff and chefs! 100% perfect! Nothing was too much trouble for him! Delisha, Zach and rest of team - 5* Accommodation - perfect, beach front, amazing housekeeping staff, the decor and soft furnishings are top end luxe - loved it! Food - not one bad meal, we were blown away, Chef was super accommodating and flexible, 7* food! Perfect! Culture - we loved the way the resort supported the local community, we Quad bikes through the island, best fun, Legogo was so caring and professional, always looking out for our kids - we loved him! Dive Centre - such a fun and vibrant team, nothing too much trouble! Zeca made everything safe, but super fun! Such a happy soul! Ria is top notch, super helpful, professional, you felt in safe hands! NEGATIVE - We couldn't stay longer! I don't really do reviews, unless the places are extra special, but we will definitely return to this magical place 🥰

Such wonderful people in Inhambane! Very warm and kind. The food was great and the staff made the stay incredibly wonderful. I felt safe there. The language barrier made it difficult to communicate but was able to get by ok. I would definitely go back and visit, if it wasn’t such a long way off!

We had a wonderful stay at Sentitos resort. The highlight of the trip was Ria at the activities center. She made the experience one of the best family vacations we’ve ever taken. Ria arranged a flexible (depending on weather) itinerary for our week long stay and it was fantastic. She is a scuba instructor and gave our daughter a lesson almost every day. This was was the absolute highlight of our daughters day. The entire staff was wonderful and the resort is top notch. Highly recommended. My only recommendation is to add the ability to tip the staff via credit card. Cash is a little tough to come by.

Only visited the activity center and the restaurant. The food was glorious and the dive and ocean safari teams were brilliant! Joany, Ligogo and Co made our ocean adventures true luxury and and unforgettable experience. The restaurant food was delicious every time.

I had an incredible 5-star experience at Ocean Safari Sentidos Beach Retreat. The wildlife sightings were extraordinary, and swimming with the whale shark was the highlight. Our guide, Ligogo, made the adventure enjoyable and fun, while Skipper Américo's driving skills and friendly demeanor added to the overall fantastic experience. Highly recommend this safari for nature enthusiasts!

We spent 8 nights at this magical place. We can only HIGHLY recommend Sentidos - awesome location , brilliant staff and the ocean has soooo much megafauna it is ridiculous :-) Staff on site is just amazing - super-friendly and brilliant service from a team that takes pride in their work and location - going the extra mile. So a sincere thx to Lwana and entire team! Villas are great and located basically on the beach - lovely to be able to trot down to the beach and take a ocean dip in the morning before breakfast. The only smidgeon of complaint we may have is that the beds are sort of rock-solid planks, and could do with a softer approach. But what makes this place the bestest is the ocean and its inhabitants - there are humpbacks whales everywhere you look (in season)!!! And resident whalesharks and manta rays! Ocean safari's with the wonderful Sentidos activity crew was amazing! And there's some couple of nice beach hang-outs within walking distance (along a pristine beach) - Chill Faro as well as Green Turtle are recommended. We will be back!

Finding nice places in Tofo and Barra around Christmas and NYE is not easy. We decided to book Sentidos for 2 days over new years and to celebrate my wifes birthday. We've been coming to Tofo for over 10 years and were excited to be spoiled a bit at this new fancy resort. We went to check in and the front desk said they couldn't find our booking. I showed them my booking on Agoda.com and they looked perplexed by it. They then asked for proof of payment and so I opened up my chase.com account and showed them the charge. Not only did they not have our booking but they only had a room available for 1 night. One of the front office guys went to the back office and then came back to say they haven't received our booking or the money and there was nothing they could do. It was then I pinged Joanne who I believe heads up activities to get involved. She came over and said she'd try to get to the bottom of it and that hey hadn't had issues with Agoda before. She went to the back office to presumably make some calls. She came back and said sorry they don't know what Agoda is and don't have the booking and there's nothing we could do. I then proceeded to call Agoda (international call $) and confirmed that Sentidos Agoda account had the wrong email and phone number on it and that they'd email Sentidos with my booking confirmation. Agoda emailed it to them but Sentidos still was unwilling to help us. They made no offer to put us up for 1 night, in fact they told us we'd have to pay an extra $400 for the one night ($800 a night). Sentidos never tried to call Agoda, never offerred to do anything helpful. It was all awkward, unprofessional denial. They then went on to suggest that it was perhaps a fake listing and that I should look into that. So we left. I had to make 2 additional calls to Agoda where they then put a refund request through and guess what?! Sentidos received that refund offer and approved it. So apparently Sentidos does know what Agoda is. I emailed Sentidos demanding answers and to make the situation right on Jan 1 and only on Jan 4 did they respond saying that they approved the refund. They attached a PDF from Jan 1 with this info. So it seems even after 3 days of receiving my email and info about the refund that they chose not to communicate it. I've followed up with them three times since they sent that email asking for an explanation but have received no reply. I've reached out to the Assistant GM without reply. I've reached out to the Design Hotels Group which they are a part of without reply. If you're expecting a professional treatment (especially when things go wrong) you will not get it from this place. It's clearly a stunning facility but their approach to customer service has been appalling at every turn. I've given them a bunch of opportunities to make the situation right or explain why our holiday had to be so negatively impacted only to hear crickets.