Hotels With Game Rooms in Dar es Salaam
2 family-friendly hotels with game room in Dar es Salaam . Handpicked for families who want the best.
Two hotels with game rooms in Dar es Salaam sit less than a kilometre apart on the Kivukoni waterfront, which makes this the easiest comparison on the site. Hyatt Regency Dar es Salaam, The Kilimanjaro occupies Kivukoni Front, 700 metres from the Zanzibar Ferry Terminal and 1.1 kilometres from Kivukoni Fish Market, with a spa, an outdoor pool and a kids club alongside the games. Johari Rotana stands on Sokoine Drive in the Central Business District, the largest hotel in the city with 193 rooms and 60 serviced apartments. Both are five star, both hold ratings above 8.5.
Kivukoni is the oldest working part of Dar es Salaam and the most walkable stretch for a family. Within about a kilometre of these two hotels sit the fish market, the Zanzibar Ferry Terminal where the Azam boats leave for Stone Town, the Askari Monument, St Joseph Cathedral and the Botanical Gardens near the National Museum. Kariakoo Market is inland, louder and about two kilometres further. Because the harbour cuts in here, the evening breeze arrives earlier than it does inland, and by six the waterfront fills with people walking rather than driving.
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🎮Why Dar es Salaam is Great for Hotels with Game Room
The logistics on this pair are unusually simple, because both are five star city hotels with 24 hour front desks and free private parking on the Kivukoni waterfront. Hyatt Regency Dar es Salaam, The Kilimanjaro has 24 hour room service, a concierge, laundry and dry cleaning, and its rooms hold air conditioning, a flat-screen television and a private bathroom with slippers and a hairdryer. Johari Rotana runs four restaurants, breakfast at Zafarani, Hamilton's Gastropub and the Bodylines fitness and wellness club, roughly thirty minutes from Julius Nyerere International Airport. Both sit close enough to the ferry pier that an early departure to Zanzibar does not require a taxi booked the night before.
By age, this category serves the group that everything else on a family site tends to miss. Under-sixes will use the pools and ignore the games entirely, and both hotels have outdoor pools for exactly that. Nine to twelve year olds are the target: Hyatt Regency backs its game room with a kids club, so siblings of different ages can be in different places at the same time, which is the single most useful thing a hotel can do for a family of four. Teenagers do better at Johari Rotana, where the scale of the building, the harbour and skyline views from the rooms and four separate restaurants give them somewhere to go without a parent.
There is very little to separate the two on money, and the choice comes down to character. Johari Rotana holds 8.7 from 654 reviews and is the biggest hotel in Tanzania's largest city, with the largest ballroom in the country, which means it is often busy with conferences and weddings. Hyatt Regency holds 8.6 from 614 reviews, is rated highly for the comfort of its beds, and has the more relaxed feel of the two along with the kids club. The honest limitation applies to both: this is the business district, so weekday mornings are loud with traffic on Sokoine Drive and Ocean Road, and neither hotel has a beach.
Parent's take
The nine year old found the game room at the Hyatt on the first evening and negotiated an extra thirty minutes every night for the rest of the week. We took the lift up to Level 8 with the four year old at seven, watched the harbour lights come on over the ferry pier, and collected him on the way back down. Two children, two floors, one hotel. It is the only reason we managed a proper dinner all week.
Our Top 2 Picks
Hotels in Dar es Salaam with game room, sorted by guest rating.
Johari Rotana
Dar es Salaam
Excellent
654 reviews
The largest hotel in Dar es Salaam, with 193 rooms and 60 serviced apartments on Sokoine Drive, every one looking over the harbour or the skyline. A game room, a swimming pool, Zen the Spa and the Bodylines Fitness and Wellness Club sit alongside four restaurants, breakfast at Zafarani and Hamilton's Gastropub. The Central Business District position puts the Indian Ocean coast at the door and Julius Nyerere International Airport around thirty minutes away.
Why families love Johari Rotana
Families staying here get scale, and with teenagers that is an advantage: a game room, four restaurants and serviced apartments give older children room to move without a parent in sight. Harbour-facing rooms hold children at the window while ferries work the channel. The hotel also hosts the largest ballroom in Tanzania, so weddings and conferences can make weekends busy and the lobby loud.
Hyatt Regency Dar es Salaam, The Kilimanjaro
Dar es Salaam
Excellent
614 reviews
A game room and a kids club under the same roof, 700 metres from the Zanzibar Ferry Terminal, make this Kivukoni Front five star the best fit in the city for families with children of different ages. There is a spa, an outdoor pool and a fitness centre. Rooms mix African and European decor with air conditioning and flat-screen TV, and are rated highly for bed comfort. Level 8, the rooftop bar, runs evening entertainment on Fridays and Saturdays.
Why families love Hyatt Regency Dar es Salaam, The Kilimanjaro
Families staying here can split a nine year old and a four year old between the game room and the pool without leaving the building, which solves the hardest scheduling problem of a family trip. Kivukoni Fish Market is 1.1 kilometres away and worth an early walk. Concierge, laundry and 24 hour room service cover the rest. This is the business district, so weekday traffic noise reaches the lower floors.
💡Tips for Choosing a Hotel with Game Room in Dar es Salaam
- 1Ask whether the game room is supervised and what hours it keeps. Neither Hyatt Regency nor Johari Rotana publishes this, and unsupervised rooms change who can be left there and for how long.
- 2Choose Hyatt Regency if your children are different ages. It is the only Dar es Salaam hotel that runs a game room and a kids club together, which lets a nine year old and a four year old be occupied separately.
- 3Book a harbour-facing room at Johari Rotana. The hotel splits its rooms between harbour and skyline views, and the ferry traffic in and out of the terminal keeps children at the window longer than any screen.
- 4Walk to Kivukoni Fish Market before seven in the morning. It is 1.1 kilometres from Hyatt Regency, the catch is landing, and it is the one outing in this district that beats the game room.
- 5Expect weekday traffic noise on Sokoine Drive and Ocean Road. Both hotels are in the business district, so request a high floor if anyone in the family sleeps lightly or naps in the afternoon.
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