Butiama Beach Lodge

Remote, great food, friendly helpful staff. Great Room with AC on beach. Whale Shark snorkeling, sandbank picnic and just relaxing at Lodge was a Wonderfull experience. Seafood was very well prepared, do offer other options for non seafood lovers. Drinks well priced, wine a bit expensive for Rand, but good wines from South Africa. Will visit again forsure LEKKER

Stayed for two weeks and it was a wonderful experience. I was staying in tend #6 and I loved it The bed was comfortable and the whole stay was great. Nearly dived every day and did some tours to the Lokal environment and nature. Especially the tour to Chole Island and the bird watching with Mudy was great. Super liked the food and the friendliness of the whole stuff. Especially the help and support from Simon. Awesome, really felt like home!!!

Amazing peaceful spot with a fantastic staff that takes care of all of your needs. Good was good and massages were excellent. The room was very private - we were in unit 1. The snorkel trips with the whale sharks was the best part - we had multiple encounters with these gentle beasts.

Our stay at Butiama Beach Lodge was very special. All the staff made us feel so welcome. The rooms are superb, the food is very good and the whole place is very well kept. The high light is of course seeing the whale sharks. The tour starts right at the beach and we can recommend Amin as a snorkeling guide. May other activities are possible....

I had amazing 5 days by them, where I felt like a family! All the team was simply amazing, very friendly and made me feel home from the first moment. The diving was also super good, nice spacious boats, the diving team is very well trained and look after safety. I really enjoy my time there. Thank you especiallh to Hassan, Moudy and Aisha for the amazing time that we have spent together! Asante sana and see you soon again!

Butiama Lodge has a lot of character and charm, it also felt very intimate. We came to Mafia Island for the whale sharks and the location couldn’t have been better as all the boats are leaving directly from the beach opposite the Lodge. We hesitated for our stay between the lodges located in Chole Bay like Pole Pole and Kinasi Lodge but so glad Expert Africa recommended us Butiama Lodge as I cannot see what could have been better and Butiama is definitely better value. The rooms are nice and comfortable, it felt so safe that we didn’t even bother locking up our room when we left. No insects in our rooms whatsoever though as it was rainy season there were quite a lot of flies during the day on the beach. The beach is beautiful and just next to the Marine Park. The food was really good and no issues to cater for my gluten free diet. Unfortunately the choice of wines and quality were not that great (though cheap) and I would have gladly paid more for better quality wines. Stunning cocktails. For the whale sharks we used Afro Whale Shark Safari which is literally next to Butiama Lodge. I am sure that the whale shark safari through Butiama is also nice but we choose Afro as they are the first to leave in the morning (around 07:30) so more time spent without any other boats and they are owned and run by locals. Sabrina their guide is amazing and we saw 9 whale sharks on that day. For the diving we used Big Blu Dive Centre, owned by Butiama, and it was really good. Besides the whale sharks we went to see the flying foxes (giant fruit bats) in the mangrove with a kayak (at our disposal by the Lodge). This is not to be missed and amazing, we felt like in a Attenborough documentary. Special thanks to William, the manager, and all the staff who were doing all they can for us to have a great stay and sort any issues out like our cancelled return flights.