Econo Lodge

Location: very near to bus station and near to Zanzibar ferry Service: they provide free WiFi with good connections although trip.com said no free WiFi Cleanness: clean enough Only things need to be improved is that no bottled water and toothbrush with toothpaste.

With a "nice space" to move around in the room where there was also "a good selection" of news & movie channels on the TV, it was a pretty comfortable stay at this place and where added to the comfort was the convenience of the "rooftop restaurant" where apart from the breakfast (which was a "nice omelette" one) was where I also ate most of my lunches & dinners during my stay (some varieties of biryani available). And yes, also of convenience "around this hotel" are a number of mini-groceries, a big wet-market-like place kind of semi-outdoor with open sides, a small streetside "fully indoor" restaurant (not directly around here but just at like one block away and yes which likely is not the only one in the vicinity of this place), the bus office for the Kilimanjaro Express bus (about a block away where I got on my bus to Arusha pretty early in the morning), and a hospital for the PCR test (about a 5-minute walk after first registering on the website of the Tanzania Ministry of Health and paying at the bank which is also nicely located at like across the street from this hotel).

In the quiet part of Dar es Salaams centre there are only a few affordable hotels. Econo Lodge is one of them. It provides quiet restful environment - large spacious rooms, and an excellent breakfast. The cost for a single is 60,000 Tsh Breakfast is hosted on a roof top terrace with pleasant views. It consists of toast and jam, a vegetable soup, omlette with onions, melon, coffee, tea, mandazi. In other words, the breakfast is really good. I rate Econo lodge and Sophia House about equal in terms of value for money.