Villa Vergissmeinnicht Antsobolo (ISPM)

Our family stayed at Villa V for two nights in June 2018. To their credit, the owner has created a literal fortress of tranquility, encased in barbed wire, with a pool (not always heated, and not super clean, beware) and gardens, which complement nicely furnished rooms. Unfortunately, the property's isolation, the neighborhood it's in, lack of mosquito nets, and the fact that 2 members of our party became sick within hours of departing Villa V, makes it hard to recommend this property. The villa is an hour and half from the airport and almost an hour from downtown. If you stay here, you're going to really be away from it all, and it's going to cost a lot to get anywhere or see anything-- with very few transportation options available other than owner's driver, so for us it was just too far away, and the transportation too expensive. Being so isolated, we felt trapped there. The neighborhood in which the villa sits is not great. The villa is surrounded by ramshackle dwellings, dirt paths, and a rock quarry, which some might call "cultural." While we never felt unsafe walking around the neighborhood's dirt streets and paths is a pretty in-your-face experience. Give the amount of mosquitos at the villa, we were a bit horrified to find that the villa didn't provide mosquito nets. When asked, the owner retorted that "there's no malaria in Tana." (What about Chikungunya and Dengue?) He told us to just keep the (unscreened) doors and windows closed, which we tried to do. However, despite our efforts at mosquito control without nets, which included deet, we left Villa V feeling like veritable pin cushions, covered with mosquito bites. It's baffling why this owner doesn't simply provide nets given the amount of mosquito activity we had to endure. Within hours of leaving Villa V, two members of our party became violently ill (vomiting/diarrhea) for the next 24 hours. Whatever it was, we didn't feel comfortable staying there again. We asked the owner if he would refund the 2 nights we had pre-paid to stay there on our return trip. Initially he agreed, but then he changed his mind, adamant that it couldn't have been food poisoning, and was so incredulous that he asked us to provide documentation from a doctor. In the end, he simply refused to refund the 2 nights we had pre-paid. To us, however, it was totally worth staying somewhere else for our last 2 days, losing the money we had pre-paid at Villa V, just so we did not have to stay there again.

Nice place

Famous non public high school

Very beautiful villa, all comfort and very pleasant staff

Very good place to live