I stayed at the Kempinski in Djibouti for a little over a week in December. I was there for a business meeting (we had a conference there), but found plenty of time for play as well!
Reception - This was gorgeous. When you walk into the hotel - it's enormous. It as all decorated for Christmas (which was a little odd given that it's a Muslim country), it was really beautiful. The folks behind the reception desk really worked hard to accommodate, and most spoke English to some degree (some more than others). Everyone spoke French well. Throughout the week when I had questions and approached, or needed to change money (although there's an ATM in the lobby that worked fine), the staff was great. I saw the Lady in Red but didn't have reason to use her. There was security to get into the hotel, through scanner and metal detector. Since I was here on business, I have to say I was happy that there were so many others like me - mostly military from all over the world (Germany, Japan, Spain to name a few), businesspeople, government people, etc. There were some European tourists, going on excursions, but overwhelmingly everyone visible was just like me, which was nice. (There's a special part of torture when you are at some amazing resort hotel and everyone is on vacation and swimming while you are in a black suit 16 hours a day!) They were very accommodating to my late checkout request.
Room - My room was amazing. When I was walking to it - it's about as far as you can get away from the lobby, and the whole way there I kept thinking, this is so far out, it better be worth it. It was! I got upgraded to a suite and it was amazing. Bigger than my first apartment. Even with a kitchen. I LOVED being able to freeze my water bottles and then have cold water all day when I took it with me. Separate living area, sleeping area, enormous tub, two sinks. There was a safe and a big closet, and right down from me was a pool - the gym, spa and "private" pool. Just upstairs was the bar. The shower ostensibly had a rainshower from above and a handheld spray, but the rainshower one didn't work. It wasn't tragic. The bed was comfy and it was nice. There were plenty of water bottles left for me all the time.
Business Center - The business center was great. There were about a dozen computers and printers (although mostly I used the wifi in my room and in the lobby, it worked great), and the staff was really helpful. At one point I ran out of business cards, and I had asked about if I could scan in my card and basically print out color copies on kinda-thick paper (thicker than regular but not business card thickness). Well, there were all kinds of logistical problems with that (no scanner, couldn't print in color, or thicker paper wasn't working, or something - I didn't quite catch everything), but they told me to leave them the card and they'd see what they could do and check back with the front desk in the morning. I didn't expect much, I could have done with black and white, or whatever. Well, in the morning, lo and behold, somehow they managed to do it. That indicates to me really superior, above and beyond.
Room Service - It always came promptly and the delivery folks were friendly. The food was okay.
Restaurants - There were a number of restaurants at this hotel and I think I ended up at most of them by the time I left. There is a little snacky area by the main pool. There wasn't a ton of choice, but the sandwich I got was astonishingly good. I mean, much better than you'd expect for a quick sandwich. There's another light foods restaurant at the other pool, which was interesting. I got the response I'm so accustomed to when I ask for something a little different (there was a Caesar salad with shrimp, and a roquette salad with fish. I wanted the roquette with the shrimp, and the price was the same... we don't understand, oh, well, nope, nope, nope, then I said fine, roquette without the fish, just alone - then that wasn't available, so it was Caesar with shrimp after all. Which was fine, but still.) Anyhow, the food I had there was good. I enjoyed it. Then there was the buffet, which I had for breakfast and lunch (dinner was different each night and it was expensive, I didn't make it there at all in the evening). The choices were varied and pretty much everything tasted great. It's like it had the best of France, the Mediterranean and the Middle East, which made everything great. There were daily newspaper digests in English (U.S. and Asia), French (France), and Arabic that you could pick up at the entrance. (I also had the U.S. English one magically appear slid under my door each morning.) The Italian restaurant didn't thrill me in its menu, but the pizzas they served were actually really good. And they did carry-out (although not room service). My favorite place was the bar at the roof. I can't remember what it was called but only one elevator went there, and it has shisha and karaoke. You can sit out on the roof (but beware the mosquitoes), and room service delivered up there. The mixed drinks weren't so great (and really expensive!), but the shisha was yummy. They weren't that attentive, in that they don't deal with the coals once they deliver it, they leave that for you to do. The beer was fine though! And the atmosphere was good. We ended up there almost every night.
Location - The location was pretty good. It wasn't walkable to downtown, but it was walkable near to a taxi-gare, and you could also just walk out the hotel grounds and pick one up there. It was also walkable to the Melting Pot, which was great. We walked there through a neighborhood, which was cool, we got to see some houses and people hanging out - life beyond the hotel. Then on the way back we went down the beach road where local kids play and swim - you can see the enormous Kempinski in the background - but again, the beach and shore are not particularly nice. Along the road to downtown, you can see a lot of interesting items including government buildings, the Coke bottling plant, the marina, the market, etc.
Fitness Center - The fitness center was right below me and just by the private pool. It was very well-equipped, with the full complement of weight machines and multiple cardio machines.
Pools and Beach - As I said, there was a pool right by me. There was another, larger pool just off the lobby, which was where the beach was. The one by me was a private one, which I think meant for guests only and gym members. The other one was also open to locals who wanted to come and pay by the day. Both were really nice, the smaller one by me was a little quieter and had some great chairs that were like enormous saucers that you could really sleep in. The beach was okay, but I thought it would be nicer. It was kind of rocky, but I went into it of course! It seems the Djiboutians don't really put a lot into the beach-tourism thing overall.
Services and Extracurriculars - As part of our package, we finagled a ride to the airport, and it was good - the driver was good, we had a van. Other people who left apart from us tried to get taxis from the front desk and it was really quite a markup - something like 300 percent from just going to get a taxi. So they walked to the outside gate and got one there. The other interesting thing that happened was the Santa Beach Party. On the beach with music and dancing, with a drink (for one price) or open bar (for a much larger price). Periodically Santa would come and lead everyone in the Cupid Shuffle (priceless!). If I thought I'd ever be on a beach in Djibouti doing an urban line dance with Santa in tights... I think I left about 4 and it was still going strong. It included anyone - locals, hotel guests, whoever, and felt like one of those parties you see on TV, like MTV or something. Lots of fun.
Shop - This was interesting. It was pretty overpriced, as hotel shops are, although they had a very diverse selection of items from all over Africa (I never thought I'd see Ashante fertility dolls, but there you go). However, one piece that I thought was nice and reasonably priced turned out to be slightly damaged, and they didn't have any others. And there was no getting to "yes", which was really annoying. No, they didn't have others. No, they couldn't sell it at a reduced price. No, they couldn't glue the piece back on. No, they wouldn't call the artist. No, they couldn't tell me where to find him or other pieces like it. It was like they just didn't want to sell it. They actually told me that the same thing happened with another piece or two. But then why leave it on the floor and try to sell a damaged item (and at full price!) to people?
Conference Amenities - Rooms, lunches, receptions, acoustics, materials - I was there for a conference, with some meetings on the side. We used a boardroom for a meeting of about a dozen of us (the room probably fit twice that),medium sized rooms to accommodate about 40 of us, and then a large ballroom for the big conference. Water, pencils, and paper were plentiful. We also had a reception inside, outside on the lawn, and used the lunch buffet. Overall things went well, although there were some problems - despite a comms check the night before, the translation booths didn't work the morning the event began and it took over an hour to straighten it out, and our name tags and materials that we'd carefully laid out so that they'd be ready in the morning, disappeared. (Theory is that someone from housekeeping threw it all away.) There were also some things that we thought should have been thrown in and that were promised us, that either weren't, or we had to beg or argue to get them. That said, you have to be flexible and take things as they come. The receptions were interesting, of course they were alcohol-free. I was a little perturbed that they didn't have (and refused requests for) either sparkling water or Coke Light. So basically there was nothing diet. Some of the food was great, others okay. But there was so much of it that they were begging us to take the extras back with us at the end!
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC
