One of the most beautiful hotels I have stayed in but really let down by the service. I checked in at 10pm and went straight to the main restaurant. I had been travelling since 4am. I asked for a beer and ordered the set menu. The waitress stood at the bar chatting and after 20 minutes I stood up to draw attention to myself and asked for my beer. The waitress turned and aggresively told me 'It's coming' and again carried on chatting. My food arrived before my beer! This type of service was typical of the hotel except at the Italian restaurant where the service was excellent. A little bit of training would go a long way. The rooms and hotel in general was first class. Ideal location for centre. I spoke to the food and beverage manager who was horrified to hear my story and promised it would be addressed. I hope they do as it would then be the best hotel in Nairobi

Maybe in the early 80s this would've been considered a 4 star, but definitely not by today's standards.

We were in Nairobi for a trade show, and stayed at the hotel for 4 nights. It is very centrally located in the heart of the city. That is the only positive thing about this hotel. The doormen very not rude, but not the most gracious either. The front desk staff looked bored, and seemed to do everything they could to avoid helping you.

The lobby was relatively clean, but reaked of smoke. In fact, the whole hotel did. The rooms were horrible. We reserved a 2 Queen bed room, and got a room with 2 single beds. When asked, they told us this is all they have. The beds themselves were hard as rocks, stuck right up against the wall. Furnishings are terribly outdated, room was dusty, and not very clean. The A/C DID NOT work. The TV was about 20 years old. The bathroom, though huge, was...well, what can I say..."yucky!" The shower door cannot possibly close, so that after a two minute shower, the whole bathroom floor is soaking wet.

Despite a non smoking room, on a non smoking floor, the guest in the room next to us was smoking. When I called the front desk, what was their response? "Sir, this is Africa." Are you serious?

The food throughout the hotel was overpriced, and not very good. Service was shoddy at best. I don't know if this is the general state of hotels in Nairobi--some people I talked to said that Nairobi isn't a big tourist destination, so hotels haven't been updated in town. Most of the luxury type places are out where the safaris are. However, I visited a colleague staying in the Westlands area. This is where most of the expats live. The hotels here are small boutique type properties, but seem very luxurious for half the price. The only drawback is that with Nairobi traffic, it could take a while to get into the city. I definitely would not stay here again.

On the plus side- The doormen are absolute gems, they're just fantastic and deserve to work at a far better hotel than this. I urge them all to go put in applications at the Fairmont. The staff doing the coffee and tea service for conferences are also top notch, they should also work somewhere better.

The minus? I don't even know where to start. We arrived late in the evening and check in was a nightmare. A drawn out process which took a few staff over half an hour to process 5 people all arriving at the same time. It seemed as if the staff had never done this before. The next day, after waiting over an hour for a plate at the cafe and asking about it several times as we had never expected to need to allocate more than 90 minutes for lunch, the food finally arrived, soaked in salt and totally inedible. Even though we were there for a conference, the business center insisted on charging me to print out the agenda of our meeting and then the front desk threw me significant attitude for asking if they could put a copy under the door of all our conference attendees.

The conference room was airy and quite nice, however the computers provided by the hotel both had viruses on them.

The water pressure in the bathroom is just enough to get some water out of the faucets. You have to turn both the hot and cold water on all the way to get the shower to come on. Don't worry that you'll burn yourself, you've got a few minutes before the hot water actually gets to your room.

One evening after our workshop concluded, the lights didn't work in my room. After going down to the front desk, a surly employee came up and told me to try the switch. They lights suddenly came on, which the employee took for me not being able to operate a switch, but I think is more tied to my colleague 2 floors below also having called because his lights were out and they flipped a switch in the electrical closet.

I complained that the wireless connection was bad in my room and the front desk staff told me to stand with my laptop against the window and it should be fine.

Overpriced, terrible food (with the exception of the luch buffet and the poolside bbq), grubby rooms.

If you can stay anywhere else, go. We ended up eating at the Fairmont and that seemed lovely and in the same price range.

I stayed here for a few days on Business, the hotel is centrally located in the city but really needs a face lift.

Rooms are old, dusty and lack any quality, the food is poor as is the bar. On check out it took half an hour as the staff were extremely confused and lacked communication between the various departments.

There is a lot better in town, give this one a miss.