Trevor and staff are quite accommodating, and the lodge is very homey and welcoming, but prospective visitors need to understand that this place is far away from the center and even farther from the Sheldrick elephant orphanage, which was a particular problem for us.
As "adoptive parents" of several baby elephants we were afforded the opportunity to visit with our elephants from 5:00-6:00 pm on two separate occasions, in addition to seeing the daily feeding that occurs at 11:00 each day. We were quite enthusiastic about this until we got into our taxi and spent the next 60 minutes driving to the other side of a terribly congested Nairobi in order to get to the elephant orphanage. Our one hour evening visit therefore took three hours, with two hours spent in the taxi! For the 11:00 visit we left Kikyu Lodge at 10:00 am and actually got there a bit after 11:00--it had taken more than one hour and we missed part of the feeding. We consequently decided to forego our visit to the orphanage that evening, which was a shame, as visiting the elephant orphanage was really a high point of our time in Nairobi.
Visitors need to be aware that this is a problem, both from a time perspective and also from a financial standpoint. We stayed two nights at $100/night--very comfortable and wonderful meals, so no complaints there. But we spent an additional $210 on transportation in a mere 1 1/2 days: a full day taxi lease which included a trip to the elephant orphanage, the Nairobi Museum, and the Maasai Market (near the embassies) cost us $100. But to be picked up from downtown initially (in order to get to the lodge), the aforementioned evening trip to the elephant orphanage, and a ride to the airport at the end of our trip cost an additional $110! We were really not expecting that.
For our purposes, since we wanted to spend additional time at the elephant orphanage, I think we would have been better off staying closer to Karen. If you are interested in the elephant orphanage, as well as Giraffe Manor and the Blixen Museum, you might want to consider this as well, as Kikyu Lodge is an hour away from these sites.
