I stayed here for several months while on business.

The price for a normal room is $65 but can be negotiated to $1500 for a month. This is competitive in town but some places for $1500 will include laundry. VIP includes breakfast (that is standard in town) but not laundry.

The restaurant salad made me sick (very sick). The food is tasty but it is not the best food in town at all. The pizza is very strange, and the goat is tough.

The service is quite good. I never had anything stolen. The cleaning-men are very friendly and eager to clean your room. Of course I don't recommend leaving cash lying around.

The internet is good and reaches to the rooms. This is a big perk. It's included in the room fee.

Other posters might talk about the proximity of different hotels. VIP is walking distance to MONUC DDRRR (for the gym and the happy hour) and walking distance to the Rwandan border. It is also about 500 M for accessing the main clubs in town. Most agencies seem to be on the side of town as VIP.

But some agencies are on the other side of town in which case the Stella or Cap Kivu might be better choices.

They have the ability to show three channels at VIP. They never seemingly show english channels. In the mornings sometimes they show incredibly graphic pornography, which indicates to me that that's what the staff do at night. But to be fair, maybe hotel guests request pornography overnight.

Goma is a USD economy. But when you need change they often give it to you in Congolese Francs. If they are giving you change in Congolese francs it is 900 to the USD. If you are paying them in Congolese francs it is 950 to the USD. And if you are paying some members of the staff for something (like laundry) the price becomes 1000 Congolese Francs to the dollar. These are just tiny pieces of money but basically the staff has a nice little skimming policy by giving you dirty congolese francs you don't' want at a rate that they won't accept them back from you at.

I had some problems with one of the desk clerks. He suggested that I was unreasonable to not be interested to date him. He was quite hostile to me.

The shower runs hot almost all the time. There is always power except in the middle of the day when (I guess) the hotel prefers not to run the generator. But at night they always run the generator. When there is no power, there is no water.

Laundry is $1 per piece except underware which is $2.

So overall, a mixed experience. I don't have much to compare it with for the hotels in town seeing as I only stayed at one.