A three star apart-hotel on Lower Kabete Road, outside the walking centre. Free parking, a pool and a garden decide it: it suits drivers and longer stays, not anyone planning to walk into the city every morning.
01What it is
Gardens Apartments is a three star property on Lower Kabete Road at Stima Lane, which puts it in Greater Nairobi rather than inside the central business district. The listed facilities are practical rather than glamorous: free wifi, free car parking, laundry service and dry cleaning, luggage storage, and a terrace, garden and picnic area. There is an outdoor pool, a smoking area, and wheelchair access is listed. The list is thin in a few places a visitor would notice: no restaurant, no bar and no airport transfer appear among the facilities, so meals and getting around sit with you.
What that adds up to is a place built for a car and for a stay of more than one night. Gardens Apartments is not in the middle of anything: the centre is a trip away rather than a walk out of the door, and the quarter it sits nearest to is a daytime one, its halls shut by late afternoon. If you have your own vehicle, want parking and laundry handled, and would rather have a pool and garden than a lobby bar, the property makes sense. If you want to step out and be among the offices, this is not your base.
02The supplier's photographs
0312 facilities the supplier lists
Facilities are the supplier's list, not a check made on the ground.
04Standing outside the ten quarters
Before you book, be clear about where these hotels are. They sit well outside the centre, in the inner suburbs, and they are not in any of the ten quarters this site covers. Biashara Street and City Market is only the nearest of those quarters, which is not the same as being in it. You are in the wider city here, and every trip into the Central Business District is a journey in and out.
The market quarter itself is narrow, shaded, and the only part of the centre where the shops are still one-family wide. The oldest retail streets in the city: Biashara for cloth and haberdashery, Muindi Mbingu for flowers, and the 1930s City Market hall behind them for produce, curios and a fish counter. Jamia Mosque's three silver domes close the block. It is best for kikoi and kitenge cloth, curios without the tour-bus markup, and an hour of architecture. After dark it is a daytime quarter: the halls shut in the late afternoon and the streets empty with them. It lies 0.63 km from Kenyatta Avenue at Moi Avenue, which is 8 minutes on foot in a direct line.
Read the nearest quarter, Biashara Street and City Market05Booking it
Book Gardens Apartments direct if you want the parking and laundry as part of the stay rather than as extras. Most rooms here can be cancelled free, and you book them through app.impt.io. Every confirmed booking removes one tonne of CO2, at no extra cost to you. Five percent of what you pay comes back as IMPT credit, out of the hotel commission rather than added to your bill.
Facts on this page come from the booking supplier's record: star class, address, photographs and facility list. Guest scores come from verified stays. Nobody from this site has stayed here; the quarter copy around it is this site's own.
06Questions
Where exactly is Gardens Apartments?+
It is on Lower Kabete Road at Stima Lane, in Greater Nairobi rather than in the central business district itself. The site records it as 3.96 km from Kenyatta Avenue at Moi Avenue, which is 50 minutes on foot in a direct line. Plan on a vehicle rather than a walk.
What facilities does the property list?+
Free wifi, free car parking, laundry service, dry cleaning, luggage storage, a garden, a terrace, a picnic area, an outdoor pool, a smoking area and wheelchair access. No restaurant or bar appears on the list, so you eat elsewhere or arrange your own meals during the stay.
Can I walk from the property into the centre?+
It is a long walk rather than a short one. The site records the property as 3.43 km from Biashara Street and City Market, which is the nearest of the ten quarters this site covers. That quarter is a daytime area: the halls shut in the late afternoon and the streets empty with them.
How do I check whether rooms are available?+
Check availability for your dates through app.impt.io, which lists the rooms and handles the booking. Availability changes through the year, so it is worth checking against the specific dates you have in mind rather than assuming the property is open or full.
