A four star apartment hotel on Riverside Lane, close to Uhuru Park and Central Park, with a long facilities list built around longer stays. The guest score is strong. The thing that decides it is whether you want the parks and the centre on foot rather than a hotel in the middle of the business quarter.
01What it is
GemSuites Hotel & Apartments Riverside is a four star property on Riverside Lane with one hundred and twelve photos on file and a guest score of 4.6 out of 5 from 1112 reviews. The list is long and leans towards apartments: kitchen, kitchenette, microwave, oven, refrigerator, toaster, coffee, desk, iron and board, balcony, patio, terrace, garden, outdoor pool with a pool bar, jacuzzi, sauna, steam room, massage, spa, gymnasium and fitness centre. You also get twenty four hour front desk and security, ATM, business centre, concierge, laundry and dry cleaning, room service, restaurant, bars, a night club, banquet space, family rooms, lifts, free wifi and free car parking. Where it is thin is the plain hotel basics: no non smoking detail beyond a smoking area, breakfast and dinner appear without a room rate or a menu, and the salon and aerobics sit unconnected to the rest. Treat the list as broad rather than curated.
What that adds up to for someone staying at GemSuites Hotel & Apartments Riverside is a place that behaves more like a serviced apartment block with hotel machinery attached. The kitchen and laundry matter if you are in Nairobi for more than a night or two, and the pool, gym and spa give you a reason not to leave the compound. It suits families, longer stays and anyone working from a room. It does not suit you if you want to step out of the lobby into the business quarter: this is Riverside Lane, near the parks, not Kenyatta Avenue.
02The supplier's photographs
0336 facilities the supplier lists
and 51 more on the supplier's own record. Facilities are the supplier's list, not a check made on the ground.
04Standing in Uhuru Park and Central Park
These hotels sit at the green edge of the grid, in Uhuru Park and Central Park, two connected parks along Uhuru Highway that give the CBD its lungs and its best photograph. The quarter itself is 1.06 km from Kenyatta Avenue at Moi Avenue, which is 14 minutes on foot in a direct line. What you get here is grass, a lake, and the towers standing straight up behind it: the boating lake, a skyline view, and Freedom Corner at the Uhuru Park end, where the pro-democracy protests of the 1990s were held. It is best for late-afternoon light on the skyline and the only proper walk in the centre.
After dark everything changes. The parks close at dusk, and nobody should be in them after dark. That makes this a daytime quarter, and the halls shut in the late afternoon. Suits anyone who wants green space and a straight walk into the offices, and anyone content to move by car once the light goes. It does not suit a night out on foot, and it does not suit anyone who wants the bars and streets around them after dark.
Read the whole of Uhuru Park and Central Park05Booking it
Book GemSuites Hotel & Apartments Riverside if you want an apartment kitchen and a pool on the same booking, and check the cancellation terms before you commit. 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 is GemSuites Hotel & Apartments Riverside?+
It is on Riverside Lane in Nairobi, near the parks. The address puts it 1.57 km from Kenyatta Avenue at Moi Avenue, which is 20 minutes on foot in a direct line, and 0.99 km from the centre of Uhuru Park and Central Park.
What does the hotel list for guests?+
The list covers apartments and hotel services: kitchen, kitchenette, microwave, oven, refrigerator, balcony, outdoor pool, pool bar, jacuzzi, sauna, steam room, massage, spa, gymnasium, restaurant, bars, night club, business centre, laundry, free wifi and free car parking.
Can I walk into the centre from the parks nearby?+
The parks are close, but they close at dusk, so nobody should be in Uhuru Park or Central Park after dark. Treat the walk to Kenyatta Avenue as a daytime one from the hotel, and take a ride at night rather than cross the parks in the dark.
What does the guest score mean?+
GemSuites carries 4.6 out of 5 from 1112 reviews. That is a large sample and a high average, so the hotel is doing most things right for most people. It does not tell you which room you will get, so read the apartment and hotel options before booking.
