A three star hotel off Ngong Road, built around cars and meeting rooms. Its list runs deep on food, drink and parking, and it carries a guest score of 4.1 from 439 reviews. If your day ends at a desk or a conference table, it works. If you want the centre on foot, it does not.
01What it is
Harlequin Suites Hotel lists a restaurant, a cafe, bars and a night club, plus a casino on the same property, so eating and drinking are covered without leaving. Practical things are covered too: free wifi, free car parking, luggage storage, laundry, dry cleaning, a safe, a concierge, a shuttle service, meeting rooms and wheelchair access. Outside there is a garden, a picnic area, a playground and a smoking area. The list is thin on the quiet things a longer stay wants: nothing about a gym, a pool or airport transfer beyond the shuttle line, and nothing that tells you how any of it is run day to day.
What Harlequin Suites Hotel amounts to is a car dependent property on a ridge of new concrete, with the entertainment and the parking to match. The setting is safe and dull after dark: hotel bars, and a ride anywhere else. It suits conference groups, families with a car and anyone whose business sits off Ngong Road rather than in the centre. It does not suit a visitor who wants to step out of the lobby into the CBD, the markets or the old streets, because that part of Nairobi is across town from here.
02The supplier's photographs
0320 facilities the supplier lists
Facilities are the supplier's list, not a check made on the ground.
04Standing outside the ten quarters
These hotels are not in Upper Hill and Community, and they are not in any of the ten quarters of the centre this site covers. They sit well outside the centre, in the inner suburbs, and Upper Hill and Community is only the nearest of the ten quarters. That matters more than it sounds: you are staying in the wider city, and anything in the CBD means travelling in and out for it. The ridge itself is new concrete built for the car and the conference room, and most of the CBD's office space has been moving up there since the 2000s, which is why you find the tallest towers in the country, the big hospitals, the aid agencies and an expressway ramp to the airport on it. The quarter sits 1.9 km from Kenyatta Avenue at Moi Avenue, which is 24 minutes on foot in a direct line.
Upper Hill and Community is best for meetings, a quiet night close in, and a fast run to the airport. After dark it is safe and dull: hotel bars, and a ride anywhere else. If you want the centre on foot, this is not the right base.
Read the nearest quarter, Upper Hill and Community05Booking it
Harlequin Suites Hotel has the sort of list that rewards booking early if you need the meeting rooms or the shuttle, since those are what a group booking competes for. 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 Harlequin Suites Hotel?+
It sits off Ngong Road, off Joseph Kangethe Road, in Greater Nairobi rather than in the Central Business District. The site measures it at 5.94 km from Kenyatta Avenue at Moi Avenue, which is 75 minutes on foot in a direct line, so it is a base for the western side of the city.
What does the hotel actually have on site?+
A restaurant, a cafe, bars, a night club and a casino, so food and drink are handled inside. There is free wifi and free car parking, a garden and picnic area, meeting rooms, luggage storage, laundry and dry cleaning, a shuttle and wheelchair access. The list is thin on leisure facilities.
What is it like getting into the centre from Greater Nairobi?+
This is not a walking base for the CBD. The quarter nearest the hotel is Upper Hill and Community, at 4.27 km from Upper Hill and Community, which is the nearest of the ten quarters this site covers, and the centre itself is further. Plan on a car or the shuttle for anything in town.
What does the 4.1 guest score mean here?+
It is 4.1 out of 5 from 439 reviews, which points to a property that mostly does what it promises without delighting anyone. Read it as solid rather than exceptional, and weigh the car dependent position and the noisy night club against the parking and the meeting rooms.
