A three star hotel on Lantana Road in Westlands, in Greater Nairobi rather than the centre, with a garden, a restaurant, meeting rooms and free parking. What decides it is the last part: you are outside the centre and you need a car, a shuttle or a taxi to reach it.
01What it is
Hotel Riverview Westlands is a three star property on Lantana Road in Westlands, in Greater Nairobi outside the centre. The facilities list is long but uneven. It covers the working day: a business centre, a meeting room, a banquet space, free wifi and free internet in the lounge, a concierge, a twenty four hour front desk, laundry and dry cleaning, luggage storage and a safe. It covers eating and drinking: restaurants, bars, a terrace, a garden and a picnic area. It covers the practical: free car parking, wheelchair access, a smoking area, a barber and beauty salon, a shuttle service and a free newspaper. Two entries look like mistakes. Fishing has no place in Westlands, and a surcharge is a line on a bill, not a facility. There is no pool, no gym and no airport transfer in the list.
What that adds up to for a stay is a business hotel in Greater Nairobi, not a city centre one. Hotel Riverview Westlands suits someone with meetings in Westlands or a reason to drive, since the car park is free and the shuttle and concierge can arrange the rest. It suits a business traveller who wants quiet, a garden and a terrace at the end of the day. It does not suit anyone who wants to walk out of the door into the centre, and it does not suit a leisure visitor who came for the Central Business District. You are 3.24 km from Kenyatta Avenue at Moi Avenue, which is 41 minutes on foot in a direct line, so you take the shuttle or a taxi in.
02The supplier's photographs
0325 facilities the supplier lists
Facilities are the supplier's list, not a check made on the ground.
04Standing outside the ten quarters
These hotels sit outside the ten quarters of the centre this site covers. Biashara Street and City Market is only the nearest of the ten, and it is where you would be heading, not where you are sleeping. Take that as the shape of your stay: you are in the wider city, just outside the ten quarters, on the edge of the centre, and anything in the CBD means travelling in and out rather than stepping out of a lobby.
The quarter itself is the market one, 0.63 km from Kenyatta Avenue at Moi Avenue, which is 8 minutes on foot in a direct line. 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. The streets are narrow, shaded, and the only part of the centre where the shops are still one-family wide. It suits kikoi and kitenge cloth, curios without the tour-bus markup, and an hour of architecture. It is a daytime quarter: the halls shut in the late afternoon and the streets empty with them, so plan the return before that.
Read the nearest quarter, Biashara Street and City Market05Booking it
Book this one if you want Westlands rather than the centre and you are happy to arrange the shuttle or a taxi for everything else. 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 Hotel Riverview Westlands?+
It is on Lantana Road in Westlands, in the Greater Nairobi area rather than the Central Business District. The nearest of the ten quarters this site covers is 2.64 km from Biashara Street and City Market, which is the nearest of the ten quarters this site covers. Plan on the shuttle, a taxi or a car for the centre.
What facilities does the hotel list?+
The list covers a business centre, a meeting room, a banquet space, free wifi, free internet in the lounge, a concierge, a twenty four hour front desk, laundry, dry cleaning, luggage storage, a safe, restaurants, bars, a terrace, a garden, a picnic area, free car parking, a salon, a shuttle service and wheelchair access. There is no pool and no gym.
How do I get into the Central Business District from the hotel?+
Westlands sits outside the centre, so you do not walk it. The hotel lists a shuttle service and a concierge, and there is free car parking if you drive. The centre is a daytime quarter, and the halls there shut in the late afternoon and the streets empty with them, so time your evening accordingly.
What does the guest score mean?+
The hotel scores 4.1 out of 5 from 397 reviews. That is a solid score across a good number of stays, and it tells you what most people thought of the place, not what any one room is like. Treat it as a guide and read the facilities list against your own plans.
