A three star apartment address on School Lane in Westlands, with an outdoor pool, sauna, steam room and a restaurant. It sits in Greater Nairobi rather than in the centre, so what decides it is whether you want a fuller building and a longer run in, or a smaller place closer to the halls.
01What it is
Kates Apartments lists the things a working stay needs: free wifi, free car parking, a business center, a meeting room and a banquet room. There is a restaurant on site and breakfast is listed, plus a concierge, laundry service, dry cleaning, luggage storage and a safe. For the hours off, there is an outdoor pool, a sauna, a steam room, a terrace and a smoking area. The building is wheelchair accessible. The list is thin in two places: nothing here is described as a gym, and there is no kitchen or self-catering equipment named, though an apartment address might lead you to expect one. A surcharge is listed without saying what for, so ask before you arrive.
Set at three stars, Kates Apartments reads as a solid apartment building rather than a hotel with a lobby life. The pool, sauna and steam room are the real draw, and the meeting room and business center make it workable if you are in Nairobi on business and want the day to end without a trip across town. It suits people staying several nights, people with a car, and anyone who wants a terrace and a steam room over a bar downstairs. It does not suit someone who wants to walk out into the centre in the evening. Westlands is a separate quarter, and getting in and back is a deliberate journey each time.
02The supplier's photographs
0319 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 Kates Apartments through this site and read the room type carefully, since the facilities list does not say which rooms include breakfast or what the surcharge covers. 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 Kates Apartments?+
It is at 48 School Lane in Westlands, in Greater Nairobi rather than in the Central Business District. The nearest of the ten quarters this site covers is 3.52 km from Biashara Street and City Market. Westlands is its own quarter with its own streets, so treat the centre as a separate trip.
What does the property actually have on site?+
An outdoor pool, sauna, steam room, terrace, restaurant, breakfast, business center, meeting room, banquet room, free wifi, free car parking, concierge, laundry, dry cleaning, luggage storage, a safe, a smoking area and wheelchair access. No gym and no kitchen equipment are listed, and a surcharge is named without explanation.
What does it mean to stay in Greater Nairobi rather than the centre?+
It means you are not inside the quarter the site writes about. The centre here is a daytime quarter, with the halls shutting in the late afternoon and the streets emptying with them. From Westlands you travel in for meetings and travel back out, rather than stepping out of your door into it.
How do I check availability and book?+
Use the booking link on this page, which goes through app.impt.io. Most rooms can be cancelled free. The listing does not carry a guest score, so decide from the facilities and the location rather than from ratings, and ask about breakfast and the surcharge before you confirm.
