A three star hotel on Rhapta Road in Greater Nairobi, with a garden, a restaurant, a lounge and its own parking. The one thing that decides it is the car: free parking is the reason to pick it, and the reason it sits outside the centre rather than in it.
01What it is
Kenya Continental Hotel is a three star property on Rhapta Road in Greater Nairobi, not in the centre itself. The listed facilities are the practical sort: free wifi, free car parking, a 24 hour front desk, luggage storage, laundry service, housekeeping, a safe, iron and board, wake up service and first aid. Rooms come with a bath or shower, WC, towels, sheets, a desk and a TV, and there are non smoking rooms. Breakfast is listed, as is breakfast in room, alongside a restaurant, bars, a lounge, a terrace, a garden and a fireplace, with room service and special diets noted. Where the list thins out is anything beyond that: no gym, no pool, no business centre, no airport transfer are named.
What that adds up to at Kenya Continental Hotel is a straightforward, unglamorous stay with the basics covered and nothing staged. You eat on site, you sleep, you leave. The garden and terrace are the only places to sit outside a room, and the bar and lounge are the evening options. The location is the trade off. It is 3.4 km from Kenyatta Avenue at Moi Avenue, which is 43 minutes on foot in a direct line, so you are not stepping out into the centre. This suits a driver who wants parking and quiet and does not mind the trip in, or someone whose business is on this side of the city. It does not suit a visitor who wants to walk out of a lobby into the CBD.
02The supplier's photographs
0334 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 directly if you want the free parking and the room you reserved held for a late arrival, and check the listing before you commit because the facilities here are the whole of what the hotel offers. 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 Kenya Continental Hotel in relation to the city centre?+
It sits on Rhapta Road in Greater Nairobi, outside the central business district. It is 2.81 km from Biashara Street and City Market, which is the nearest of the ten quarters this site covers, so plan on motor transport rather than a walk to reach the shops, offices and market streets.
What facilities does Kenya Continental Hotel list?+
A 24 hour front desk, free wifi, free car parking, a restaurant, bars, a lounge, a terrace and a garden, with laundry, housekeeping, luggage storage, room service, breakfast and breakfast in room. Rooms have a desk, a TV, a safe, a bath or shower and non smoking options. No gym or pool is listed.
What does staying in Greater Nairobi mean for getting into the centre?+
You are dependent on a car, a taxi or a matatu for the centre rather than walking out of the door into it. The address is on Rhapta Road, well outside the quarter streets, and the site's plain note on that quarter is that it is a daytime quarter, its halls shut in the late afternoon and the streets empty with them.
How do I check availability at Kenya Continental Hotel?+
Use the booking link on this page, which goes through app.impt.io. Choose your dates there to see which rooms are open. Most rooms can be cancelled free, so you can hold a reservation while you confirm your plans, and the hotel's 24 hour front desk means a late arrival is workable.
