A 3 star hotel on Mpaka Rd., outside the walking centre, with a guest score of 4.3 out of 5 from 1227 reviews. What decides the booking is whether you want the quiet side of town or a room you can walk out of into Biashara Street and City Market.
01What it is
The Lotos Inn & Suites Nairobi lists the whole back end of a working hotel. You get air conditioning, free wifi, a desk, a safe, a minibar, a refrigerator, a microwave, kitchenette and kitchen in some rooms, and a balcony or terrace in others. There is 24 hour security with a front desk to match, free car parking and a garage, a lift, laundering and dry cleaning, a concierge, room service, breakfast in the room and breakfast in the buffet, restaurants and bars, a snack bar, a business centre, a lounge, a night club, a casino, tennis courts and a garden. The list is thin where a city hotel usually feels thin: no gym is listed, no pool, and the chapel and golf course entries say more about the supplier's master list than about what you will actually use here.
For a traveller, the Lotos Inn & Suites Nairobi is a base rather than a stage. Kitchen equipment and a minibar suit a longer stay with a fridge and a microwave you can use; family rooms, cots, high chairs and babysitting suit people moving with children; the business centre, express check in and the desk suit a working trip. It is 3.01 km from Kenyatta Avenue at Moi Avenue, which is 38 minutes on foot in a direct line, so you are not stepping out into the centre. It suits you if you want a quiet, serviced room outside the grid; it does not suit you if the point of your stay is to walk out into the business district every time.
02The supplier's photographs
0336 facilities the supplier lists
and 44 more on the supplier's own record. 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 the Lotos Inn & Suites Nairobi if you want the quiet side of town and a room that works for more than one night, and book early if you need a kitchenette or a balcony. 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 the Lotos Inn & Suites Nairobi in relation to the city centre?+
It sits on Mpaka Rd. in Greater Nairobi. It is 2.52 km from Biashara Street and City Market, which is the nearest of the ten quarters this site covers. That puts it outside the walking centre, so plan on transport rather than your feet for the business district.
What does the hotel actually list in the way of room facilities?+
Air conditioning, free wifi, a TV, a telephone, a desk, a safe, towels, sheets, toiletries, a shower, a hairdryer, slippers, a minibar, a refrigerator, a microwave, a kitchenette in some rooms, a kitchen in some rooms, and a balcony or terrace. The list is honest and wide, with no gym or pool named.
What is it like getting into the centre from Greater Nairobi?+
This is a daytime quarter. The halls shut in the late afternoon and the streets empty with them. The hotel lists public transport, car rental, a shuttle service, free car parking and a garage, so coming and going is the thing to arrange before you book rather than after.
What does the guest score of 4.3 out of 5 from 1227 reviews tell me?+
It is a solid score from a large number of reviews, which means a steady, well used property rather than a quiet one. Treat it as a sign of consistency on the basics and check the room type, since kitchen, kitchenette and balcony are not in every unit.
