A four star hotel with a casino, night club and spa inside Lilian Towers, on the edge of the daytime trading quarter. Whether it is right for you turns on one thing: this part of the centre shuts in the late afternoon, so your evenings happen elsewhere or in the building.
01What it is
Nairobi Safari Club by Swiss Belhotel is a four star property on Lilian Towers, and the listed facilities are heavy on things that keep you inside the building: a casino, a night club, bars, a lounge, a restaurant, a health club, a sauna, a steam room and a spa. For working visitors there is a business centre, meeting room, banquet space and free wifi. Practical items are covered: 24 hour front desk, concierge, luggage storage, laundry and dry cleaning, lifts, safe, free parking and free newspaper. Two pools are listed, one outdoors and one for children, plus a playground and babysitting. The list is thinner on the things a Biashara Street stay is actually for: no gym is named apart from the health club, no kitchen or self catering of any kind, and nothing about the immediate street beyond shops and a smoking area.
What that adds up to is a large, self contained hotel in a quarter that empties on a schedule. Nairobi Safari Club by Swiss Belhotel gives you the trading streets at the door and then asks you to use its own bars, casino and restaurant once the halls shut in the late afternoon. It suits a business traveller with daytime errands around City Market, and anyone who wants an evening that does not depend on the surrounding streets. It does not suit someone who wants to step out after dark into a lively quarter, or who expects the hotel to put the city at the door.
02The supplier's photographs
0333 facilities the supplier lists
Facilities are the supplier's list, not a check made on the ground.
04Standing in Biashara Street and City Market
These hotels sit in Biashara Street and City Market, the market quarter, narrow, shaded, and the only part of the centre where the shops are still one-family wide. This is 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. The quarter sits 0.63 km from Kenyatta Avenue at Moi Avenue, which is 8 minutes on foot in a direct line.
This is a daytime quarter. The halls shut in the late afternoon and the streets empty with them, so plan on being elsewhere for the evening and for a ride back. It suits anyone who wants cloth, flowers, market produce and old city fabric on the doorstep, and it does not suit anyone who wants company after dark or a hotel bar to fall into.
Read the whole of Biashara Street and City Market05Booking it
Check availability for Nairobi Safari Club by Swiss Belhotel before you plan the rest of the trip, because the quarter around it runs to its own clock. 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 Nairobi Safari Club by Swiss Belhotel?+
It is on Lilian Towers in Biashara Street and City Market, 0.16 km from the centre of Biashara Street and City Market. Kenyatta Avenue at Moi Avenue is the other reference point, 0.73 km from Kenyatta Avenue at Moi Avenue, which is 10 minutes on foot in a direct line. The immediate streets are narrow, shaded and one-family wide, where the shops are still small.
What is around the hotel after dark?+
Not much. This is a daytime quarter: the halls shut in the late afternoon and the streets empty with them. Nairobi Safari Club by Swiss Belhotel answers that with its own casino, night club, bars, lounge and restaurant. If you want the city around you in the evening, you are in the wrong part of the centre.
Does the hotel work for families with children?+
It lists a kids pool, an outdoor pool, a playground and babysitting, which is more than most properties in the centre offer. Add the 24 hour front desk and free parking and it handles a family stay without fuss. What it does not offer is a street your children can play on, because Biashara Street is a trading quarter, not a residential one.
How do I check availability and cancel if plans change?+
Go to app.impt.io and look up Nairobi Safari Club by Swiss Belhotel there. Most rooms at this property can be cancelled free, so you can hold a room while you settle the rest of the trip. The booking runs through app.impt.io rather than the hotel directly.
