A four star chain hotel on Lower Kabete Road in Westlands, outside the centre rather than in it, with parking, a pool, a gym and a spa on the list and a guest score of 4.7. The distance decides it: 3.46 km from Biashara Street and City Market, which is the nearest of the ten quarters this site covers.
01What it is
Novotel Nairobi Westlands lists the full apparatus of a four star chain hotel: air conditioning, free wifi, free car parking and a garage, a 24 hour front desk with express check in, a concierge, currency exchange and luggage storage, lifts and wheelchair accessible rooms. Eating and drinking run from restaurants, bars, a pool bar and a bar snack cafe to room service, breakfast in room and special diets. Leisure means an outdoor pool with a kids pool, a fitness centre, a gymnasium, a spa, massage and a steam room. Rooms carry a bath and shower, bathrobe, slippers, hairdryer, iron and board, safe, desk, minibar and TV, and some have a kitchen, kitchenette, microwave and oven. Family rooms, cots and babysitting are listed, as are laundry, dry cleaning and a barber or beauty salon. The list is thinner on the grounds around the building than on the building itself.
What that adds up to is a hotel you use as a base rather than as part of the quarter, because Novotel Nairobi Westlands is in Westlands and the centre is elsewhere. You get the things that make a working stay easy: parking, a desk, laundry, a gym, a pool, food at most hours and staff on the desk all night. The trade is location. It sits in Greater Nairobi rather than in the business district, so you are not stepping out into the streets this site writes about. The guest score of 4.7 out of 5 from 427 reviews points to steady satisfaction rather than a place with a following. It suits families, drivers and anyone whose Nairobi days are in Westlands or further out. It does not suit you if you want to walk out of the lobby into the city centre.
02The supplier's photographs
0336 facilities the supplier lists
and 36 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
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
Novotel Nairobi Westlands is a chain property with a lot of rooms, so book ahead if your dates are fixed and you want a particular room type, and check the cancellation terms before you commit. 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 Novotel Nairobi Westlands?+
It is on Lower Kabete Road in Westlands, in Greater Nairobi rather than in the Central Business District. The nearest of the ten quarters this site covers is 3.46 km from Biashara Street and City Market, which is the nearest of the ten quarters this site covers.
What does the hotel list for guests?+
Free wifi, free car parking and a garage, air conditioning, a 24 hour front desk, a concierge, currency exchange, restaurants, bars, a pool bar, room service, an outdoor pool with a kids pool, a gymnasium, a spa, massage, a steam room, laundry and dry cleaning, family rooms, cots and babysitting.
What does it mean that the hotel is in Greater Nairobi?+
It means you are outside the centre. The site's own line for this part of the city is that it is a daytime quarter where the halls shut in the late afternoon and the streets empty with them. Staying in Westlands, you plan your trips into the centre rather than walk out into it.
What does the guest score of 4.7 out of 5 mean?+
It is an average from 427 reviews, so it reflects a large number of stays rather than a handful. A score that high suggests the basics are handled consistently. It tells you nothing about which room you will be given, so treat it as one signal among several.
