Radisson Blu Hotel Nairobi, Upper Hill Review
The Radisson Blu Nairobi is a new development on Upper Hill. It's about a 5-minute drive from downtown Nairobi and a 10-minute drive (if there is no traffic) from the Westlands neighborhood.
The Radisson Blu Nairobi is a new development on Upper Hill. It's about a 5-minute drive from downtown Nairobi and a 10-minute drive (if there is no traffic) from the Westlands neighborhood.
Nairobi has had terrorist attacks and lots of security issues, so the hotel planners designed this as a fortress. The gate is likely the most attack-proof I have seen outside of an embassy. The heavy gates are just partially opened while your car is inspected. Once you enter, a second heavy gate will stay closed and your car will undergo another inspection where you have to leave it for a bag X-ray and a personal metal detector. It's better security than at Nairobi Airport. It's not a big deal to do it once but it gets annoying quickly if you use the hotel as a stop to explore the city.
Once we made it to check-in, it was very friendly, but very slow. It took a solid 15 minutes to look up my reservation (which was no-frills) and hand over my keys.
I loved the interior design in the lobby; Radisson has done well with that (like at the Radisson Blu Lagos) and the Radisson Nairobi is no doubt one of the best.
The room was equally well-equipped and done in lovely colors and it was extremely clean.
I felt the beds were a bit too small for the large room but they were excellent nevertheless. The bathroom was in fantastic shape, with an awesome rain shower.
I logged on to the internet which uses the same standard system most Radissons have these days. To my surprise, it was super-fast and never disconnected. The air conditioning system was quiet and worked perfectly as well.
After a few solid hours of sleep, we checked out the breakfast buffet, which was served on the beautifully-designed outdoor patio. It is a spectacular location for breakfast.
There was still a cold breeze that day (Nairobi is cold at night but hot in the afternoon).
The breakfast spread was big but the items were mostly just OK quality; I had a surprisingly hard time finding any very high quality items.
As a Club Carlson Gold I was granted a 4PM check-out without any issues. Check -out was another slow back and forth with credit cards being frequently mixed up. Oh well - it all worked in the end.
Regular rates during the time of my stay were $300, which is very high, especially since most of Nairobi has gotten much cheaper over the last two years.
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