Naivasha Kongoni Lodge - Lakefront Getaway

Kongoni lodge is a place we visited before We booked a cottage with 2 bedrooms for my mother and ourselves (couple) as husband was doing mtb race - this was confirmed 4 weeks in advance The night before the race we headed to kongoni lodge for the night. My driver also called the lodge to book his accommodation there. We arrived at 7pm. Front desk gave us welcome drinks, hot towels took our passports and made us fill up the forms But just before passing the keys she casually informed us that we will only have 1 bedroom for 3 of us and the other room in the same cottage was already occupied by a sick traveler who will depart next morning: We obviously jumped. Firstly There was ample time for the hotel to contact us before we arrived at 7pm and inform us so we can make alternative arrangements - the roads leading to kongoni werr bad and this was was a pure waste of time especially when everyone is exhausted after the ride from Nairobi Secondly to make us fill up forms, provide them passports then tell us the news was not acceptable. This could have been said upfront vs after all admin In addition the female desk manager was not honest - she stated repeatedly she couldn’t get hold of us. We didn’t get any missed calls. Also there is email, phone options? my driver confirmed he spoke to the lady manager to reconfirm his own room booking and even received 2 phone calls that day to enquire about the time we were supposed to arrive Finally after we protested about sharing a cottage with a sick traveler - she reluctantly offered an option for us to move to another hotel but we have to make our way there, check out in the following morning and move the stuff ourselves back to Kongoni it would cost us 10,000 kes but we had to pay kongoni directly. An arrangement we couldn’t figure why This was not feasible as husband was racing the following morning 7am till 3pm I was to follow the race as well. This meant we had to pack by 6am and check out from the hotel and mode stuff over to kongoni. Before going to the race Then unpack again at the new room at their lodge assuming the guest recovers. We are appalled at how this was being managed - the lack of honest and upfront communications. Finally the lady assured us she would be on standby to assist We tried calling back when we were at the replacement hotel to find rooms for ourselves Needless to say the kongoni front desk never picked up our calls I am appalled how they had treated and dumped us without any remorse, or attempt to help us despite this massive glitch. Till today none of them even called to apologize to us I will never recommend them to anyone and urge all to rethink as well at this unprofessional, irresponsible and unhelpful management

While we liked the general vibe of the hotel - with it's rustic cottages, swimming pool and walkable areas inside, the residential areas require maintenance. The food was tasty, but compared to other hotels we stayed at during our safari, had a lack of options. It rained when we were staying at the hotel and we had water dripping into the cottage. The bedroom, although well maintained was really loud due to the rain and we hardly managed to get any sleep. The bathroom was really rusty and dingy. Although the nice staff cleaned the bathroom once again upon our request, the condition of the bathroom was bad. I would only recommend this hotel to people who are looking for a brief stopover, but not for longer stays.