Sonrisa Villas

Beautiful place. Very silent surroundig. The road here is not the best one. Some cistance to shopping centres and other services. The bar is comfortable. All staff very kindly. The beach opens immediately in front of the hotel.

Standard Villa 2 / Traveling with children / 5 nights: THE GOOD * Nice infrastructure, rooms, buildings, pool * Beautiful, well taken care of Garden * Beautiful african art * Beach front * Laid back, quite, relax, due to location at the very end of Diani beach THE BAD * Very irregular, variable, quality at restaurant, with two instances where we were served raw chicken! once where food was made for our 1 year old! This is a serious health risk, especially for a baby, so we were pretty uncomfortable and made it known clearly to the manager and to the receptionist. The other instance of raw chicken was in a starter called chicken kiev balls. * The irregularity in the restaurant service and food quality was also seen in the choice of foods (some of which resembled bland and unattractive home cooking, such as ikea meat balls or pink sauce spaghetti) or on the way they were prepared, such as a too tough to chew piece of chicken breast. When we talked about this to the kitchen they said they had a "limited budget to work with" even though we were paying full board and prices that are not cheap by any means. * The restaurant and bar staff seemed tired, not happy to be there at times, either stressed, or bothered to be asked for attention, bothered to be asked for service. The hotel is called SMILE/sonrisa, but that emotion/feeling did not come through in the service we received during our entire stay. It is possible that the whole Covid pandemic is affecting the staffing levels and moods at the hotel, but something needs to be done to address this as it is affecting the quality of service offered to clients who like us are paying important part of their hard earned income to vacation here * It should be well known to anyone booking this property that, although being at the end of Diani means quite and relax, it also means that the property is on a stretch of beach that is not suitable for swimming, both because it is full of sharp rocks and because the tides/currents bring to this corner of the beach tons of algae every day, as well as debris/trash from up the beach (plastic bottles, covid masks, bags, etc). * The hotel pays for a couple of young men to work very hard everyday to dig in the algae into the sand, but they should also be working to collect the garbage, plastic, debris brought in with the tides, both because of aesthetic and environmental reasons

An amazing oasis of relaxation and beautiful views. Green trees and lawn right to the edge of the sand, and multiple places to sit where you can choose to be in full daylight, or like the sun-avoiders such as myself there are hanging chairs and loungers under the trees with sea views. Our villa was just right for 2 adults/1 child and we couldn't fault it at all - lots of storage, everything worked. Perhaps the beds were a bit hard for us, but you can't please everyone. Clientele were a mix of singles, couples & families though the pool would not be suitable for very small children as there is no shallow end. However at 1.3m was very suitable for the school aged children. A sunshade over part of the pool meant swimming even at midday was possible without burning. As others have noted, the beach directly in front is not suitable for swimming & is seaweedy but it is lovely and soft to walk on, the white sand like powder. Do bring flip-flops and explore the extensive rock pools at low tide. It's only a couple of minutes walk to get past the rocks and find a glorious swimming patch. The restaurant serves the best hotel meals we have had in our 3 trips to the Kenyan coast. From their beautiful cooked-to-order breakfasts (included in our room rate - well worth the extra) through to the delightful dinners, we found the costs very similar to what we paid in other locations but far superior in flavour, freshness and presentation. A huge thank you to Margaret at reception who greeted us every day with the biggest smile. And to the on-site owners who make everyone so welcome, thank you from the Addis Ababa family!