VOI Safari Lodge

This hotel could be amazing! The view and the wildlife that frequent the watering holes are out of this world. The staff are lovely too. Unfortunately it's let down by being very tired and rundown. Our room was very basic, hard beds, fan and 2 sockets, dusty wardrobe with a couple of hangers. After a long day and dusty safari we found the shower was freezing cold. It was too late to complain and for one night it wasn't worth the hassle. Nice fluffy white towels unfortunately now covered in red dust as I couldn't shower properly! The walls are paper thin and you can hear the neighbours. No fridge or safe. There are 3 bars (2 of which are closed). The main bar had hardly any drinks available. The little shop looks like everything has been for sale for years. The food was ok but nowhere near as good or as much choice as the other safari lodges we have stayed over the past few days. If it had some money spent on doing up the rooms and sprucing the place up it could be so much better! The place reminds me of a hostel so if you don't mind roughing it a bit come for the views and the wildlife.

The architectural design of the hotel is perfect with a location that offers out of this world view straight from your bed. The game drives are to die for and I preferred self drives especially on a compatible vehicle. There are plenty of animals with an observation point within the hotel premises. A few hotel amenities require some improvement though but generally the hotel/park offers great experience

I don’t usually leave reviews, but I feel compelled to do so given the circumstances of our stay. I’ll start by saying that my family and I are genuinely not fussy people We arrived at 1:30pm after an early morning safari drive, hoping to check in and rest before heading out again in the late afternoon. Shockingly, our room wasn’t ready until just before our afternoon drive. The reason given was that the iron had broken and they couldn’t press the sheets. I checked in with reception three times - on the second occasion I was told I’d be informed as soon as the room was ready, but that never happened. When I asked again on the third occasion, the Receptionist seemed surprised, hesitated momentarily before telling me nervously that the room had just become available! This meant that we went on our afternoon drive without any rest. The condition of our two rooms was unacceptable. Both bathrooms were in poor states of disrepair, one with a broken shower head that flooded the floor. To make matters worse, a cockroach was found in one of the rooms. This is simply not acceptable for any standard of accommodation. While the main lounge, bar, and restaurant areas were well-kept and the staff in those spaces were pleasant, it wasn’t enough to make up for the lack of basic hospitality. Dinner was decent, but breakfast was underwhelming and the coffee was terrible. I filled out the hotel’s own feedback form and handed it to the Receptionist upon departure. I also completed their online feedback form and, disappointingly, after a week I have received no follow-up or even an apology to date. This lack of accountability and basic customer care speaks volumes. Unfortunately, I won’t be returning and would not recommend this property to others.

This place needs some serious updating in lighting (it’s all awful fluorescent lights) not conducive for evening enjoyment . It’s also very disturbing to wildlife. The tunnel and stair case for wildlife watering hole viewing has been neglected and is dirty and falling apart and had insects and lizards and again bright fluorescent lights. The most distressing thing about this place however is that all their designated smoking areas are positioned so that the breezes from the valley blow all the smoke right into the lobby and lounge areas and non smokers cannot get away from it anywhere. Furthermore the staff does not even enforce the designated smoking areas and some people smoke wherever they want. One thing the staff did well is keep the food covered so that flies couldn’t get on it.

Our guests really enjoy staying at Voi Safari Lodge with the expansive view of the waterholes and Tsavo East. One morning at breakfast we were able to watch a pride of about 8 lions lounging under the distant trees as the elephants came and went to the water hole. Truly a great place to just sit and watch the wildlife.

When we got tom our room, part of the bed was wet. When we pointed it out, they gave us another room. The room was stuffy at night, and we didn’t dare sleep with the windows open because there were signs on the windows warning of baboons. The buffet was decent with vegan options. If we hadn’t come from a 5 star experience before this one, we probably would have rated it higher.