Best Amboseli Hotels

The location of the hotel is particularly good, facing Mount Kilimanjaro. Looking out from the window is the Xuefeng that made us admire, and it feels like ”Xiling snow in the window”. Opening the door and going out, the view is very wide. Elephants, zebras, wildebeests and antelopes are scattered on the vast grassland with Kilimanjaro as the background. There is a lake as far as I can see, flocks of flamingos and other waterfowls. Wake up at 5 or 6 o'clock in the morning to see elephants, wildebeests, and buffaloes lined up slowly from the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro along their respective routes. If you wear a telephoto lens, you may also be lucky enough to see the thrilling scene of a lion hunting. The price of the hotel includes three meals, but Ctrip's order stated that it does not include meals. If it weren't for the waiter's reminder, we would have lost a lot.

I honestly don’t know where to start in describing our experience of staying the first two nights of our safari holiday at this awful lodge. In the weeks leading up to our trip we were in contact with our tour company concerning the awful reviews about this place, and were reassured that the local rep’s were making sure there were improvements and that we would be staying in an upgraded Cottage. We were put in a Cottage, No. FC6, and it was dreadful. No way is this the upgraded accommodation! See the photos - curtain hanging off rail ( we fixed it ourselves and it still didn’t cover the whole window), holes in the window mesh so nothing to stop lizards getting in, no mat for the slippery shower floor (I took the pillow case from the extra bed to use as a mat - wished I hadn’t because the pillow unearth it was absolutely disgustingly stained and dirty), mould growing on bedroom furniture, very poor light - just one very dim bulb in a very tatty and dirty lampshade, rotting wood around the wash basin, I could go on and on. And then there was the electrics - a couple of plug sockets simply didn’t work, but there was a trailing socket coming from under the bed which did. So there was no where safe to plug in the electric kettle - not that I would have risked using it, and the nicest item in the room, a large table lamp had a type of plug that didn’t match any socket! Also, the hairdryer was on a broken socket with exposed wires - needless to say I didn’t use it. Outside there were a couple of chairs - they were very old, dirty and falling apart. The dining experience- mediocre at best, with some of the food really not very nice at all and possibly carried over from the previous meal. There was never enough cutlery etc on the tables and the staff would take them from nearby tables if you asked for anything. On our second morning there weren’t enough bowls available to use for cereal/fruit and the urn for making tea was completely cold! Before my holiday I remember reading reviews concerning Chinese guests at AA Amboseli getting preferential treatment over everyone else. No way of knowing if this is the case, but on our second evening there was a large group of people who appeared to be Chinese at a nearby table and the buffet dinner was, in my opinion, considerably better quality than the previous evening. We can only speculate. So, this lodge is popular because of its location, but it’s very run down and needs a considerable amount of investment to bring it to an acceptable standard. At the moment it does not deserve paying customers! Please note- I had to put one Star rating to enable this review to be uploaded - it deserves Zero Rating in my opinion.