Serena Beach Mombasa

This hotel deserves 5 star not three!! It was by far the best holiday I have ever been on. I hope to go to the same hotle in the near future.

Arriving here just before the New Year's Eve party got under way was a bit of a culture shock after the Masai Mara, but we soon got into the swing of things.

The setting is beautiful - extensive, never over-crowded gardens spilling onto a white sandy beach. We stayed in a garden room, which until now have been bigger and have had better bathrooms than the standard village rooms. It was spacious and immaculately clean and had a balcony set back from but overlooking the sea.

From this summer, however, the village rooms will all be upgraded to a very high standard (I was shown a model room that had already been completed) and it looks like they will compare favourably with the sort of luxury you are more likely to find in the Far East. Then I think it will be one of the finest hotels in East Africa.

The service is outstanding. My only slight criticism is the food. It was pretty bland.

The world's a big place, so we are unlikely to return, but if we did I'd have no hesitation in choosing the Serena Beach.

We checked out tripadvisor before booking this hotel and were really looking forward to our trip. We were not disappointed. The hotel is beautiful, well maintained and the food was very good. We were not ill at all. There is a high ratio of staff to visitors which means they are always at hand and willing to help. They are all extremely friendly and everyone and I mean everyone greets you with "Jambo". You'll meet quite a lot of repeat visitors - year after year repeat visitors (and they do get a wee bit of special treatment)! We stayed half board and to be fair to them we could not fault the quality or selection of food. The fresh pineapple is to die for! There are 2 very small comments I would make one of which is nothing to do with the hotel. The beach boys do "pester" you and the locals at the nearbuy shops. Never felt threatened. Noone is rude or aggressive if you politely decline. The hotel does its best and to be fair there are no stalls set up along the beach in front of the hotel. We made the mistake of going along the beach the first day (whiter than pale) and they realised we were new, going to be there for a while and wanted to sell their wares and take us on boat trips etc. As I said this is not really anything to do with the hotel and at the end of the day they are only trying to earn a living. The beach by the way is stunning. The other comment is that the hotel staff are commissioned by the hotel to go around during the day to see if guests want to do extras, eg the Jahuzzi Grill (Jackson the manager is a sweetie), the beauty parlour, hairdressers, deep sea fishing, snorkelling trips. They are not really hard sellers either but I felt a bit "if we want it we'll come to you". We stayed in Masa Serena Lodge in the Masa Mara and this was out of this world. I can not use words to describe the location or atmosphere. If you want to combine a beach and safari you could not do better I believe.

My husband and I stayed at the Serena for our honeymoon, combined with a safari. We stayed for 4 days, then had a safari for 3 days, then back for another 8 wonderful days. The hotel is absolutely beautiful, they keep the grounds and gardens in superb condition, the pool is fantastic with a lovely swim up bar and the staff were so lovely, they could not do enough for you. Our room had a four poster bed with its own balcony and very large patio with its own sunbeds - I think they must have upgraded us for our honeymoon and every evening between 6pm and 7pm there would be a knock at our door and there would be the champagne man with drinks and nibblies for us! One morning they wouldn't let us eat in the restaurant and said we needed to come with them right away to speak to the manager.....after much pursuasion we followed them....down to the beach where they had set up a beautiful table with an arc of a plaited palm leaf and flowers for a romantic champagne breakfast - very special. After finishing off the bottle they tried to get us to have another!! On our last day we said our goodbyes and both felt very tearful. The food is superb, the hotel is superb and the staff amazing, if you get the opportunity to visit Mombasa, you must stay here. Mombasa is a beautiful friendly place, not once did we feel threatened, nor were the beach boys a nuisance!

We didn't actually stay at the Serena, we were slightly further down Shanzu Beach at the Flamingo but we visited it several times. It is a beautiful hotel, very elegant mixed with colonial and arab styles of architecture and decoration. The 3 stars it has on here doesn't really reflect quite how lovely this hotel is.

Having stayed in two other Serena's before, I had come to expect really high standards and the Mombasa Serena did not disappoint.

It has a nice beach front and well maintained garden and does not have many beach boys trying to sell you stuff like some of the other hotels along the same cost. It's patrolled by security, so that helps. On two occasions while we were talking(?) to some of the vendors, the hotel security guard had approached us to see if we were ok and the chaps just moved on.

Food was excellent, with a choice of restaurants and a daily themed menu in the main flamingo restaurant as well as the excellent Jahaazi Grill serving yummy sea food. There is also 24 hr complementary tea/coffee and evening tea with pastries served on the lawn overlooking the beach front.

Reception, Bar, Restaurant , housekeeping staff and even the duty manager were really nice, helpful & Courteous and un obtrusive. I should imagine this will be an excellent place or a honeymoon.

There are plenty of water sport activities from the beach outside the hotel and most prices are fixed so even if you get one of the vendors outside to arrange a diving boat/glass bottom boat ride you pay the same as using the hotel's own centre. (when we booked one through the hotel, they called up one of the boats moored outside the hotel anyway - they do not have their own)

We spent there a week in March and loved it ! The garden is gorgeous, the staff is extremely friendly (specially in the restaurant and bars). The only "spot" on my picture was the absolute indifference of the staff at the reception desk when I was stung by a jellyfish, thanks god a boy from the bar helped me out with vinegar . . .

The food is excellent (and we had even raw fish, icecream, everything . . .)

You could have problems with the tide eventually: by low tide there is no swimming possible for hours (half a day?).

Definitely recommanded !

We stayed here for a night as part of a holiday to Kenya (March 2005). The hotel is lovely. It is very nicely decorated, has a relaxed atmosphere and is exactly what a top-class beach hotel should be. Service was very friendly, the garden rooms are very nice and staff are very attentive. We ate in the Jahazzi Grill, which whilst expensive served excellent sea food. It really felt like a couples paradise and would be a nice honeymoon destination.

The only gripe we had was some of the other residents at the hotel. Some seemed to feel that they had to be extremely rude to the staff to get any service. This was completely inappropriate and upset us particularly as it seemed to happen quite often. People should remember that staff too are human! Absolutely no inference should be made of the quality of service (it was top-class) but the comment relates to the type of arrogant and ignorant clientele that the hotel seems to attract who the hotel staff still managed to deal with impeccable manners.

The Serena Beach is a really grand African hotel, absolutely gorgeous carved African symbols all over the hotel. The rooms and bathrooms are fairly big and typically African decorated. The hotel has been built in low-rise buildings, so it's very in keeping with the surroundings. The gardens and very well taken care of and there's a big pool with a swim up bar that looks out to the sea. There's a few really good restaurants, the BBQ restaurant is probably the best. It's a wonderful hotel that combines African culture with everything that western expect beautifully.

Spent a week at the Serena Hotel in Mombase in March 2005...the hotel came highly recommended and I was not disappointed!

The staff are friendly and helpful to a fault, and absolutely nothing is too much trouble for them.

Rooms are more spacious than I expected and well furnished. A great air con system ( and boy do you need it!) adds to the comfort provided by the furnishing. A nice touch was the two complimentary bottles of water for guests everyday. Also amazed that goods used from the mini bar is the same price as elsewhere in the hotel..relatively cheap throughout !

Facilities are excellent in general..beach is fab and there are relatively few beach sellers compared to other hotels in the neighbourhood...the beach front is patrolled by guards 24hrs a day.

Accomodation is not too cramped together, especially if you have a sea view, which is well worth it.

The hotel parrot is also very entertaining when he's in the mood.

If I could find fault with the hotel at all, I would say that while the food was generally good, I would have expected a little more flair and imagination in the presentation given the quality of the hotel. Also, on checking out day there was no courtesy room available to freshen up...were shown to the communal showers at the sports centre which left a lot to be desired to be honest relative to everything else.

However, all things considered the hotel and its staff are absolutely first class...book it and relax in the fact you will be guaranteed a quality hotel in a great location.