Keekorok Lodge

Cons: (Please read everything, they are exceptionally bad) Water was unavailable in the bathrooms for 2 days out of my 7 day stay. The bedsheets and pillows are dirty and stained. The stains looked brown and red. The bathrooms are extremely dirty and the bath towels stink! I've attached photos of everything. On the rare occasion that the water did work, the tap water and the water in the shower were dirty and seemed to be unfiltered, even brown in color. We found this out by using some of the tap water as the water to flush the toilets since the water supply ran out for the entire hotel. When we flushed using the tap water, the water was literally dark brown. You might actually get diseases from this kind of water, and its being used by everyone to brush their teeth every morning and wash their faces. This theme was present throughout the lodge, the swimming pool is extremely dirty because it lacks a filtration system. Avoid it if you don't want to get diseases! Seriously! The hippo bar was closed and despite there being a sign that said "Under Repair", there was nobody actually over there repairing the bar. Trash and empty bottles all around the lodge in the grassy areas. Clearly the hotel does not care about cleanliness. Moving on to the food, it was also horrible. The buffet has primarily Indian food and it is very low quality, we were even told by the operations manager that the curries are frozen for months with preservatives. The food does not taste good either. Almost all guests were sticking to the live counter's pasta and noodles every day since the food given in the buffet was so bad. There was a lack of Kenyan food, people going to Kenya want Kenyan food, not Indian. What made it even worse is that the buffet does not even offer free water or soft drinks. You have to pay for it! Also, if you're thinking of taking a packed breakfast or lunch to the game drives for a picnic or to increase your chances of spotting an animal, then you're also out of luck. The packed food is horrible and the reception service is so bad that they reversed our order of 3 non-veg lunches and 1 veg lunch. They gave us 3 veg boxes and 1 non-veg box. The staff have some serious coordination issues. The very few pros: 1. Some staff are very friendly and kind. 2. You can often spot animals at night but this could be a con since the lodge does not have a fence so animals can just roam around, even predators. We saw hyenas and hippos but the operations manager showed us pictures of a pack of lions being sighted during the night too. 3. The bush dinner (have to pay separately for this) - has great food. However, the "rangers" they hire to protect you are not even on the lookout and just chat with each other. This can be dangerous since animals surround the bush dinner, especially hyenas and buffalos. Please do not go to this lodge! Its a huge waste of money.. Living there was a horribly stressful experience.

Disappointed, we are a group of 19 family ages 8-70. The food was just ok many of our younger were harder to feed. The rooms are ok nothing special. We had 2 safari cars breakdown. One while on safari we had to all get in two then another Safari car wouldn’t start and we pile 11 of us in one and 8 of us had to stay back. The management was not helpful they tried to avoid talking with me and then finally did would not offer any refund for their cars breaking down. Beware also not Keeborok but the National park has jacked up their prices to $200 per person did not want to honor children rates and charge per day not a 24 hour widow. Park fee for us were $300 per person for less than 24 hours. They say starting July 1 in our same situation it would be $400 per person. For less than 24 hours. I have stayed at Ashnil 11 times always a good experience.

This was my 31st visit to Keekorok, I have always loved this place , through out my visits there is incredible change for better.Manish and Chef Ahesan took care of our needs which is a prime example of great hospitality.

Our lodge was ready shortly after arrival and was the perfect base. The bedroom was clean and comfortable, and the shower worked very well which was needed after a busy day. It was unfortunate that the Hippo pool was under refurbishment, but the bar itself was still open and other wildlife ( such as elephants) still pass by. There are other wildlife in the hotel grounds, such as monkeys, mongoose and hippos. We had pre-booked a hot air balloon flight, but there was the option to book on arrival. This was an amazing experience. The welcome from all staff was fabulous, particularly in the restaurant. We enjoyed the food, with many options and the drinks are reasonably priced. It is not expected that you dress up for dinner and most people have their dinner soon after the evening game drive, so wear safari gear. We would like to give a special mention to Jackson, who took great care of our lodge ensuring we had everything we needed.

Overall, after staying in a large number of places across Kenya and Tanzania, I will definitely place Keekorok Lodge somewhere at the bottom. Reasons? Great customer service and attentive staff (special mention of Judy in the restaurant) alone cannot lift up a place that is declining rapidly. The Hippo Bar (its main attraction) is closed. The food is incredibly bad (primarily Indian food, mostly tasteless - I didn't travel to Kenya to eat aloo gobhi, khichdi, bhindi, etc. Barely any options in the menu - I don't eat most meats (only chicken) and I didn't even have a basic chicken option in every meal. The one day they did have it, the chicken finished and despite placing an order I didn't get any. Desserts were terrible. I fell violently sick from the food, throwing up all night... It tends to cater to large groups, making meal times very noisy and busy. The food. finishes quickly and replenishments take time. People don't believe in queuing up, and when it took me 20 min to get an omelet at breakfast I gave up eating eggs for the next couple of days. The packed meals for the safaris show no common sense. Imagine a large piece of chicken with bone wrapped in foil or a hard boiled egg you're supposed to crack! The electricity is unreliable and keeps going off at night. The plug points don't all work consistently (can you imagine seeing cheetahs on your safari and realizing your camera battery is exhausted because it failed to charge at night?) and the walls are porous. We had a noisy neighbour for two nights who had loud telephone conversations that constantly disrupted the silence. The location is its only saving grace - its apparently in the middle of the route for the Great Migration (we weren't there for it so I cannot confirm or deny). It is however very easy to cover most parts of the park from Keekorok. We saw a herd of impala outside our room. Also whose idea was it to place that ugly garish plasticky children's multi coloured slide right in the middle of the property? It's such an eye sore and I didn't see anyone use it.