Protea Hotel Lusaka Tower — Attraction in Lusaka Province

I’ve just had a very unfortunate 4 night stay at Protea Lusaka Towers (Casino) & it’s definitely made me rethink as to whether it is worth it to stay at a Protea Marriott at all just for some points.

My room (303) had one bar of active wifi which meant that I couldn’t work from my room & constantly had to go down to the 1st floor restaurant to catch some wifi & attend my online meetings. To top it off, the staff knew about the Wifi problems in the hotel but didn’t mention them at check in.

My shower had no hot water unless you kept the shower going for 5mins+ - which is funny because there’s a sustainability tag right next to the shower & I’m not sure how sustainability would work if you’re wasting litres after litres of water.

In terms of facilities, there’s practically nothing - the pool isn’t maintained well, there is no gym, there’s a small conference room for private calls but it isn’t closed off so if you’re taking a meeting, you can hear the whole 1st floor above you & their conversations.

The staff are nice & they try their best but this hotel is definitely not up to Marriott standards - it lacks in many ways and at a price point of almost $150 a night, you’re better off at the Taj, Holiday Inn or even Intercontinental.

This is a mediocre 3 star establishment & should be priced way lower until they fix the wifi, water &...

I've been visited this hotel 5 times in the last 2 years under my company reservation, and this is the first time I wanted to mention very important event in my opinion that happened to me. On one of the days, i have back from work on 22:00hr straight to the room and then went up to the restaurant (9 floor) to get a fast dinner. Even I've been told that the restaurant working up to 22:30, the waiter told me the restaurant is already closed. I went to the reception to ask if the room service is still working and the receptionist told me that if the restaurant is closed, the room service is close as well. Then one receptionist, I think his name was William (hope I'm not mistaken), asked me to wait and then called the room service to convince them to get an order for me.

I wrote all this story since as a former hotelier, I think this is what hotelier and service are all about, to give a little bit more from yourself sometime, even when you don't have to, just for the guest to feel better. You can imagine what is the difference for a guest who came back late from work between get a fast meal in the hotel, than to start looking for a place outside to eat in...

3 main problems, 1 small additional one

In the room there was only one outlet on one side of the headboard of the bed. I use a sleep machine and my wife and I both want to charge our phone/tablet by the bed when we go to bed. The lack of outlets by the bed prevented this.

The WiFi passcode contained 0 that looked like O. They look similar don’t they? Too similar to be used for guests passcodes. We had to call to reception numerous times before the problem was figured out.

When we arrived for breakfast the chef who prepares the fresh eggs/omelette was not around. We had to wait until he could be located. Since we were on a tight schedule and could not wait, we missed out.

1small one. We asked the front desk to keep an item in the freezer for us. When we did we told the front desk we would be departing at 6am. However when we checked out there was great difficulty in the front desk locating our item. We left without it, but an employee ran out the hotel chasing us down after they found it.

We have frequented Protea hotels in Africa for over 20 years, and I think Lusaka Tower could do a lot better. We will not stay there again if we...