AA Lodges Amboseli — Hotel in Kimana ward

Overall: lodging ok as a "camp", but the extremely rudely encounters with the staff - taking out stuff without permission and demanding us to skip breakfast to check out early!!!

Rooms: If you think about it as a "camp" then it's pretty reasonable. Would put it on par with a low end motel.

We stayed in the guest houses (not the tents). Most things were clean, but the bathroom and room floors were covered in a layer of dust. The bedsheets were old and seriously pilling. The mosquito nets had large holes in it and one bed didn't have a net at all (and there were lots of mosquitoes!)

But overall perfectly acceptable.

Negative encounters with the staff:

At dinner, two from our party arrived first. As they went to get food from the buffet, staff came to their table and started taking their purses! Mom ran back to the table and the staff rudely told her they were moving their stuff to a smaller table. UNACCEPTABLE!!! YOU DON'T TOUCH PEOPLE'S STUFF WITHOUT PERMISSION!

Mom had to explain that the rest of our party was coming. For the rest of the meal, the same staff member came by and would collect our unused cutlery from the table setting. For example, if you started with food first, she would take your unused soup spoon (untouched from original place setting) so you couldn't get soup later. We had to fight to keep our cutlery.

It's a buffet, why can't I eat in the order I want? Why can't I go back for a second serving?

I confirmed with reception the breakfast end-time and checkout time. I was told breakfast ended at 9am and checkout was "any time you want". I double checked with the receptionist twice more, and both times she said "any time you want", so I triple confirmed by asking her if checkout at 10:30am was ok and she confirmed yes.

The next morning, we arrived back from our game drive at 8:45am, a lady came out and told us checkout was at 9am so we needed to check out immediately so they could clean the rooms. I told her that I had confirmed a 10:30 checkout with reception. She said no, I had to check out first, but I could sit at reception until 10:30. I continued to argue with her. She said the receptionist did not know company policy and that we needed to to check out immediately.

I explained that we still needed to get breakfast that was about to end in a few minutes. She insisted that we should check out immediately, leave our bags in reception and then go to breakfast.

I begged her for time to pack and she agreed to give us until 9:30am.

So we rushed. On the way to our rooms, we passed the restaurant. It was only 8:50am and we saw they were clearing away everything and started washing the floors. (This is "African style" floor cleaning where they flood the area with an open hose, splash buckets of water and sweep the water around)

Clearly we would have missed breakfast if we checked out first!

The chef was kind enough to come back out to make us some eggs and we stepped through puddles and dodged the splashing to get whatever food was left (which was not much). Not a pleasant experience.

We scarfed down breakfast as fast as we could and ran to our rooms to pack. We checked out as fast as we humanly could have.

The AA Lodge Amboseli website clearly that checkout is at 10am!!!

Absolutely ridiculous that the staff forced us to checkout early, caused us so much stress, and made us beg, just so they could go on...

Beautiful lodge at the end of a dusty, bumpy road, located very close to Amboseli National Park's entrance gate so ideal for wildlife-viewing safaris. The lodge has a long, picturesque covered walkway (great Instagram photo op) with different paths branching out to clusters of cottages and tents. There is a buffet restaurant and a bar with outdoor seating area, as well as a campfire every evening with traditional Maasai dance. There's also a pool but I haven't visited it. There is only wifi in common areas (outdoor seating area of restaurant and bar), but not in the individual cottages.

My parents and I stayed in a large cottage with 3 beds. The room was simple but very spacious and relatively clean, and the beds had mosquito nets (much needed, because there were lots of mosquitoes buzzing around). A bottle of water was provided per person per day. I had no hot water for my shower; I had to settle for sort of cold but not freezing water. Our cottage was very dimly lit and we needed to use our own flashlights to read at night.

The restaurants serves 3 meals per day, buffet style. Drinks are available at an extra cost, and waiters bothered us a lot asking "would you like some drinks" which I found mildly annoying. The buffet isn't huge but it is more than satisfactory. For lunch and dinner there is usually soup, bread rolls, salads, rice, potatoes, sometimes pasta, vegetables, a vegetarian main dish, 2 meat dishes, fresh fruit, and pastries/cakes. Many dishes are prepared indian-style (curries, basmati rice). The soups are creamy and delicious, and the bread rolls sweet and pillowy. Dinner starts at 7:30 PM, which is kind of late IMO, but I guess that time is standard for most safari lodges.

However, the breakfast buffet was slightly below my expectations, especially considering how good the lunch and dinner buffets were. The chef at the omelet station didn't know how to properly fold omelets and most omelets turned out more like scrambled eggs. Many breakfast food items that I had (crepes, baked beans, sweet potatoes) were cold. The variety is still pretty good at breakfast, with fresh fruit, 2 types of porridge, toast and spreads, omelets, sweet rolls, crepes, taro and sweet potatoes, sausages, baked beans, etc.

Lunchboxes are provided for those going on safari. Those were pretty terrible. Many other lodges I've been to in Tanzania allowed us to build our own lunchbox from a buffet selection, but this wasn't the case at this lodge. We got a box of orange juice, half an orange, a banana, a hard-boiled egg, 2 bread rolls, and a piece of cold, virtually inedible roasted chicken. Luckily if you get back early from safari you can still eat some of the lunch buffet. We went at 3:30 PM and there was still lots of food.

Overall my experience here was decent, but there are some things that could be improved, especially the wifi and...

Ich bin mit einer Freundin während unserer Safari für 2 Nächte in der AA-Lodge untergekommen. Unsere Erfahrung dort war leider alles andere als schön ||||Zu Allererst möchte ich davon abraten, ja sogar eindringlich davor warnen, diese Lodge zu buchen: uns wurde Geld aus einem von uns verschlossenem Safe gestohlen. Der Safe lässt sich nur auf zwei Weisen öffnen: entweder mit unserem Code oder dem Mastercode, den der Manager der Lodge hat.||||Diebstahl: Uns wurden insgesamt 14 000 KSH und 50 € aus dem Safe gestohlen (umgerechnet 150 €).||- Am Tag unserer Ankunft haben wir unsere gesamten Wertsachen in den Safe gelegt und den Safe verschlossen (zu diesem Zeitpunkt haben nur wir uns in dem Zimmer aufgehalten – Niemand sonst hat unseren Code gesehen). Danach gingen wir zur Rezeption, gaben dem Manager Bescheid, dass unsere Bettwäsche dreckig ist und wir diese bitte gewechselt haben möchten und gaben dem Manager den Schlüssel für unser Zimmer. ||- Nachdem Mittagessen gingen wir zum Manager und erkundigten uns, ob wir wieder ins Zimmer können. Daraufhin tätigte er einen Anruf und gab uns grünes Licht. Er begleitete uns zu unserem Zimmer (und hier sahen wir jemanden von unserem Häuschen weghuschen – im Nachhinein eine sehr fragwürdige Situation, da diese Person nicht Grüßte und auch keine dreckige Bettwäsche in den Händen hielt) und erkundigte sich bei uns, ob nun alles passt und ging.||- Am nächsten Morgen öffneten wir den Safe und zählten unser Geld (da wir noch einen Teil der Safari vor Ort bezahlen mussten) und stellten fest, dass wir bestohlen wurden. Nicht das Ganze Geld war weg, nur ein Teil von jedem – besonders auffällig war, dass meine Freundin (bevor sie das Geld in den Safe legte) das Geld zählte und in 2 Portemonnaies aufteilte: 17 000 KSH in das eine und 3000 KSH in das andere – danach waren nur noch 11 000 KSH und 2000 KSH in den Portemonnaies. Ich wiederum hatte mein gesamtes Geld in einem Portemonnaie: 20 000 KSH und 5x 50€ - es fehlten 7000 KSH und ein 50 € Schein.||- Wir gingen sofort zur Rezeption und erzählten dem Manager was passiert ist. Dieser entschuldigte sich und bot uns an die Polizei zu verständigen und zur Lodge kommen zulassen, damit wir eine Aussage machen können.||- Am Nachmittag kam der Manager auf uns zu und teilte uns mit, dass die Polizei es vermutlich nicht schaffen wird vorbeizukommen, da sie nur von 8 – 17 Uhr geöffnet hat. Unser Safari Guide bestand jedoch darauf, dass wir bei der Polizei eine Aussage machen und fuhr mit uns zur Polizeistation wo wir eine Aussage machten. Sehr interessant: die Polizisten teilten uns mit, dass sie 24/7 geöffnet haben.||- Dank unseres Guides der sehr hartnäckig war und den Manager aufforderte uns das Geld zu erstatten, haben wir am Ende tatsächlich jeden Cent unseres gestohlenen Geldes wieder zurückerhalten.||- Wir vermuten, dass dort öfters gestohlen wird – es wurden nur „Kleckerbeträge“ gestohlen, nicht das ganze Geld – das fällt einem selbst weniger auf. Hätten wir nicht noch einen Teil der Safari vor Ort zahlen müssen, wäre uns das gar nicht aufgefallen – wir fragen uns, wie viele bestohlen wurden ohne es gemerkt zu haben.||||Zimmer: wir hatten ein kleines Häuschen mit 2 Einzelbetten ganz am Ende. ||1. Die Bettwäsche war sehr dreckig - sie war vergilbt und Kaffeeflecken waren auch auf den Laken. ||2. Das Moskitonetz war voller Löcher, wir haben ca. 15 min. damit verbracht die Löcher mit Haargummis und Spangen notdürftig zu flicken.||3. Das Badezimmer war wirklich eklig. Wir haben versucht nicht allzu genau in die Ecken zu schauen. Die Dusche haben wir nur mit Badeschlappen betreten.||||Anlage: auf den ersten Blick wirkt die Lodge sehr schön, die Einfahrt und die Rezeption sind sehr schön gestaltet – aber das war es dann leider auch schon. ||1. Restaurant – auch hier sind die Moskitonetze an den Fenstern voller Löcher (Gerade abends würde ich davon abraten direkt am Fenster zu sitzen)||2. Poolbereich – der Pool wirkt sehr in die Jahre gekommen, Schönheitsreparaturen scheinen hier keine vorgenommen zu werden.||3. Die Gartenanlage macht einen ganz soliden Eindruck.||||||--------------------------||||||I stayed at AA Lodge with a friend for 2 nights during our safari. Our experience there was unfortunately anything but nice :(||||First of all, I would like to advise against, even strongly warn against, booking this lodge: we had money stolen from a safe we had locked. The safe can only be opened in two ways: either with our code or the master code that the manager of the lodge has.||||Theft: We had a total of 14 000 KSH and 50 € stolen from the safe (equivalent to 150 €).||- On the day we arrived, we put all of our valuables in the safe and locked the safe (only we were in the room at the time - no one else saw our code). We then went to the front desk, let the manager know that our bedding was dirty and we would like it changed please, and gave the manager the key to our room. ||- After lunch, we went to the manager and inquired if we could go back to the room. He then made a phone call and gave us the go ahead. He accompanied us to our room (and here we saw someone scurrying away from our lodge - in retrospect a very questionable situation, as this person did not say hello and did not have dirty bed linen in his hands) and inquired with us if everything now fit and left.||- The next morning we opened the safe and counted our money (since we still had to pay for part of the safari on site) and found that we had been robbed. Not all the money was gone, just a part of each - what was particularly noticeable was that my friend (before putting the money in the safe) counted the money and divided it into 2 purses: 17 000 KSH in one and 3000 KSH in the other - after that there were only 11 000 KSH and 2000 KSH left in the purses. I, on the other hand, had all my money in one wallet: 20 000 KSH and 5x 50€ - there were 7000 KSH and a 50€ banknote missing.||- We immediately went to the reception and told the manager what happened. He apologized and offered to call the police and let them come to the lodge so that we could make a statement.||- In the afternoon, the manager approached us and told us that the police probably won't be able to come by because they are only open from 8am - 5pm. However, our safari guide insisted that we make a statement to the police and drove with us to the police station where we made a statement. Very interesting: the police officers informed us that they are open 24/7.||- Thanks to our guide who was very persistent and asked the manager to refund us the money, we actually ended up getting every cent of our stolen money back.||- We suspect that people steal there more often - only "dribs and drabs" were stolen, not all the money - you notice that less yourself. If we hadn't had to pay for part of the safari on the spot, we wouldn't have noticed - we wonder how many were stolen from without noticing.||||Room: we had a small cottage with 2 single beds at the very end. ||1. the bedding was very dirty - it was yellowed and coffee stains were also on the sheets. ||2. the mosquito net was full of holes, we spent about 15 min. patching the holes with hair ties and clasps.||3. the bathroom was really disgusting. We tried not to look too closely in the corners. We only entered the shower with slippers.||||Facility: at first glance the lodge looks very nice, the driveway and the reception are very nicely designed - but unfortunately that was it. ||1. restaurant - also here the mosquito nets at the windows are full of holes (especially in the evening I would not recommend to sit directly at the window).||2. pool area - the pool looks very outdated, cosmetic repairs do not seem to be done here.||3. the garden area makes a very...