Lake Kivu Serena Hotel/Gisenyi. — Hotel in Gisenyi

I recently spent a few days at Serena Hotel in Gisenyi and had a wonderful stay. The rooms are comfortable, the services are good, and the swimming pool and beach are lovely. What really impressed me was the exceptional service offered by the staff. For example, during breakfast, I accidentally poured myself a glass of mostly water from a jug of freshly pressed passion fruit juice. Before I even noticed, a waiter appeared at my table with a fresh new glass of juice, apologizing for the mistake. It's this kind of attention to detail that makes Serena Hotel stand out.

However, I do have one suggestion for the management: the pricing for some of the services offered on site is excessive. The motorboat and jet ski rentals at the beach are priced at a level that's out of touch with the local market. Charging $200 per hour for a jet ski is equivalent to half a month's salary for a high-skilled employee in Rwanda. To put this into perspective, renting a jet ski in Europe can cost around $250 for a full day. I hope the management will review their pricing to make these services more accessible to their guests.

Overall, I had a lovely stay at Serena Hotel and would definitely recommend it to others. With a bit of tweaking to their pricing, it could be a truly unforgettable experience.

Rating breakdown:

Rooms: 4/5 Service: 5/5 Amenities: 5/5 Value: 3/5 (due to excessive pricing for some services)

// Previous review: We have now been to Serena a couple of times, but only for lunch or to hang out. It is a very nice hotel and the service as well as the food offered is great. 👍 Located on the shore of Lake Kivu, you can enjoy life and 🇷🇼 at its best! From where you sit, you can enjoy the hills and even see a glimpse of Goma, in 🇨🇩 Congo. Take a walk along the beach and enjoy the...

Hotel and rooms are ok- comfortable but a bit dated. I have stayed here twice, once personal and once for a work retreat. If I visited Lake Kivu again, this will not be my first, second or third choice for stay, because of poor customer service and possible fraud.

After my last stay, I noticed that there were two charges on my credit card from the hotel. They were the for the same amount, but two days apart and with a slightly different merchant name. I flagged this immediately to the hotel. They said they would get back to me, but I had to follow up a couple days later. A manager asked for proof, so I submitted my credit card statements showing the two charges. He claimed there was an internet issue at the hotel during the time of checkout, so the double charge was likely an error,

A couple days later, when I again followed up, he said that he checked with their bank and they had not “received the payment twice” so there was nothing that they could do. What?! Meanwhile, I’m carrying duplicate charges on my credit card that I have to pay interest for?? Where did the second payment go? Who charged it? My bigger issue is that with the slightly different merchant names, and different charge dates, this smelled like fraud/ misuse of my card info. But they seemed very unbothered.

Fortunately, I flagged the issue with my (non-local) bank and they halted the charge and reversed one of the charges since it was obviously fraud. I also canceled the card. Very inconvenient. Serena never bothered to follow up with me. Very disappointing service tainted my whole experience there.

If others chose to go to Serena Kivu, I would just caution that they keep an eye on their credit card/ bank...

Dishonesty and terrible room check in service. When checking in, I was feeling unwell, we requested for a room with the lake view that was quiet, the staff indicated no lake view double rooms were available but it'd be quiet. They then proceeded to give us a garden room with essentially no view. That was fine, we were there for a night anyway. When night time fell, we could barely sleep! Right by the hotel on the garden rooms are some incredibly loud clubs and not one or two. It was so so loud, you could hear every single sound and beat from the room and could not sleep. Had to wake up at around 1 am to ask for a room change. I asked the check in staff if they didn't know that that room was loud and that they were clubs right by it which they feigned ignorance to. To our surprise, there was an availability quiet double room, facing the lake that they moved us to at 1 in the morning. 🤦🏾‍♀️ Found this to be in incredibly bad faith which was quite...