Scheba Hotel

One of the best hotels I have ever stayed at. The staff were exceptionally helpful and the rooms were well maintained by housekeeping . Waking up to the pool view was the best way to start my day. The area is very secure and safe. If you’re planning a trip to Kigali you definitely have to stay at this hotel, it elevated my whole experience there.

Dirty rooms. Dead cockroaches in the bathroom. No hot shower water at night. Broken bedside lamp plugs. TV with 2-3 channels with terrible signal. Room safe not working. A joke of a gym with poor lighting and most machines not working. Poor breakfast, with non fresh bread etc. Unresponsive, poorly trained and unprofessional staff and management. And here is the worst experience: Tried to pay two times with my card for the stay upon arrival but both times the card got declined. Then my colleague paid them for my room in cash. However, they took the money for one card payment after I checked out. Initially they denied they took the money, we contacted Bank of Rwanda and they confirmed they took the money. However, they still did not refund the double payment stating some ridiculous policy. Avoid this hotel at all costs!!

This hotel is rather disgusting. Very dirty. Lots of bugs both alive and dead. Our room appears to not have been cleaned in a very long time. We were put up here by Rwanda Air as our flight was delayed (again). We do not want to stay in our room, so currently we are sitting by the pool. Definitely won’t be eating here and are counting down the hours until we can head to the airport.

I made a reservation at this hotel for 4 nights through one of the third-party reservation websites for myself and a friend traveling together in Rwanda. Upon arrival at the hotel at approximately 9 pm, we had our luggage and belongings x-rayed before being able to walk up to the check-in counter. I had a full bottle of banana beer I had purchased earlier which the security guard initially refused to let me bring in, until another staff member stepped in and convinced him to allow in. We walked up to the check-in counter and mentioned we had a reservation. The woman at the desk said they had cancelled their contract with the third-party website and were not honoring reservations made through that site. The reason she gave was because the rates published on the site ($83 per night) were too low for them to make a profit. She then proceeded to mention that she had rooms available and could book us for $130 a night. To add insult to injury, she told us that we would have to contact the third-party website ourselves to get a refund for the reservation we had already paid through them. We begrudgingly paid for one night at Scheba since it was already getting close to 10 pm and we didn’t know if we could find other accommodations on such short notice. We then spent the next two hours on a call with the third-party website trying to get a refund on the original reservation. Our room was old and outdated. The windows and balcony door did not fully seal, allowing sounds and insects to come in. There was a very loud band playing on the hotel pool deck below until 11 at night, making sleep impossible. The pillows had stains on them. The included breakfast was horrible, with just a few fruit, bread, and cheese options and some unappetizing egg and meat choices. When I saw a cockroach crawl across the food plates, I had enough. I went up to the room, packed my things, and checked out for a better hotel down the street. These people are running a bait-and-switch scam by accepting reservations and then not honoring them and forcing a higher rate upon you at check-in. Do yourself a favor and run away!