I've been traveling to and working in Kisumu for many years, and I recently had my first stay at The Vic. We have had numerous groups stay there before, but The Vic is ideal for our needs and we are looking at making it our exclusive hotel for our staff and guests. Rooms at The Vic are comfortable, spacious, and well-appointed. We mostly stay in Superior rooms, which have a comfortable bed, three chairs, bedside tables, a side table, a desk, a refrigerator, a coat closet, and a luggage shelf. With various drawers including within the closet, there is more than enough space to keep all your things put away and organized. The closet also includes a safe. With the fridge, you also get 2 bottles of water per day, an electric kettle, and a small selection of coffee, tea, sugar, and creamer. The bathroom is comfortable, with just enough space. The sink does include space to keep your toiletries, and the shower is nice. Unlike other hotels I've stayed at, The Vic has pretty stable power, fairly predictable hot water, and a respectable wi-fi signal and speed throughout the hotel. Kenyan concrete wall construction is not friendly to wifi signals, but it goes pretty well here. The Vic does have an attached outdoor swimming pool, but I have not utilized it. Breakfast at The Vic is very good. There is a nice variety of foods to appeal to everyone, and the service is top notch. They do have a constantly-staffed omelet station and they make excellent eggs. The coffee is also very good, unlike budget hotels that only use instant. The staff is always friendly and ready to assist. Special thanks to Minaz, the manager, who is always available and accessible and takes care to serve his clients. There is good thought given to security here. Not only is the hotel within the gated compound of Mega City Mall, there is security within the hotel as well. The only point that I might suggest is that they could modernize their key card access system - right now, they have just one or two key cards per room, and they are labeled with the room number. So, in case the room key is lost outside the hotel, they require you to re-activate your room key card every day. With a newer system that allows the hotel to assign different cards to different rooms, they could leave the cards unlabeled, improve security, and do away with the daily ritual of re-activating the key card. One of our favorite things about The Vic is its attachment to the mall. This lends unparalleled convenience with access to numerous restaurants, the Naivas grocery store, other retailers, ATMs, and ready transportation by tuktuk or bodaboda. The Vic itself also operates three venues at the mall. Mon Ami, also known as The Vic Restaurant, is a pleasant outdoor venue with a wide variety of food and drink at reasonable prices. Garam Masala is an indoor venue with the best Indian food in the entire city, also at reasonable prices. I have not visited Da Bar, but it is an indoor/outdoor venue with a considerable
