Shimba Green Lodge

The pool and in particular the view from the pool is absolutely amazing. Beside the pool this place is very ordinary. Service, room and food leaves room for improvement

The landscape in extraordinary. The view is breathtaking. But it’s not enough. Shimba Green Lodge may be a jewel in the area. It has everything that is needed to shine but the owner/manager clearly doesn’t care at all. The location is run down, the gardens are not kept, the floors around the pool need deep cleaning, the entire structure needs maintenance. The restaurant toilet had a light but it was flashing: for this the floor was covered in urine as probably children couldn’t see the wc. The 20$/1950kes menu is embarrassing. This was my worst and more expensive dining experience in 3 years living in Kenya. The menu doesn’t offer any choice neither for starters or dessert. Starter is: old salad, 8 cold fusilli covered by tomato sauce (not a pasta salad, to be clear), bruschetta (this was an insult to Italian cuisine. It was one slice of toasted loaf bread). Dessert is “fresh” fruit cut. For the main you have to choose between some options (meat, fish, tomato sauce pasta) but the menu doesn’t explain how they are cooked and the waiters seemed very unsure about that. The portion was minimal and the food didn’t have any taste. It’s basically just a tourist menu. A scam. But keep in mind that we’re in 2022. People are getting more and more used to travel and to look for quality. Social medias are there and people look for good things, not average. Wake up, 1980 has passed. I have been here as I was taking 2 guests from my guesthouse and I was personally embarrassed by the low quality and low care of this place. The only advise is to go there for a beer. That’s it. Don’t take food and forget any lunch. Unless the management wakes up and decide to take care of the marvelous and unique place they own.

The view is really the only good memory I have of our lunchtime visit to this place. The meal was the one of worst I’ve had in any restaurant, the driest fish possible and really odd starters with no taste. We had a group of 10+ people and our local friends were referred to as “our drivers” by the staff. Even when we told them clearly we are all having the same menu, they did not serve the local people the same food .. as they are our “drivers” and not worthy of the same food as us tourists I suppose?! Really awful behaviour and service by the staff. And it took a lot of explaining and waiting for them to fix this issue. After all of this, they told us we needed to pay more as they had made a mistake when giving us the price the start. The whole thing seems like a scam to get tourists money as there aren’t many other options around. I would suggest avoiding this restaurant/pool area and heading to the viewpoint with your own picnic.