Sophia Hotel

A clean, safe place for the price, and the staff work hard and are friendly. James at reception and kaka ally in the kitchen deserve a mention. The location is good too, so I’d recommend the hotel.

Our room faced the Mosque, and it was still incredibly noisy at 10pm. We had a 4am flight and couldn’t get to sleep. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who needs to rest before a flight.

I didn’t get the room I’d booked on booking, but what I got was good enough. The service was great, especially Farad. Staff can help order from different restaurants and bring the food to your room if you want. The AC worked well. It was $18-20 a night with air conditioning and a very light breakfast of toast and coffee.

The location is very central, with a good city view, but it’s loud. Rooms near the breakfast area also get noisy from around 6am. My first stay had a bedside table with something sticky all over it. This time, they had to call someone at the front desk to check whether my airport taxi had actually been booked. When I’d told them the day before that my flight was at 11pm the following day, I said I’d give them the pickup time when I checked out. But at 5:30 in the morning, someone knocked on my door about the taxi. I assume they took 11 to mean 5 in Swahili time, but that still makes me wonder whether they’d listened, since a 5am flight would need pickup before 5:30. They should also expect a European visitor might not give the time in Swahili. When I left my bags for the day, they stapled a paper tag to them to mark them as mine. The holes were small, but why damage someone’s belongings? They left the bags in an open area by reception, and I don’t think anyone was there the whole time. The stay itself wasn’t too bad, but the damaged bags and taxi confusion soured the end.