can anyone recommend any good nightclubs in diani beach area please as i've searched online but not much coming up! i assume there is a lot of nightlife in the area? thank you!
How you define "good" may be the key to the question. We have only one real nightclub that I would recommend to a civilized person. That is Shakatak and it is located on the beach road about 4 km south of the Nakumatt superstore. It is undoubtedly a pick up joint with plenty of "business ladies" prowling around and plenty of old men looking for company. But, in its defense, it is a well laid out and comfortable club, and surprisingly tidy, including the toilets. There is a disco that you pay around 2 euros to enter, but if you don't want to go inside, you can relax in the lounge/restaurant area which is quiet thanks to the soundproof doors on the disco. You can buy quite decent food all night there.
Shakatak is a very late hours club, with few people arriving before midnight. Many Shakatak patrons like to go to a neighbouring pub called Tandoori before moving over to Shakatak. It is really an outdoor pub although there is a rather leaky thatched roof. The toilets are hell. The drinks are only slightly cheaper which in my opinion doesn't compensate for its other shortcomings. You may find it amusing to check out anyway.
There is also a lovely beach bar called 40 thieves which usually plays music and draws a young crowd on Friday and Saturday nights. Its About 2km south from Nakumatt Supermarket, right next to Diani Marine. Hope this helps.
We first went to Shakatak when we were much younger with Kenyan friends and the animation team of the hotel and in the 90's and remember getting my hand stamped with a black marker.
In those days it took us back to the sixties but obviously things move on and we have not been for a LOT of years'!!
There used to be a Bush Baby night Club but that may be closed - correct me if I am wrong Christopher and also Blue Moon.
As the above poster has said forty thieves is about only the other reasonable place on the Diani Coast - in fact I can't think of any more reasonable places.
Hi yes Bush Bar closed together with Blue Moon - I have been reading that Nomads seem to have started Sounds on the beach on fridays, starts at 5pm so cant really think it would be club type music??? But good place for a drink. Another place to start the night off, again not a club is Madafoos beach Bar. Hope it helps - Have a very good hol
wow i thought there would be loads of places is it a quiet place to go generally? thanks so much for the suggestions though really appreciate it! will check those out! :)
Bush Baby was one of the locations where The White Maasai was filmed and sadly yes, it is long gone. Re Forty Thieves, I consider it more of a beach bar/sports bar than a night club. You may find a crowd on some nights but on other nights it can be desolate after 9 or 10. It is the main gathering place for moneyed British expats, which may be what you want, or what you are trying to get away from! Africans have been visiting the place much less since the owner hiked beer prices steeply two years ago. Forty Thieves also gets a lot of mosquitos if the sea breeze drops.
I may as well mention Ushago though it is not a real night club either. It is near Forties and has lots of comfy couches. It is really only busy when there is football on, but on quiet nights it can close as early as 11 or 11:30.
Diani is definitely quieter than the North Coast. Shakatak and Tandoori are the only true all-night joints that are guaranteed to have crowds.
If you want an adventure, you could check out the clubs in Ukunda that cater mainly to Africans. The main junction has several glitzy new places that will welcome you without any hassles. Club Masai, which is an older establishment and an institution there, is a bit more edgy. You may want the company of a Kenyan friend if you go.
I think you should be prepared for the South Coast being very quiet, it was always quieter than the North Coast, even after the UK package tour companies switched their customers from the North Coast to the cheaper South Coast, but now Thomson / First Choice have pulled out completely I'm told by people in the tourist business and friends who have been across to the South Coast on business a few times recently that it is like a ghost town and white faces are few and far between.
Sadly the normally busier North Coast has been very, very quiet even during what would normally be the peak time for European visitors This was the tourist beach mid afternoon on a Friday in late August.
In my personal opinion I would not say that the South Coast Hotels are any cheaper than the North Coast Hotels.
Some on the North Coast we would never touch and some on the South Coast are expensive and some cheaper - I would say like for like.
That is why we go to the South Coast as we like it quiet and ever since we have been going out since 1995 it has remained the same.
From friends and locals we have contact with it is like a ghost town (South Coast) and many of the locals are looking for work and have got work in Nairobi.
Thankfully the hotel we have gone to for 39 times Southern Palms Beach Resort is holding its clients with around 250 to 300 at the moment.
We have visited the North coast many times and looked at hotels there but always opt for 'our second home' Southern Palms. The sister hotel Bamburi on the North we will not go to.
That is my personal opinion as a holiday maker going to an hotel and not a Kenyan resident.
Nightlife has always been quiet on the South coast since we went out in 1995.
Edited: 9 years ago"Thankfully the hotel we have gone to for 39 times Southern Palms Beach Resort is holding its clients with around 250 to 300 at the moment".
I take it these are domestic tourists, I doubt if there are 250-300 wazungu on the whole of the south coast at this time.
From what I can gather the hotel does get a good number of locals from Nairobi when a public holiday but there are still a lot of Germans, Dutch, Russian and also the French Ambassodor lifted the ban when we traveled back on a new dreamliner launched in Nairobi to Charles De Gaulle in May.
When we were out in May the last of the tourists had been airlifted home on the Friday before we arrived but there were guests at the hotel (British) who refused to go and made their own arrangements to fly back to UK
There were around about 120 guests when we were there - sometimes numbers going up and down but as not peak season there are always less guests than September but perhaps a bit more!!
As far as I know their heads are above water but we shall see ourselves when we go out again.
We did actually go out the hotel and did see white faces around especially at the main shopping center but not as many as usual.
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