I spend too many bed nights every year in Luxury Hotels to be easily overwhelmed and my jaded hotel experiences dont lend themselves to an ecstatic review. This is the exception. The new Emakoko Safari Lodge, neatly juxtapositioned between Nairobi airport and the town is something very very special. Small, very luxurious and ideally positioned on the edge of the Nairobi Game Park it is the ideal start to a safari holiday or break if you are working in Nairobi.
The hosts, Emma and Anthony Childs, are experienced safari camp mnagers enthused by their own lodge, The food is excellent. Coming off the late London BA flight, we were greeted by a wonderful soup and cold antipasto. Next day breakfast and dinner were simple but to a rather higher standard than we have found in other game lodges, The individual chalets were enormous and looked out over the Nairobi Game Park. Everything was of a high standard and all of the staff were friendly and efficient. The Nairobi Game Park is generally underestimated. Emma and Anthony's knowledgable guide pointed us to a very wide variety of animals. The park is compact and affords an ideal first safari experience. We.have stayed at The Giraffe Manor and Waine;s before. Both are good but this is something else. We cannot recommend it too highly.

When we have travelled to Kenya in the past, as the BA flight arrives very late at night, we have generally spent the night at one the hotels in the city centre. On this occasion we decided to give the Emakoko a try. It has just opened (we were the third guests !) and is a luxury lodge right on the edge of the Nairobi National Park. In fact, access to the lodge is through the park so we started with 30 minute night drive from the airport and, the following morning, we had a morning drive en route to Wilson airport. One of the reasons we chose the Emakoko is that we needed a day room on our final day and wanted to stay somewhere a little different as we have already visited the Giraffe centre, Daphne Sheldrick etc …



The lodge had just opened with five rooms complete and the rest due for completion in the next few weeks. The rooms are all individually constructed to a very high standard and the site very big. The food was excellent and there will be a swimming pool ready for use in the next few days.

It has been thirty years since I have been to Nairobi National Park and had low expectations. Our experience massively exceeded expectations. On our morning drive to Wilson airport we saw three white rhinos and a male lion and on our afternoon drive, two black rhino and another lion. There was also a lot of plains game – mainly zebra, buffalo, giraffe, gazelle and hartebeest.

Emma Childs and Anton Walker are excellent hosts and have invested a lot of time and money in what is quite a brave venture – it deserves to succeed and I really hope it does. It offers a different experience to Giraffe Manor / Ngong House and will be our regular Nairobi stopover on return visits.

We have been to Kenya Several times and thought we would give this new place a go. I must say we were blown away by everything, it felt like you were in the middle of the bush straight away. The rooms are enormous and the food was wonderful, the entire setting was lovely. We fell asleep to lions roaring accross the river and on the way to the airport to catch our mara flight we came accross one of the lions and three white rhinos.
Although it is very new the staff all felt like they had been there for years the hospitality was wonderful. Will definitely use Emakoko next time.