Hotel Dengan Spa di Kilifi, Kenya

Love this hotel! Paradise! Huge pool, amazing room, private beach! 2 fantastic restaurants including famous Lichthaus. Staff is very kind. Great reservations manager Eunice.

Overall, the hotel is good seeing that not many options in Malindi don’t have beachfronts. But maybe rates should be half the current one. We paid 200 USD per night per standard room for bed and breakfast, and we thought for what it is, it’s not worth it. We didn’t see the kind of services and amenities you’d expect from this price in Malindi. Also, breakfast was subpar for this kind of hotel and price. The breakfast wasn’t great and didn’t have many options. On my first breakfast I asked for Americano and they gave me cheap instant coffee. They replaced it with actual coffee when I told them this is bad instant coffee, but not sure why offer it in the first place. We had lunch there once and was good though. Also, for some reason they didn’t explain, we were not allowed to eat anything, even snacks, while sitting on the sun beds, only drinks allowed and if you want to eat you have to go to the restaurant or the beach bar. We thought that was unreasonably and unnecessarily restrictive. Like I wanted to chill on the sun beds while eating the desert I ordered from there, but they didn’t allow and were very insisting. They didn’t offer any explanation but “sorry, it’s not allowed.” Other beach bars and restaurants on the beach where we went to hang out allowed food while sitting on table/sun beds by the beach. Also, most hotels offer complimentary shuttle pick up from the airport (which is 12 minutes only away from the hotel). They don’t offer it for free and actually offer it at 6+ times more the market price (Uber and taxis charge 350 KES and, the hotel charges 2,000 KES.) On our first day, we seemed to be the only people at the hotel that are not there for the conference, upon arrival we went to the pool by the beach bar. We found it dirty, and full of dead flies and leaves. The staff were nice and responsive and cleaned it immediately, but why have this the pool like this until someone asks to clean it? They also say they have 5 pools (because there are pools in front of every set of four rooms) but the one in front of us was actually filthy. The water was dark and looked visibly not clean. If we asked, they would have probably cleaned it, but I’m not there to supervise and give instructions. I would’ve liked to just find things the way they’re supposed to be. These small things can be annoying though I wouldn’t say it ruined the experience, just made it a bit annoying. Like I’m coming to chill and relax without harming people, there’s no reason to “prevent” me from enjoying an ice cream while sitting watching the beach, have dirty pools, offer bad coffee…etc. we had a good experience overall and I still enjoyed my time, but I might consider other options for my next trip to Malindi seeing that it didn’t provide value for money, especially that most hotels’ rates were around one third of this one (but didn’t have beach fronts, which is probably the reason why).

Pros: Beautiful hotel built with it's locality at heart. The Swahili architecture in the rooms especially is top notch. Big, clean rooms with views and balcony. Great staff, Amisi at reception and George at the restaurant were exceptional. Kilifi itself is beautiful so would visit again. P/s - if you can, please visit the spa! Cons: Food was average (buffet dinner and breakfast). These have great room for improvement.

A very beautiful seaside hotel, run by an old Italian couple. It feels great to hike to the beach at low tide.

The room is very clean and the environment is good

The hotel is very comfortable and the hotel is very comfortable. Eating is OK... even if there is something to revisit especially in the variation of food and making fruit available... staff is very kind. The only sin is the organization for the entertainment of guests.. animation almost inexistent being a resort!