Review: Urban By CityBlue Hotel Kigali, Rwanda
Intro
During my stint in Kigali, I had the opportunity to try out two different hotels, and one of them really impressed me. Kigali is a cool place, as you can find a cheap hotel for 30 (ish) USD per night, a medium-priced hotel for around 90$, and, of course, a top hotel which is well north of a couple hundred bucks.
Checking out from my previous hotel and walking around the city, I stumbled across this chic-looking hotel: Urban by CityBlue.
Price+Location
Located a couple of minutes from downtown and about a 15-minute drive from the airport lies this magnificent property. From the outside it doesn't look like much at all, perhaps worn down or old comes to mind. However, for the price of 68$ per night, this is one of the best hotels I stayed at during my tour of Africa.
Side note: I was able to haggle them down to 60$ for my one-night stay in person. If you want to take that chance, it's a possibility 😅.
Rooms
Once checking in, having my passport scanned, and the staff taking a hold of my credit card, I was shown to my room. The boutique hotel features no more than 50-70 rooms, spanning 5 floors with 10-12 rooms per floor. While slightly on the older spectrum, the bedrooms were well-appointed and extremely spacious. Unfortunately, they only had suites left and had to give me a free upgrade 😉 (how will I ever survive). And the bed was over-the-top comfy; I slept like an absolute baby that had just fallen from heaven the night prior.
Okay, but that TV seems extremely odd just sitting in the middle, right? However, I would say it's actually quite functional as it swivels around depending on whether you want to sit on the couch or in bed. A neat design in the end...
Moving on, there was a very large en-suite bathroom. It wasn't over-the-top luxurious, but it featured all the necessities as well as frequent hot water (which I was grateful to have since the last week had been very inconsistent).
A toothbrush and toothpaste were provided to guests.
Dining
To me, there were two parts of the hotel that were overly impressive. Number one was the dining, and number two was the service (especially in the restaurant). The Urban hotels serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner and are open from 6:30 am-10 pm daily.
The food pricing is relatively reasonable; this chicken alfredo pictured below was around about 10$, while a local beer (Skol) is around 3$. It's definitely cheaper, but for a tourist spot, it wasn't bad.
Breakfast (around 8$) is laid out with a buffet so that before you depart on your expedition for the day, you can feel fully stocked up.
Amenities/Service
Unfortunately, the hotel needs to improve its amenities. While they do offer free wifi to guests, it's a shame that there is no gym or swimming pool on their premises. If they were able to incorporate a pool and refresh the rooms, this would be a top hotel.
In terms of service, this is the aspect which really impressed me. It wasn't necessarily certain interactions, but it was the overall level of service. All of the servers in the restaurant were lovely to talk to and even provided recommendations of what to do in their country. At the reception, they offered to grab me a taxi or a motorbike whenever I was heading out, and always with a smile on their face. 🤟🙂
Final Thoughts
If you are planning on heading to Kigali and are looking for a decent place to stay that is relatively affordable, I highly recommend Urban by CityBlue Hotel. With comfortable rooms, good pricing, delicious food, and amazing service, I promise you will have a pleasant stay. Just don't expect to have an Olympic-sized swimming pool, though, as it isn't that type of property.
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