Arusha Planet Lodge

We stayed here before and after a safari whilst we relaxed and spent some time exploring the Meru /Arusha area. We also met up with some friends. Getting about was a little tricky as you can't walk anywhere easily from Planet lodge. However the hotel runs a complimentary shuttle bus into Arusha daily, and we gained confidence using the Dalla dalla(local bus).We enjoyed walking around the slopes of Mount Meru and reached the waterfall with the help of a local guide. We also visited a local school known as Fareson school based in Moshono. This vision needs/deserves all the support anyone can give. We loved every minute in Tanzania,from the outstanding landscapes and wildlife, to the warm and charming people we met. We will be returning as soon as we can.

A quiet oasis away from the hubbub of Arusha. Lovely gardens, nest pool. Excellent price.

My wife and I stayed here for a night after our safari before we flew out of Arusha. Unfortunately, it was a sharp contrast to the accommodations we had stayed at during our safari. We had no issues with any of the food during our 6 days out on safari but after eating dinner here at the Planet Lodge, we both immediately felt nauseous and ended up taking cipro. Given that there are no other places to eat around this hotel, I'd warn travelers to take this into consideration. Additionally, the concierge tried to rip us off when we tried to buy postage stamps to send two postcards back to ourselves and our family. The cost of sending an international postcard is 1600 Tanzanian Shillings (TSH). The concierge tried to sell us four 600 TSH stamps for $1 each and then told us we only needed to put 1200 TSH on each postcard. During our stay, the exchange rate was $1 USD to 2167 TSH. Our $4 could have bought at least 8668 TSH of postage instead of just 2400TSH. So not only did he try to overcharge us for the stamps, but our postcards wouldn't have made it home due to insufficient postage. When I confronted him on the disparity, he tried to laugh it off before I asked for my money back. Some people might think, it's just a $1 or two, but it's the principle. Just because you're a tourist, doesn't mean you should get ripped off. We had written our memories on those postcards and they would've been lost forever because of his greed and indifference.

Nice quiet hotel set in lovely grounds. Friendly and helpful staff. Spacious rooms but no tea making facility. Food not very exciting. Local menu is better. Good choice at breakfast but predictable if a long stay. Very well priced. Would definitely return.

great place outside arusha. the staff wee excellent. and either i was lucky, but the wifi was very good (limited to lounge area fro free) and able to upload my pics to cloud quickly, or not alot of people were using it at the same time. i was leaving for airport early, they mad sure i had a good breakfast even if it was before the scheduled time.

We were waiting to join a safari.

A gorgeous property!!! Don't be deterred by the location. I was looking for a hotel close to the city center but those simply don't exist. Arusha is spread out and all decent hotels are 5-10 miles outside of town. This was a very clean, friendly, beautiful hotel. Very good service, lovely rooms (AC, mosquito net, balcony, pool, tv, wifi). I wouldn't hesitate to stay here again.

The Lodge is located in a very scenic location with an excellent (distant) view of Mt Meru. The gardens are soothing to stroll in. Staff is humorous and very accomodating.

I had to give Planet Lodge a poor rating. I made reservations weeks ago on hotels.com, and less then 48 hours before I arrived I got an email ( while traveling to TZ) that they had overbooked!! I had three rooms booked, and now they were somehow not available. This put me into a huge panic, because I was leading a trip to TZ and this was our first stop. They ended up booking us into another hotel, but it was a very confusing difficult change! The other hotel was wonderful, but the meals were much more expensive, and they were fixed price, so I was stuck paying the higher bill for the dinner. I had picked Planet Lodge after much research, I wanted a place where we could see the mountains, our new hotel was deep in the forest, with no view at all. It may be a wonderful hotel, but if you can not be 100% sure your reservation will be honored, do bother booking!

Large clean rooms. Great breakfast. Grounds well kept with nice pool. Food's on the expensive side but tasty. The hotel is not near much so stock up on water before you get there.