Watamu Bay Ora Resort

The Ora website map has the hotel positioned within walking distance of Watamu. This was a deciding factor in choosing the hotel as Turtle bay has magnificent snorkelling and numerous good restaurants and bars. Plus I had friends staying in the area. The truth is... The hotel is a long way towards Malindi on a very bad dirt road with NO adjacent facilities. I.e when you're in the hotel, there is really nowhere else to go. Finding the hotel was again an issue. I used the map from their website and google maps on my phone, only to find myself driving round in circles. I tried calling the numbers on the website but none were active. On finally reaching the hotel I pointed this out to the Italian lady that greeted us, only to be met with indifference. The map on their site is truly misleading and I would not have booked if I had known the reality. On Checking into the room we discovered that the curtains were too small to cover the windows. We had to rig up cushions and pin the curtains together with safety pins. Nearly $400 a night? What a joke. I was booked all inclusive. You should ask them what that means because it"s certainly not my idea of what all inclusive is. We asked for an extra blanket or bed sheet only to be told they didn't have any. The food was at best mediocre and sometimes (for example prawns that were not cleaned and powdery) inedible. That's got to be the first time I've gone away for Christmas and NOT put on weight. All in all not a nice experience. What a shame.

perfect for honeymooners!...i recently took a weekend and visited Ora resort in he North of Mombasa ,i would admit that Watamu Bay is so far the most beautiful resort i have been to this year....its neat /clean,breathtaking white sandy and un crowded beach...almost private....great staff....great service and above all...i am in love with the beds...very comfortable and the general design of the Villas is just awesome.....ill definitely go back and send more tourists to Ora!

Been there July this year (2012) and must say I actually enjoyed it. Food was not of the best and the wine was watered down. Other than that, staff were great and the tours we went on were excellent. Great for relaxation and winding down. It is windy but still warm enough to take a plunge in one of the two pools or the ocean. They do however have to improve on their wine, food and TV channels.

Food crap (unless you like pasta and more pasta). TV crap & repeats, beach revolting, nothing to do when it rains and no shelter either. Staff good, management crap, rooms crap. Very, very windy and little shade. Kudu Travel tours crap. We cancel one tour and are still waiting for our money back. Go at your peril. Viv and Linda Nethercott

great spacious clean rooms. good staff. nice beach. however, the food is a little bit of a problem. especially if you are vegetarian. need to tell them in advance and insist that you get veg food. a 2 types of inclusive packages soft - only soft drinks by glass are included. and all - all local alcohol plus soft drinks all by the glass are included. as it is fairly new, there are some teething problems but they are working their hardest to get everything under way. only thing is it is quite far from the main road.

On the beach, windy, staff very helpful, food not good. No water sports at hotel

To get to Watamu Bay you need to drive 10km past the Gede Junction (if you are coming from Mombasa) and you will find a sign for the hotel. You then turn off the road to the right and crive 10km on a marram road to reach the hotel. You will pass Twiga Hotel, Jacaranda Hotel and a couple of other Italian properties before reaching Watamu Bay. We went during low season and so were not expecting to find many people there. We were welcomed nicely with a warm towel and a welcome drink before being shown to our rooms. The hotel has a childrens club, spa as well as 2 pools and 2 bars. The swimming pools are large and are salt water (much better for you than chlorine and don't make blonde hair turn green). The rooms are very nice, bult in rondavel cottage style, 2 rooms down and in some 2 rooms up as well. The rooms are modern and have a double bed and a sofa which pulls out into another double bed, they have AC, fridge and most have television with a few channels (CNN, Nat Geo Wild, Sport and a couple of Italian channels). The bathrooms have anice shower, bidet and toilet. The restaurant offers buffet normally but due to small numbers of guests the hotel had advised us in advance that the menu would be table d'hote. We had a selection of 4 starters, 4 antipasta, 4 main courses and a desert for lunch and dinner. Portions are large and filling. Breakfast was a buffet with a selction of cereals, fruit, pastries, cheese, ham, sausage, beans and eggs of yoru choice - so plenty to satusfy everyone. The hotel has a promande along the seafront and a beach area located at one end of the property. We did not find any animation going on but hardly surprising with only 10 people but that didn't stop the kids from organising there own games. We enjoyed ourselves immensly.

Det er utroligt man kan pladsere et hotel for enden af en 7 km. utrolig vanskellig farbar jord vej ved en strand det næsten er umugligt at bade fra p.g.a. døde koraler med skarpe kanter og tide vandet. Desuden de få t-v kanaler man kan se er for det meste syncroniseret med italiensk tale og wifi dyrt, langsomt og ustabilt. Udvalget i restauranten yderst sparsomt og absolut ikke noget at skrive hjem om . Vi forlod hotellet efter 3 dage selvom vi havde forudbetalt for 5 og ikke kunne få refundet noget.Flot hotel fra 2010, ejet a 4 italienere, vi var så godt som de eneste gæster i et hotel med plads til flere hunderede? Det er fordi det eruden for sæsonen sagde man!

A wonderful hotel and I Loved the ambience and the hospitality from the staff.The management was handy to help.The only thing they have to find ways of improving their access road which was unfortunately poor.

It is tough to know where to start with the short comings of this property. We had a clear booking that stated All Inclusive which the Hotel refused to honor saying that they only did some kind of soft inclusive package. This meant that even a bottle of water from the bar was charged, and over charged for, which bearing in mind the water from the tap is undrinkable starts to get very expensive. Add to that they have a captive clientele and the prices at the bar were outrageous. The hotel advertises 2 pools and 2 restaurants, 1 of each was closed. The hotel is in the middle of nowhere so even popping out to the shops for a few sundries was impracticable. It did not help that we were the only paying guests at the hotel so the staff couldn't be bothered with us. The stairs to get to the beach were like a mirror they were so slippery, there was no warning of this and my wife slipped and hurt herself quite badly, when informed of this the Manager, Stefano, who I have to say was one of the most arrogant people I have ever met, barely apologized. He also made no attempt to address the other complaints we had about the hotel. The food was quite simply inedible. Breakfast is almost nonexistent with stale cereals, lukewarm coffee made in one batch at 6.30am, almost no hot buffet, (burnt sausage and fried cabbage??) You are obliged to order your lunch and dinner at 9am from a very limited selection, (same selection for lunch and dinner,) and the menu is exactly the same every day for your whole stay. The low point of the trip was being served a chicken curry with raw chicken. Even though we were prepaid for 5 days, things were so bad we left after the 4th day and checked into a better hotel. I was not going to have my holiday completely ruined at this hotel.