Samuka Island Retreat

Beautiful and serene place. The lake views are unbelievable. The manager Micheal and the rest of his stuff went above and beyond to make our stay memorable.

Recently, I stayed at the island retreat and I recommend it for a day trip only. The egret birds are very interesting but come with a great deal of birdpoop and an awful lot of small flying insects that are hard to keep out of your eyes. The receptionist was full of attitude, reluctant to show me the room, charged me upfront for all accommodation/boat to and from the island. She then took more than one hour to prepare only a pot of tea. There was a lot of noise from lawnmowers etc. I was then told a party of 50 diplomats were going to visit the island; only discovered this when I was already on the island. In response I said I wanted to cut my two nights short to only one night. They were reluctant to give me my money back and tried to charge me 100,000 Shillings extra for the boat back. In the end I did get my money back but discovered they had charged me higher prices for drinks and food than were on the menu that was presented/Whatsapped to me (it already included VAT so that was not the reason why). I never got the money back despite WhatsApping the manager. Overall, too expensive, over-rated and they try to rip you off.

Samuka Island Resort is a GREAT place to stay, but one has to be aware of both the environment AND what it take to get there.