Lake Kivu Serena is a classic. It is very popular among visitors and residents of Rwanda alike. The property is beautiful with a private beach, green spaces, and of course the pool. The restaurant is good, if a little overpriced. Can't beat the location. Feels very secluded, even though the public beach is right nearby. There are a couple of walkable restaurants and places to visit outside of the property as well, including the waterfront road/walkway/park area.

Rooms are a bit dated and surprisingly small. The restaurants are quite expensive. A bit of overgrowth on one area of the property. Not much to complain about, but when you are paying a premium in the area, you tend to be a little more picky.

The rooms are big and comfortable, the bathroom is fully equipped, including the hair dryer. Everything is clean and the stuff is very helpful. The location is great. There's a beautiful view on the lake. The breakfast were amazing, with many choices even for people who can't consume any lactose. There's a soy milk option which made my day. The swimming pool is clean. I would definitely return back.

The hotel needs to improve the communication. I sent a message over booking right after reservation. I haven't heard from them. Next day i sent another one. I received a response after one week! I had to call the hotel. They said the booking team will contact me. Nobody called, I had to do the phone call again. I expect better service is this regard.

Excellent and caring staff - my husband injured his ankle and they found a stick for him to help him walk. Nice food - breakfast in particular was a highlight. Great facilities. Bar staff very attentive and nice.

Didn’t like being hassled by people trying to sell us boat trips every time we left the hotel. I recognise this is beyond the control of the staff but the location makes it impossible to avoid and not very pleasant, especially when I left the hotel alone. Noisy maintenance works made it hard to relax in the room in the afternoon. Housekeeping repeatedly knocked on the door before 10am (we should have put the do not disturb sign on, but did not realise we had to do it so early) plus a call from reception at 10am to ask why we had missed breakfast felt a bit much. There was a quite noisy event happening in the garden which meant the early evening dinner at the bar by the pool was not as peaceful as we would have liked.

Great location, great friendly staff and service.

Not sure it was down to the hotel or booking.com, but the two rooms we had booked were no longer available. The staff did their best to find a solution, with one room getting upgraded to a suite( no complaints there) but for the second room, it ended up being a very small room. As much as it was nice to have the suite, I would have preferred to have the 2 rooms we originally booked.

The balcony was nice and the view of the lake was great. The buffet breakfast has a lot of options and was tasty. The dinner buffet was quite overpriced ($30/adult) but you can order a la carte meals from the menu for a reasonable price. It was nice to have direct access to the lake and a bit of sand to enjoy. I was traveling with 2 young kids and enjoyed having a playground on the property. The location is good and you can walk to some nearby restaurants.

The room was a bit outdated and didn't seem to match the price. There didn't seem to be a place to refill reusable water bottles so we had to buy and waste a lot of plastic bottles throughout the weekend. The boat trip through the hotel was quite overpriced ($150/hour) so we had to leave the property for a more reasonably priced ride on the lake.

Everything was very good. Spa not yet open and no pool (not that it is warm enough for a pool anyway). Rooms lovely and big but a little bit too cool (atmosphere and temperature) Bed very comfortable Beautiful flowers and birds. Excellent food. Great location. Helpful and knowledgeable team.

Bit characterless

the hotel is very well located right on the beach and within walking distance of a few restaurants. it also has a pool which is nice for the hot days and each room has a balcony which is very nice. the hotel has a lot of amazing amenities and the staff are very helpful.

unfortunately on 1 of the nights there was an event where the music was very loud. this isn’t a usual occurrence though so shouldn’t impact your decision to go too much.

The breakfast was mindblowing, a super wide variety of fruit and fruit juices, continental breakfast, hot dishes, whatever you could possibly imagine, all available and in splendid quality.

The wifi did not work very well in our room, the lighting in the room was rather poor, and it was difficult to get fresh air into the room without inviting large swarms of mosquitos. Furthermore, once again, I really don't like carpet-covered floors...

The service was very good. Staff are really friendly and willing to assist. Room has great amenities and is clean. The food was good. Overall, I had a really good stay and got some time to relax and unwind.

Nothing

I loved the location and spacious grounds. The breakfast was very good.

Our rooms weren’t ready and we had to wait 2hours after check in time. We should have been at least offered a coffee and been attended to while we had to wait.