Location on the lake beautiful gardens . Excellent food. Friendly and helpful staff during our stay.

We stayed over the weekend when there was several large weddings on nearby.It was very noisy with loud music being played at the hotel and wedding venues from mid morning to the early hours of the morning. The bedrooms are very dated and could do with a refurbishment.We thought there was fridges in all the rooms but there wasn’t. Before our stay I had messaged and emailed the hotel through Booking .com and privately and no reply. I ended up having to phone from the UK.

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 location by the lake makes it a perfect hotel for those who like to swim.It has a private beech. the breakfast was amazing with various options . there were plenty of space to walk outside.

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.

It has a beautiful ambience and a nice view of the lake ..the greens are lovely

It was unfortunate that the swimming pool was out of order as that was one of the main reasons for visiting the pace

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.

Quality does not tolerate compromises. Kivu Serena is a juwel in Gisenyi. The variety of the breakfast buffet is hardly to be competed. The garden and private acces to lake Kivu as well as the Pool are unbeatable assets

NA

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.

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 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.