The first lodge ever to be built in a Kenyan National Park, Kilaguni Serena Safari Lodge is superbly situated in the lee of Mount Kilimanjaro, encircled by volcanic splendour, adjacent to a teeming water hole and daily visited by vast herds of elephant, buffalo and plains game. 

Inspirationally positioned so that not only all the rooms but also the open-air restaurant, timbered game-viewing decks and rock-built bar enjoy uninterrupted views of the legendary snows of Kilimanjaro, the lodge also stands central to miles of lion-stalked grasslands, elephant-studded plains and wildlife-teeming bush and is ideally placed for visits to all the park’s prime attractions. 

Faced in volcanic stone and utilising the natural rocky outcrops of a valley known as ‘the place of the young rhino’, from which it takes its name, the lodge has been designed to blend chameleon-like into the savannah landscape.  

Location

Tsavo lies some 232 kms from Nairobi and can be reached by road or air (three air strips). Kilaguni Serena Safari Lodge is located within 10 minutes drive of the main gate (off the Mombasa Road) and is equidistant between Nairobi and Mombasa. The lodge has its own airstrip. 

The Background

Theatre of the wild

The joint mass of Tsavo West and Tsavo East National Parks forms one of the largest national parks in the world and covers a massive 4% of Kenya’s total land area. Tsavo East, one of the last great wilderness landscapes on Earth, offers a vast arena of parched scrub and heat-shimmering bush, which is washed by the azure waters and emerald-fringed meanderings of the Galana River, guarded by the limitless lava reaches of the Yatta Plateau and patrolled by some of the largest elephant herds in the world. Tsavo West, land of lions and lava, is painted on a sprawling canvas of endless skies, emerald hills, liquid lava flows, palm-fringed rivers, teeming wildlife and sparkling oases, where rafts of hippo wallow, snort and blow in the crystal clear melt-waters of Mount Kilimanjaro. Kenya’s largest National Park supports all the members of the ‘Big Five’ as well as the country’s largest elephant population.  Tsavo achieved notoriety in the 1900’s when ‘the Man-eaters of Tsavo’, a pair of rogue man-eating lions, preyed gruesomely on the builders of the Uganda Railway. Today the Park is more famous for the numerous prides of mane-less lion that patrol the plains and police the herbivore herds.   

Wildlife highlights: elephant, lion, hippo, rhino, zebra, hartebeest, lesser kudu, eland, waterbuck, Grant’s gazelle, impala, gerenuk, giraffe, dik dik and klipspringer. Birds: 600 recorded species.

Accommodation

The lodge offers: 5 Suites and 56 Standard rooms (to include double rooms with king-sized beds and twin bedded rooms), triple rooms can also be requested.  

Dining and bars

The traditionally thatched, breeze-cooled dining room overlooks the Lodge’s action-packed water hole where lumbering herds of elephant, roving buffalo and playful zebra collect to drink whilst the guest menu features a sensitive blend of ethnic cuisine, internationally-themed dishes and traditional safari favourites.  

Child-friendly

Conference and event facilities

The Chyulu Conference Suite can accommodate: 90 guests classroom style and 103 guests theatre style. It also offers a smaller boardroom which will accommodate 36 guests boardroom style – the Conference Suite enjoys its own game viewing deck.

Facilities include: 

• State-of-the-art presentation facilities 
• To include: A full selection of projection TV, screen, video, video conferencing and audiovisual equipment. 
• Full Conference organisation service 
• To include: badges, registration desks, delegate packs, delegate services, specialist delegate gifts, secretarial back up and communication links, tailor-made itineraries, private safaris and individually planned and themed menus. 
• A full range of imaginative incentive packages and fully tailored accommodation packages is also available.
• Tsavo Weddings and Honeymoons 

Options Include:

• Wedding ceremony and reception on top of the volcanic mass of Lion Rock
• Wedding ceremony and reception at panoramic ‘Roaring Rocks’
• Champagne reception in the hotels own traditional bush camp. 
• Sumptuous floral arrangements, bouquets and buttonholes
• Private candle-lit honeymoon dinner for two
• Luxurious honeymoon Suite supplied with tropical fruit and chilled champagne
• Akamba cultural displays followed by dancing under the stars.
• A colourful range of guest entertainments.
• Photography and videoing of your special day.
• Special accommodation packages for the entire wedding party.

Special Occasions

Services include:

• Individually themed menus
• Bush dinners, starlit bars, bush breakfasts and poolside cocktails
• Entertaining under canvas – with campfires, hurricane lamps and safari cuisine.
• Specialist cocktails
• Private game drives and savannah picnics
• Champagne sundowners on the hilltop of your choice
• Live music, vivid cultural entertainment
• Dancing – inside or under the stars
• Floral decorations or culturally/colour coordinated style themes
• Individually styled guest gifts

Other facilities

Services include: Swimming pool, nature walks, bird watching and game drives. Extensively stocked Africana Gift Shop. Luxurious beauty treatments and toning massages.  Full housekeeping services (laundry, valet, babysitting, childrens’ menus and dining facilities, shoeshine etc). Express check-in/out. 24-hour Forex facilities. Full medical back-up and emergency evacuation facilities. All weather air-strip and well-maintained road network. A wide range of board games plus a full library of books on Africa

What to see and do

Highlights and special features

• Game Drives, nature walks and medicinal plant discovery

Experience the real safari – morning and afternoon game drives through the park with our trained driver-guides. Picnic lunches and sundowners can be provided. Tsavo offers some of the most magnificent game viewing in the world – vast herds of dust-red elephant, fat pods of hippo, giant crocodile, teeming herds of plains game, a fantasia of bird life and some magical flora.  All walks accompanied by Kenya Wildlife Service armed rangers. 

• Bush lunches and dinners 

Private ‘bush’ lunches and dinners can be arranged in the bush, complete with waiters, private bar and private BBQ cooking station, campfires and hurricane lamps. 

• Visits to the magic of Mzima Springs

The lush, hippo-inhabited pools of Mzima Springs, fed daily by 250 million litres of water gushing from the lava flows of the Chyulu hills, provide an oasis of green, an under-water hippo-viewing chamber, two nature trails and some unique picnic spots. 

The activities on offer at Kilaguni Serena Lodge include:

• The option of a magical, lamp-lit, bush dinner looking out over the distant splendour of the Chyulu Hills and the floodlit ‘theatre of the wild’ happening just beyond the glow of the campfire. 
• ‘Sundowners’  at ‘Roaring Rocks’, a volcanic crag where hyrax scamper and the sun goes down amongst the lilac shoals of a living volcanic arena. Also at ‘Poachers’ Lookout’ a conical hill with show-stopping park vistas. 
• Picnics and Nature trails, accompanied by the resident naturalists – to the peak of the adjacent ‘Five Sisters’ volcanic hills, up the cindered paths of the Chaimu Crater or around the hippo-heaving pools and nature-trails of Mzima springs. There are also tours of the petrified lava flows and echoing caves of the famous Shetani Lava Flow. 
• An evocative bush breakfast uniquely staged atop the volcanic rust-red mass of Lion Rock, once a hunting haunt of lions, with sweeping views over the wilderness the Park.  
• Akamba Tribal dancing and performances by local musicians. 
• ‘Wildlife and Wilderness’ talks by the resident naturalist. 
• Visits to the local Ngulia Rhino Sanctuary
• Catching up with the world via our communal satellite TV

Around and about

The Park is ideally situated for visits to the massive expanses of sister park, Tsavo East whilst the verdant Taita Hills and the volcanic eruptions of the Chyulu Hills are close by. World-renowned Amboseli National Park is also within easy reach. 

Sport and action

• Walking in the bush (accompanied by our resident naturalist)
• Climbing the Chaimu Crater, scrambling over the Shetani Lava Flow or scaling the gentle reaches of the Five Sisters Range.
• Discovering the brilliance of the local bird life
• Game viewing around our water hole
• Adventure game drives around the Tsavo eco-system
• Swimming in the cool of our peaceful pool
• Volleyball, table tennis, darts and pool table