Summerset Continental Hotel Maitama

polite and very effective staff

Do not go! This is a scam! Do not go! Ive been in Nigeria for a week and my husband and I spent a day looking looking for it and it does not exist. Its in a super rural area versus a developed area for tourists. None of these pictures are of a hotel with this name in Abuja. I am from New York and dont mind being apart of any culture. I dont like being lied to. Dont waste your time or even a cent of your money here.

Somerset Hotel, Abuja – Short Summary Not worth the money. It’s advertised as a 5-star hotel — most likely self-rated, which is not uncommon in Abuja — but don’t arrive with 5-star expectations unless you enjoy a good disappointment. Breakfast ordering is an endurance test (an omelette with chilli defeated the system). Orange juice is free; coffee or tea is a paid upgrade — and an ordeal. There’s no buffet, so bring your laptop to get some work done, or a book to pass the time while breakfast eventually appears. Average waiting time: 20–30 minutes. Day 2: I ordered orange juice and the Somerset version of a Full English, only to be told they had run out of orange juice… and there were no sausages either. At this point it became comical. They were happy to serve fries for breakfast — a first for me. I could have murdered for some fruit, but no apple, no banana… nothing. Ppl They don’t accept international cards, and you can’t charge to your room either (apparently these are two separate planets). Bring cash — or go hungry. The room safe doesn’t work. It was “fixed” once, and now it won’t open again. Thank God I didn’t put anything inside, otherwise my valuables would have been lost forever. I woke up wondering why my eyes were sore and red — mystery solved: the AC fires directly at the head of the bed. The direction can’t be adjusted, and after every power cut (several per day) it resets to full Arctic blast. Travelling home, my eyes will look like two red traffic lights. Rooms are dated — and opening the door sounds like a demolition job 😅 (see video). I asked them to clean the pool as it looked cloudy/muggy, which suggested a lack of chlorine. They did something, but it returned to the same state within a couple of days. I lost trust in it and didn’t use it. Noise from a nearby bar is included. So is pool music — which you then get to enjoy again at breakfast, pumping bass through the restaurant. Add “calm” background music on top, plus the high-pitched screaming of staff watching videos during working hours, and you get three different soundtracks at once. You don’t need misophonia for that to drive you bonkers 😜 All that said, the staff genuinely try their best. It’s a shame they’re not given proper training, as the service often feels clumsy and inconsistent. The hotel does not provide ironing boards — presumably to boost the in-house laundry business — which, to be fair, is very efficient and returns laundry/pressing quickly. Very good. Unfortunately, no dry-cleaning service. More on the rooms: I changed rooms to get one with a door that actually worked and a safe that opened. The safe itself is lightweight, carried in by a hotel employee, and not fixed in position. The room also did not come with a desk, and most wall plugs were blocked by the headboard — which is impressively impractical.