Palmwood Lodge

“The room choice is important”

This is a good place to stay if you need an overnight stop over in Lusaka. Pleasant grounds, good swimming pool, good food at reasonable prices. However, some of the rooms are quite basic, and in need of a refurbishment. When we returned to the lodge after our South Luangwa safari, there were a cou… more

This is a good place to stay if you need an overnight stop over in Lusaka. Pleasant grounds, good swimming pool, good food at reasonable prices. However, some of the rooms are quite basic, and in need of a refurbishment. When we returned to the lodge after our South Luangwa safari, there were a couple of conferences booked in, so we were upgraded to a suite with kitchen facilities, which was a much more modern room. We had problems with no water for showers on a couple of occasions, which did take up to an hour each time for them to sort out.

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“Nice gardens.”

Stayed here for four nights. Good location for Ng'ombe visit. Nice friendly helpful staff. Room fine. Problem with lack of water and dinner service on our last evening. Training need evident for restaurant staff. Breakfast fine

“Lacking but so much potential”

Ok. First, the good things. Location is good. Grounds are pretty. Rooms are adequate, as are beds, linens, and storage. Wifi sucks at best. I used Sprint's partner's 3g and got far better service than the wifi at any point provided anywhere on grounds. Hot water. Maybe that should be a que… more

Ok. First, the good things. Location is good. Grounds are pretty. Rooms are adequate, as are beds, linens, and storage. Wifi sucks at best. I used Sprint's partner's 3g and got far better service than the wifi at any point provided anywhere on grounds. Hot water. Maybe that should be a question. I get it with rolling blackouts, etc. but when there is one go re-set the pump motors, etc. But that was not the only reason there often was none. You should not have to get hot water running in your sink first in order to get it in the shower, but often that was the trick to get any. Temps ranged from 'on the sun' to 'Antarctic' via a hairline spot on the dials and once you had it you likely ran out of hot water within minutes. And if the pump goes off there is literally NO water that comes out of the hot water pipe. And the cold water is frigid. Not like 'oh, I want hot water', but like 'if I get in there I'll get hypothermia.' We had good water *pressure* one day - the first day, and for one of us only on the last night. Other than that, when there was hot water, it was literally dripping -- barely enough pressure or even water coming out to get shampoo out of your hair. This really sucked. Lots of apologies, but nothing seeming to fix anything despite numerous calls, etc. A group of 7 of us was to have the 'house'. But they let people stay over. This is a common issue, it seems. So they tried to hose us and charge us different rates and put is in other rooms. One couple had to threaten to leave for them to magically honor the original deal they could not honor by letting others stay past their allotted time when we had re-confirmed this numerous times. Bad management. Breakfast was ok. No complaints. Buffet style and they'll make you omelettes or eggs however you want them. Overall pretty quick. Again, property is nice. Nice garden area to walk through and, sometimes, chairs and a table to sit at. One annoyance, they sweep every morning. They do take pride in the property. Gotta get those flower petals swept up. Starting at 6am. Windows open.. sweep, sweep, sweep. Seriously. Business management / staff were not professional and unhelpful. Other staff (restaurant, porter, guy who brings you towels/pillows when you call, groundskeepers) went out of their way to be nice, polite, and helpful.

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