1 Uke Street, Garki II, Abuja, Nigeria
Amenities:
Air Conditioning, Airport Transportation, Business Center, Concierge, Conference Center, Fitness Center, Free Breakfast, Free High-Speed Internet, Free Parking, In-room safe, Internet, Kitchenette, Meeting Rooms, Microwave, Non-Smoking, Parking, Refrigerator in room, Restaurant, Room Service, Salon, Shuttle Bus Service, Smoking Rooms Available, Suites, Swimming Pool, Wifi
Expert Review
Hawthorn Suites is in Garki, just southeast of the city in a middle class neighborhood. It's a safe and fairly...
Hawthorn Suites is in Garki, just southeast of the city in a middle class neighborhood. It’s a safe and fairly quiet area, and there’s decent access to the central business district from here, but most hotels and restaurants focused on western sensibilities are west of the city in Wuse. From the hotel, it’s about a 20-minute drive to most of those waypoints.
The Hawthorn Suites brand is Wyndham’s answer to longer-term stays, and this property sticks to that charter. All of the 106 rooms are spacious, with some portioned into “suites” by a break in the wall and some completely separated into distinct rooms. Single rooms have a sitting area with a couch, desk, sink, refrigerator and microwave. There’s a fairly large flat-screen TV with a dozen channels (several in Arabic) that you’ll have to physically pick up and rotate if you want to watch it in bed, free low-medium speed internet pulsing through the rooms, and two a/c units keeping everything ice-cold. Inside the bathrooms, the hotel has invested in high-tech Jacuzzi bathtubs, a pleasant surprise in a country where hot water isn’t always guaranteed.
Strangely, all of the lights in the rooms are low-watt fluorescent bulbs, and even with all of the lights turned on the rooms feel a little dark. Perhaps because of the large room size there are also a great deal of light switches – 16 in my case – which made turning down the room for the evening rather confusing. Those same fluorescent lights are in many parts of the hotel; the downstairs restaurant area felt more like evening than morning when breakfast was served.
Outside of the rooms, the Hawthorn Suites has a very nice outdoor pool at the center of the property that cascades onto multiple levels. Adjacent to that and in separate building there is a large gym with a trainer, and a dilapidated beauty salon.
If you don’t mind the strange lighting and can take advantage of the pool, the Hawthorn Suites is a pretty decent place. Though the desk staff are a little obtuse, the bell staff are friendly and efficient, and they’ll do their best to make sure you get around the city fluidly. You’ll need it – it’s a moderate commute to the central business district.