Polana Serena Hotel

My favorite hotel! Love everything about it.

Gracious, luxurious old style hotel - outstanding service

The Polana is a beautiful colonial-era hotel. Staff are super friendly and breakfast is amazing. The renovated wing is very nice with all modern amenities but I think loses some of its historic charm, but just depends what you’re looking for!

I don’t really know how to rate this place. I stayed there twice in the past two weeks. It’s a beautiful old hotel with lots of charm, good food, friendly staff. But my room never had hot water. I informed the reception who sent someone to “fix” it but nothing changed. No apologies from management, no change of rooms nothing. This week I stayed there again. I wake up yesterday to find the whole main hotel in pitch darkness. Fire doors closed, lifts not working, air con off, room key cards not working, only lighting in passages a few small small tea lights. I nearly walked straight into a glass painting at the end of the passage it was so dark. We sat in that darkness for 10 hours. My phone went dead. My laptop died. Couldn’t do any work at all. Some lame excuse about the backup generator not working. For a 5 star hotel owned by one of the richest men in the world? Really? So - what did Mr Abishek Negi do to compensate us for this? He was around. He did nothing at all. No letter of apology, no offer of refunds, no free meal, not even a spa voucher. Nothing. Maybe he only does that for VIPs. I asked at reception what they were going to do and they just shake their heads. Nope. That’s not how you run a 5 star hotel, anywhere, ever.

Accommodations and facilities were very nice. If only the air conditioner worked better to cool the room and lessen humidity levels in the room it would have been ideal.

All the staff were very friendly and extremely helpful. Cannot blame the hotel for wind and rain for 4 days. Finding things to do was very limited. An excellent heated pool and spa included in the stay with treatments comparable to uk.

This is a gem in Maputo. From the minute you walk through the door the service and impeccable decor alike impress. The details in the decor is noticeable. Carefully crafted woodwork is all over also in the rooms. Has really been a treat to stay here.

This is one of the best hotels we’ve stayed at, the history, beautiful building and fittings, views, cleanliness, friendly staff, best breakfasts ever.

It was amazing.

The place is beautiful to stay in, with a good ambience. However, it seems their standards are slipping - their cleaning service is really slow, e.g. still cleaning rooms at 16h00 in the afternoon. The quality of their food is also not what I was used to, unimaginative evening buffet, room service delivering cold food (I had the most horrible club sandwich in a long time using room service) or items missing. The potential is there and it should not be difficult to get it back to the high standard it used to be just a year ago. It is not much, just attention to the small details that is required.