Secluded, private, a haven of silence and beauty! (The Cove Retreat Treehouses (Kenya))

Member Name: cdsmiler81

Product:	The Cove Retreat Treehouses (Kenya)
Date:	26/10/09 (30 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Food, Staff, Tree house rooms, private beach, gorgeous pool - EVERYTHING!

Disadvantages: Apart from the fact that we can't afford to go back every year, nothing!

The Cove Retreat was where we spent the final 6 days of our two week honeymoon in Kenya. After a long (and brilliant!) 8 day safari covering much of Kenya, we eventually made it to Mombassa to our unique little hotel.

However, because The Cove Retreat is so small, secluded, private and exclusive, we were almost 2 hours late arriving there as our driver had never been there before, and his head office wasn't 100% sure where it was either! Eventually, one of the other drivers from his company (who were fortunately based in Mombassa itself!) came out to show us the way. Phew!

Because of the location of The Cove Retreat, we ended up off the main road that travels through the busy bustling resort of Mombassa, and the last 20 minutes of our drive was over bumpy less developed tracks. Eventually we made it to The Cove! No wonder it was hard to find - it was outside the main resort completely, and there's no garish neon hotel sign indicating its location. All you see on the outside is a wooden fence and gate!

This all may sound very odd at the moment, but trust me when I say that this is the beauty of The Cove. It really is a retreat! You're miles away from all the touristy areas of Mombassa - including shops and restaurants. Not an ideal situation for everyone, but we knew this in advance and after the hectic 8 days of travelling, game drives, and souvenir shopping of the past 8 days, we really wanted to get away from it all. Besides, if you really want to travel into the main part of Mombassa, a taxi can be organised for you easily!

ROOMS
The rooms were the main reason we chose this hotel in the first place. The rooms aren't quite your usual 'rooms'! For a start theres only 6 of them, and each room is strictly for couples, so that makes a maximum of 12 guests there at any one time! Now, I'm not sure the best way to describe the rooms themselves, but I'll try my best. They're all described as 'Tree houses'! Each 'room' has been build next to (and in some cases around) its own tree. The main living area is raised one story above the ground and consists of a large bedroom (with a MASSIVE four poster bed, 5 foot above the ground - so when lying in bed you can see out of the patio windows down towards the sea! Don't worry, they provide little box steps so you can get up there!) big enough not only for your bed, but also two reclining arm chairs, a small table, two dining chairs, bookcase, clothes chest, fridge, build in wardrobe, and most importantly - air conditioning! The room has large full sized windows (and patio doors in one spot) around half of the room, giving you a wonderful view out to your own private veranda and the sea. All tree houses have been designed so each gets a sea view! The veranda is made of wood, surrounded by bamboo fencing - lower on the side with the sea view, and to the one side where your privacy might be compromised, build much taller. It's at this side also that you'll find a tall bamboo gate leading to the access stairs for your tree-house. It's worth noting at this point that they VERY much respect your privacy here. At the bottom of your access stairs there's a rope. Leave it hooked across the entrance of your stairs and NO ONE will disturb you, not even to see to your room and bed. Leave it unhooked and the staff slowly make their way up the stairs - shoes off so not to make a mess - calling 'Knock knock' just in case you left it unhooked by accident. Anyway, I digress.
The other side of the veranda area consists of a shaded thatched area which is very welcome in the hot Mombassa sunshine (word of warning - you get a lovely breeze this close to the beach, and you can easily forget how dangerous the sun is - you are close the equator after all!). Beneath the shaded are you'll find a large deep L shaped day bed, with plenty of scatter cushions, with a coffee table, two unique wooden chairs made from tree trunks, and your own private hot tub! (I'll refer back to the hot tub later!). Beyond the hot tub you'll also find a wide beaded curtain. This leads through to your very special bathroom (you also have access to this through a door from the bedroom). This is our indoor/outdoor bathroom! Technically, although there's 3 solid walls around you, the other wall is the simple beaded curtain, so you're almost outside! Very weird to start with - especially when using the loo - but the privacy is complete - no one anywhere else can see you, so you soon get used to it. There's also something wonderful about showering in complete privacy, while the warm sea breeze moves around you!
Plus, there's more! We were lucky enough to have one of the 3 tree houses that was DIRECLY adjacent to the beach (the other three were set back a little and therefore you had to walk about 30 seconds to get to the beach itself! Shock horror!). After descending your stairs to ground level, you walked through a little sandy path between bushes, and there you were on the beach! Beneath the tree house there's also a lovely double bed size wooden hammock - a lovely place to lie in the shade reading! Here is where you'll also find your log burner - all ready for your hot tub!

FOOD
I should mention at this point that we were staying at The Cove at an all inclusive basis - I'm not sure you can stay there in any other way - besides, you wouldn't WANT to. There is no other way to describe the food other than AMAZING. The Cove has its own chef, and what a chef he was. You decide where and when to eat for a start. There's no set breakfast time. You make your way down to the restaurant when you are ready, order your food there and then (cooked breakfast, toast, VERY fresh fruit). Or else, you can order your breakfast the night before and have it served on your own private veranda! The table and chairs from your room are brought outside, and you have complete privacy to eat. This can also be the case for ANY of your meals through the day.
About an hour before lunchtime (again, no real set time for it - it helps the chef if most guests eat at the same time, but it's up to you really!) the bar staff travel around to find you to give you a varied menu of which you can choose your lunch. There was such a wide selection from the mundane (burger!) to the Chef's special dishes. Some things are not always available due to the fact that most food is bought directly from the fishermen, suppliers, fruit pickers etc, but there's always something you'll like. The meat and vegetable home-made samosas were to die for! And as for the salads - I've never seen anything so pretty in my life. It's not a case of putting it all on your plate - the tomato, cucumber etc is often arranged into the most amazing shapes. It's so hard to describe without pictures.
Each evening there's a set menu with two or three choices for each of the three courses. The menu depends totally on what fresh produce they have that day, and although my husband is incredibly picky with food, there was rarely a time when there wasn't something he'd eat for each of the courses. When there was, the chef was incredibly accommodating and cooked something else especially for him (for example - we had a seafood salad or a soup for starter one night, and as hubby didn't like either of them, he asked if he could have samosas as a starter. It was absolutely no bother!). Plus, one particular evening we had delicious pineapple crumble cupcakes for dessert. Being cheeky, we asked the bar staff if there was anyway we could have the recipe. The chef himself came out, sat with us, and talked us through the recipe from start to finish, while writing it out. He then insisted on taking re-writing the recipe before letting us have it - we then had it the next day!

GROUNDS
The grounds are beautifully maintained in a wonderful 'dessert island' style. All the pathways are sand, the plants are palms and bright flowers. The 6 tree houses are situated throughout the grounds, right next to the private beach (used only by the guests and the local villagers for their early morning fishing!). The ONLY other buildings on site are a small toilet hut near the pool (so you don't have to go back to your tree house!!) and the reception/restaurant/bar. This is the main hub of The Cove and we ate all our meals here and enjoyed our drinks throughout the day.
The pool itself is gorgeous. Exceptionally clean, yet not over chlorinated (I can never open my eyes underwater normally, but I could in this pool!). It not only has an 'infinity' side where it appears when you're in the pool that the water overflows down towards the sea, but it also has a swim up bar (adjacent as you are to the main building). There are also sets of two sun loungers around the pool - either shaded or not. Oh, and the bar men often come around asking if anyone wants a drink.

SPECIAL FEATURES
The staff themselves. There is at least one member of staff per guest, and they are AMAZING. During the 6 days we met all 3 of the bar men, and each one was polite, exceptional in their work, yet educated and always up for a good discussion over the poolside bar. They really made our stay there even the more better. These bar men work from the start of the day until last thing at night, and not only serve you drinks but are also your waiters - whether you eat in the restaurant or your own veranda.
The 'cleaners' are wonderful. We only saw the two of them - one lady one man, and not only do they remove their shoes before entering your tree house, they are incredibly attentive to everything that needs doing. In fact, the man was referred to as our 'butler' on our arrival, and that is a perfect description as he "buttled" around wonderfully!
There are also 'bell boy' type staff around who would do everything from cleaning the pool, tending to the gardens, to the important role of filling your hot tub!

Ah, the hot tub. Each tree house has one, and the only condition with your hot tub is that you need to ask it to be filled before 10am on that day, as it takes pretty much the rest of the day to be filled. The reason for this is that your wood burner beneath your tree house needs to be lit, heat up to the right temperature, and then the piped in water is heated from your burner before being pumped up and into your hot tub. The hot tub itself can take between an hour or two to be filled. 5pm is the ideal hot tub time, and this is the time they normally aim for. The sun has dropped in the sky by this point, and it's the ideal time to relax in your tub before showering and dressing for dinner around 7pm!
The water was surprisingly very warm on the two occasions we requested a hot tub, and the bubbles were heavenly!

While we were there, one of the other couples got married. They hadn't told their families back home, so it was literally them, the Cove staff, and the rest of us guests (all 6 of us on that day!). It was beautiful. The Cove staff not only decorated the area they were to get married (and where the bride would arrive from) with beautiful fresh flowers, but also provided bubbly, and a cake made by the very talented chef (which we had a little of, and it was SO light and tasty!). They also received a complementary beauty treatment each earlier that day (beauty treatments can be booked and paid separately by any guest throughout your stay), and a special private 3 course evening meal on the day of the wedding on their veranda - the content of the meal being exactly anything they want! Obviously they paid for the wedding package, so I'm not saying any of this was probably cheap, but it looked amazing.

The Cove has a massive link with the local village and school. Some of the locals have a little hut on the beach where they sell hand made crafts and gifts (and are more than happy to haggle with you!) but also arrange day trips and experiences with you - anything from snorkelling, to visiting the local primary school (if you plan to do this visit, take pens with you as they are rare and expensive in Kenya!). The locals use the beach as a base from which they do their fishing, and a great deal of their produce is bought by the hotel. What is also lovely, is as long as you are on hotel property, you don't get bothered by them at all. If you're on the beach however, you are likely to get approached and the day trips advertised in great detail to you! But hey, they're only trying to make a living - AND they have such a close link with the hotel that you KNOW they're safe. The hotel recommends them in fact.

This is possibly the longest review I've written, but I really can't explain how wonderful The Cove is. It's a shame I can't add pictures to my review! It was the holiday of our dreams, and although expensive, we would go back there at the drop of a hat. (I'm not sure on the exact costs as it was combined with our 8 day safari and flights - different companies will also vary). We never left The Cove during our 6 days (even though initially hubby was all set for a little journey into Mombassa) but as everything we'd ever want was THERE...we didn't move much!! And it was the only time we have ever felt genuinely sad to leave a hotel. I can't recommend this place enough!

Summary: Ideal honeymoon retreat!