Thanks Micky, that's really helpful. I guess it makes sense to get visa's before we travel, airports are always a nightmare anyway without the hassle of waiting for visa's too!!

Some friends of mine have a multiple entry visa as they travel to kenya frequently, and they still have to wait in the regular queue with those buying visas just to show theirs, bear this in mind!

Caroline & Kirsten

First of all medication, make sure you have your jabs and malaria tablets. Good sunscreen, very high factor especially for the children. swimming in a tee shirt always helps! Good insurance, things happen wherever you go but somewhere outside of the EU you feel more confident when you know your insurance cover is good especially when you travel with children.

Make sure you take a first aid kit with you for minor accidents, many hotels have inadequate first aid facilities or trained first aiders.

Dress modestly when away from the hotel, its more respectful, and dont wear any jewellry outside the hotel, its best to stick to local beads etc so as not to attract unwanted attention - as you know kenya is a poor country and you have your good and bad people wherever you are in the world.

Take as much stationary, small toys etc as you can for the local children, many of the people working at your hotel cannot afford such luxuries for their families and a small gift for their children always goes down well.

if you get called a 'mizungo' its an insult - the equivalent of calling someone a racist name - i usually reply, 'no mizungo' even if theyre not talking to you, just about you and when they know you understand they dont say it again.

take your mobile phone with you, its cheaper to use your mobile than to use the hotel phones - ive been charged a hell of a lot during my visits there, and paying £1.40 per minute on my mobile, and 40p per text is a lot less. (phone lines coming out of kenya can be unreliable to say the least!)

As for trips, i hear the tamarind dhow trip is spectacular but i cant say personally as ive been plagued with problems when ive been in Kenya - I WILL GET MY SAFARI ONE DAY!!

The likoni ferry is an experince but not for the feint hearted - and i wouldnt recommend it with a small child.

Hope this helps a little!

Caroline & Kirsten

Thanks Caroline, so you'd say that arranging the visa in advance doesn't really have any advantages? If we were to get the visa when we arrive at the airport which currency do we pay in?

When you pay on arrival, they accept british pounds, US dollars and i believe euros. Best of sticking with the pound though i would say. Visas can take a lot of time to arrange this end, its worth calling the kenyan embassy just to double check this but it cost me about £30 - £35 for a visa for me this time last year in cash at the airport when i arrived. Dont let this put you off though, its a bit of a slog waiting about, and its not air conditioned in mombasa airport where you have to wait, but it is worth it!!

Caroline & Kirsten
(wishing she could turn the clock back and be in kenya again - this time last year!!)

Hi there. It would also depend on where you are flying into - I am flying into Nairobi and then connecting to mombasa (last time I flew direct) and I understand that queuing for visas in Nairobi is even worse (a real problem if your connecting flight time is a bit tight). So this time I have bought my visas in advance. Because of the exchange rate at the moment it does work out very slightly cheaper to pay there in USD and if you pay in advance, you have to send postal orders as they will not accept cheques (a little more expense) but they are very, very quick. I sent our application off a couple of weeks ago on the Monday and received the visas back the same week on the Saturday. You also have to send in your passports and therefore have to send by registered post and also have to enclose a registered post SAE - I just sent the one SAE for all visas.

For anti-malarials, most Docs reccomend Malarone now. For this you have to get a private prescription from your Docs (cost around £10 each) - you cannot just buy over the counter. You start to take one day before, all the time out there and for a week on return - therefore, you need 22 tablets for a 14 day holiday. I found it cheaper to buy from http://www.chemistdirect.co.uk where they are just £2.08 per tablet (free postage) and they will only charge you for what you need - they come in packs of 12 so many chemists will try to sell you 24 rather than 22 (and most Docs will give you a scrip for this but you can just request the number you require). There is a paediatric form for children which is cheaper and I do not know how many of these you would need. Have taken these before and had no problems at all.

Hope that helps......five weeks on Thursday for us and counting......

My first ever safari experience was in the Shimba Hills at the Mwalugange Elephant Sanctuary (not sure of spelling). Once you have been to Tsavo and Masai Mara, this is really pretty tame - mainly elephants and birds etc but is so close to the coast that would be ideal for kids and for a safari taster. When I went, it was about a 40min drive from the coast (although obviously depends on where you are), the game drives were quite short and the tents were great fun (but comfortable with flushing loos and hot water etc). There was a family with two youngish children who went when I was there and they thoroughly enjoyed it - their youngest would have been about 3 or 4. See http://www.africanmeccasafaris.com/kenya/safaris/parks/mwaluganje.asp for a little more information. If I remember correctly, it was also very good value for one night. Good luck!

Thanks Caroline and Shelley. As we're flying into Mombasa as part of a package holiday I guess there will be other people on our package who have to get their visa's at the airport too, the transfer coach won't leave the airport til everyone's come through so we might as well wait in line for the visa.
Which currency do you think is best to take into Kenya? US dollars, stirling or euro's? I'd prefer to take stirling myself and change to Kenyan shillings when we're there.

Hi Shelley.
You mentioned malarone tablets from the doctors being £10 each. Is that £10 for the whole lot needed or for each tablet. I would guess you mean per prescription but I am very worried about our increasing medical costs.lol!! And Im hoping you dont mean £10 per tablet. I'm sooo confused...
Thanks, Becky

It all depends on the health authority for the area in which you live, i believe sometimes you actually pay the doctor for the script, and the chemist for the pills, its all expense eh!

They give you the cards to fill out before you land while youre still on the plane for the visas, so have them completed!

A lot of the local people like foreign curreny, pounds or dollars for tips so its sometimes good to have a stack of dollar bills for tipping, as they cannot change coins, only notes.

have a few english pounds in change for when you get off the plane, for the men who carry your bags, or get some kenyan shillings from the bank before you go, the exchange rate for buying at this end isnt great but its always handy to have some local currency before you get there.

Barclays have branches in kenya so money exchange is good at those.

doxycycline are good for malaria prevention, they are a very strong antibiotic so they tend to kill off any bugs you may pick up in your tummy while youre there, but malerone paediatric are the only ones recommended for children and are quite expensive. The doxycycline need to be taken for longer before you go, but i believe theyre still one a day, you have to remember to take them on a full stomach as they can give you a very bad tummy if you dont!

Its always wise to take some antihistamine cream or hydrocortisone cream incase you get any mossie bites, and some antihistamine tablets and antihistamine syrup for the children. I never travel without it now, it can save you a lot of angst in resort! The pharmacies in kenya are cheap but its sometimes hard to get/explain what you want. Luckily i dont get bitten very often - had my first bites in 10 years in menorca of all places the other week, but i know from my friends experiences in kenya the kenyan mossies can be particularly vicious, and theyre always hungry!! he had some 50 ish bites on one ankle alone so beware!!

if you need any more info, or advice just message me!

Caroline & Kirsten

Hi Micky - sorry I didn't make that too clear....yes, the £10 each to the Doctors is for the actual prescription. Then you have to pay on top for the actual tablets. You really should have yellow fever jabs too and I think my partner paid £40 for his (I didn't need one this time). You can price the malarone and the paediatric online at chemistdirect.

Re currency, I think it really depends where you are staying and what your itinerary is. If you've got loads planned as I have and are going to struggle to find time (or don't want to waste time) by finding a bank to get/change currency the bear this in mind. I am therefore just taking a credit card (which I will use for all expenses at hotel, at safari lodges and to pay for the safaris) and my CC gives a pretty good exchange rate and then I'm taking Kenyan shillings to cover any small shopping and tips. The kenyans do prefer tips in KSH if you can as this saves them from having to change. If you're paying for safaris etc over there then they often price in USD and therefore some cash (bearing in mind the good exchange rate at the moment) in USD or USD travellers Cqs can be useful. Exchange rates can be quite low at the hotels etc but would reccomend http://www.travelex.co.uk - I ordered my KSH and got a good rate from them to collect at Heathrow. Have been advised against changing at the airport over there - I know a few people have been ripped off here.

Enjoy!!!

Both malaria prevention and yellow fever jabs are recommended by the departments of health when visiting kenya, but are not deemed as essential - ie.. you do not need the yellow fever certificate to get in or out of the country like i did when i first went there.

Caroline & Kirsten

Hi Caroline, I've read the Dept of Health website too where it says that malaria prevention and yellow fever jabs are only recommended not essential when visiting Kenya. As we are only going for a week, all inclusive, and are unlikely to be going very far from the hotel I'm now in two minds whether to bother with the malaria prevention at all!

Hi. We are having yellow fever and it is £40 each (ouch!!!). The only thing Retsina is if you get there and there is an excersion youd really like to do you may miss out because you havent had your jabs. Also its the mossies that cause malaria and you can get them in the hotel too. I read somewhere that someone got malaria tablets from the chemist for £4. I dont care about the side effects sickness or not I'll have the cheapie ones! Lol!!
What is bad though is you book a nice break and then you find out about all the hidden cost for health and visis etc.

Hi Mickey, still undecided about the malaria and yellow fever, we'll make our minds up nearer the time, but I did read on a review of the Bamburi Beach Hotel on another website that they will supply mosquito nets if you specifically ask for them, they're not provided as standard.

Hi there. One thing to bear in mind is that the yellow fever jab has to be done so many weeks (can't remember number) before you go in order to be effective.

It was 14 days when we had ours done (with the ex before the ex before the ex la la la ...!! 1996) I remember specifically as his was 13 days before so she changed the date on the certificate so he could get in ok!

Caroline & Kirsten
Ps - will add though that i didnt have malaria tabs for my trip last year to kenya (my daughter had them) and when i was in menorca the following month i came down really ill with flu ike symptoms, I was proper rough, and i mean very very ill for dayss and the doc was doing all number of tests when i got back for malaria and was talking about the possibility of 2 weeks + in a tropical diseases unit many miles from home!

Dont go short on the malaria tablets, especially if youre going with children, but think about the yellow fever as that itself can make you ill after you have had the injection.

Also bear in mind - but dont quote me on this - that to catch malaria it has to be a female mossie, who is pregnant and has bitten someone with malaria previously - they dont live very long and cannot fly in winds of more than 3mph so most coastal areas are not affected. (but its better to be safe than sorry!!)

Hi Retsina.
Yes I read that too on trip advisor by someone who really hated the place.lol!! Well you cant please everyone all the time. I will ask for the net when we get there. Also we went to Cuba last month and I had a really bad allergic reaction to a mossie bite (well thats what the doctor suspects anyway). Although the mosies there arent malarial it was quite bad. Not nice if you want to walk round in shorts, I couldnt as I had such a bad rash. Anyway, I'll be taking strong anti allergy tablets with me too this time.
Also someone just told me if you interested (totaly unrelated!) but next to the severin sea lodge hotel, a new go kart track has just been built. My son would love that. Also opposite the bamburi beach hotel there is a butterfly park where you can walk round or hire bikes.
If I find out any more info Ill let you know (and vice versa if thats ok).
Sorry I know I waffle on but I cant wait!!

Yes, of course Micky, if I find out anything else relevant I'll post it on this thread. To be honest, we're really only going for the R&R and (almost!) guaranteed good weather in February so I really can't see us doing any trips/going very far from the hotel... I don't trust the weather in the Canaries in winter anymore and Egypt and The Gambia just didn't appeal. The price we've paid to go all inc to Kenya for a week compares very well with other winter sun destinations.
Kenya seems a long way off at the moment though, going to Nerja in Spain on Sunday and Nidri in Lefkas in August