Eko Hotel Gardens

There are some places you visit once, enjoy, and move on from. And then there are those places you find yourself returning to, time and time again, because they just seem to get everything right. Eko Hotel Gardens is very much in that second category for me. The location is fantastic, right in the heart of one of my favourite parts of Lagos, and the staff are consistently wonderful. There is something enormously reassuring about returning somewhere and knowing that the warmth of the welcome will be every bit as good as the last time. And then, of course, there is the Lagos Irish Pub! What a great venue that is. Always a highlight of my visits, with an atmosphere that makes it remarkably easy to settle in, relax and thoroughly enjoy yourself. It is one of those places that keeps drawing me back. I have stayed at Eko Gardens before, and I sincerely doubt this will be my last visit. Some hotels have to work hard to convince you to return. Eko Gardens simply makes you want to.

I don’t like the fact that the window to my room was sealed. I couldn’t open it for natural air flow which I find very annoying. Hygienic wise, this is not good.

There are birthdays, and then there are birthdays you know you are going to remember. I chose Eko Hotel Gardens for my 62nd birthday because it is already one of my favourite places in Lagos, and I genuinely cannot think of anywhere I would rather have celebrated it. It turned into one of those fantastic evenings where everything just felt right. There is something very special about the whole ambience of Eko. The warmth of the staff, the beautiful surroundings, the sense of security and, of course, the Lagos Irish Pub, which has become a particular favourite of mine. Put all of that together and you have somewhere that manages to feel special without ever feeling stuffy. As a Scotsman celebrating his birthday a very long way from Scotland, perhaps there was something wonderfully appropriate about ending up in an Irish pub in Lagos! But that rather sums up what I love about this city, and about Eko in particular. My 62nd birthday was a genuinely unforgettable evening, in a place I already loved and somehow love a little more now. Thank you, Eko. I couldn't have chosen better.

It was all fabulous.

The staff were unfriendly and hostile to me.

The way l was treated on entry and during payments for my meals.