We made two bookings at Ihamba, one prior to our 8 day trek in the Rwenzori’s and one after. The first stay was fine. We were the only ones staying there and the service was good. The room was descent for the pricing however a little bit hot during the night even with the fan. The pool was refreshing and they were attentive with drinks and making sure we had towels and cushions. Lunch and dinner was delicious, however my husband had the chicken curry and the next day during the first day of the trek he had stomach problems on the trail. Maybe a coincidence, but I had the vegetarian curry and was fine. Use caution with what you order as maybe their meat is not that clean. Checkout was fine and we paid in cash since there was a 3% credit card fee. We were happy with the service and rounded up for a tip since we were satisfied. We left a bag of city clothes there as well as a laptop and felt safe with where they kept it and we told them we would see them the following week! We were looking forward to returning after a strenuous week to a familiar place.

Fast forward 8 days....after 8 days without showering and climbing to the highest point in Uganda. We had arranged transportation with the driver to the hotel that had picked us up at the airstrip the week prior. When we were picked up we were told that he was notified there was no room for us at the ihamba lodge and they made us a booking at another lodge. We had to stop by and pick up our bag, and I wanted to figure out what was going on with the reservation since we made it back in September, four months prior! Even when we went online at that moment it showed two rooms on booking.com that night!!!! We arrived at the lodge to very unfriendly service. Luckily our bag was there with the contents though. We were told a variety of stories that varied from we never made a booking, to them ringing a reservations agent on the phone who told us that the previous week upon checkout we said we wanted to change it to the following day. They also said they don’t need to accept booking.com bookings until they confirm the booking. I figured booking four months prior on booking.com was confirmation enough and if they double booked they would have informed us some point prior! For the inconvenience caused and how distressing this situation was, we felt they did not apologize enough. We stay at hotels over half the year and have never encountered such arrogance from a hotel, especially when they have made such an error. We felt given the circumstance they should pay for us to stay at the other lodge. Once they made it clear that they would not compensate our night at the other lodge, we insisted that they should pay for our transportation to the new lodge they recommended, which they also refused. We had to negotiate with the driver that we booked via the hotel originally for a price to the new hotel, which was at tourist prices of course. We tried to get help from booking.