Solomon Kitano Mendana Hotel

Not great but good

Was out here when my five star hotel booking wasn’t honoured. It’s definitely not an equivalent as I was promised. Have woken up having been bitten by something and my face is all swollen. Rooms are old and shabby. No water in the rooms. Took an hour to get a frozen pizza cooked (sorry ordered at the restaurant). Wouldn’t recommend.

Brief stays while transiting through Honiara. Comfortable and quiet rooms with views out to the bay. Two restaurants to choose from: both good with a full range of options. Check in was smooth and grateful for aiport pick up.

Stayed for two weeks in May-June 2023. Positive: -- extremely central location, walking distance to almost everything (Honiara is not very big) -- super friendly and helpful staff -- the bento box in the Japanese restaurant is surprisingly good -- powerful air conditioning, which you will appreciate after a day in Honiara -- has a generator for when the power goes off (which happens) Neutral: -- has all the basics: refrigerator, aircon, TV all worked fine -- no issues with cleanliness, maid service every day -- no issues with water pressure or heat -- swimming pool is small but clean, I did laps there most nights with no problems -- laundry service is pricey but otoh is lightning fast: my laundry came back ironed in well under 24 hours -- make sure your door is firmly closed or you'll get mosquitos Negative: -- wi-fi is bad: slow, sometimes drops, and charges you extra for use beyond 100 MB /day. If you can, get a local SIM card and hotspot off that. It's cheaper and faster. -- breakfast is not free and is pretty miserable. It's 100 SBD (about US $13) for corn flakes, stale bread, coffee, and fruit. The fruit is fresh and local but that's about all I can say for it. After a few days I just started going next door to the Breakwater Cafe, which gives a much nicer array of breakfast offerings for about the same price. -- there's a club next door, which can be loud on weekends. It didn't bother me but if you're sensitive to that sort of thing, be aware. -- there's a small beach right behind the hotel... which is covered with trash. You probably wouldn't want to swim there anyway (the Mendana is in the middle of town and very near the port) but it's nasty to look out your window at a garbage-strewn beach. Surely this could be fixed? -- no exercise room Basically this is the medium-price hotel in Honiara. The Heritage and Coral Sea are nicer but more expensive (usually -- prices in Honiara can fluctuate a lot). I found the Mendana perfectly okay. The only major negative was the wifi. Fix that and I'd give back half a star.

The hotel was clean but just adequate. The first room we had did not have hot water, the second room had good hot water. The hotel rooms and lobby area are in need of renovation and the beachfront area needs to be cleaned up.