Exceptionally friendly and caring staff. We were greeted with a hug and a huge smile. Because of our flight issue and rerouting, we ended up reaching at 8:30 am, far earlier than our anticipated arrival of 3:30 pm. They were very nice and gave us a room at 8:30 am and we were able to catch up with our sleep (previous night was meant to be restful in Nairobi, which never happened due to flight delays and rerouting directly to JRO...so, we were really tired).
In the late afternoon, we were hoping to take their transportation service to go to the hot spring (about 50 minute drive each way). Instead of quoting a flat fee for the transportation, they told up that they would charge $70 per person. For 8 people in our group, it would have been $560 for a total of a 3-hour trip. That was too steep. We ended up hiring a taxi service who charged $120 total (for two different vehicles). I guess Stella Maris did not really ever offer that service in the past and was quoting prices based on several tour operators' prices...but the tour operators there take people for a day trip to the hot springs and include a lunch and entrance fee and they do charge about $50 to $70/person.
I think Stella Marris is a great place to stay...not fancy but great service and extremely friendly people. We found their gift shop offering to be very reasonably priced (as compared to shops in Arusha).
The transportation service (mis)quote notwithstanding, I would highly recommend the place.