Khwai River Lodge
 

We will be spending 3 nights at the Khwai River Lodge in Sept 09.
I know this is a large camp (15 beds) and on the luxury end, but I wanted to be near the Moremi Reserve and still maintain a Class A accommodation, as oppossed to Class A+, like Mombo Camp, which I hear is great, but we can't afford. And Little Vumbura was lacking in certain areas, i.e. bathroom some distance from the tent.

Can anyone tell me of their experience at Khwai River Lodge?

I stayed at Khwai River Lodge with my family in July and had an amazing time! The accommodations are very luxurious with extremely comfortable, beautiful four poster beds, 2 sinks in the bath area, separate comode, nice powerful shower. Wonderful deck overlooking passing wildlife (red lechwe, impala, elephants), hippos always hanging out at one end of camp. They have a small fitness center with spa if you want a massage. As far as exercise, they had 2 spinning bikes, a stair stepper and a universal weight machine. We enjoyed the meals and the very friendly, gracious staff.

I'd be happy to answer any other questions if you need further details! We also stayed at Savute Elephant Camp and Eagle Island Camp. Accommodations are pretty much identical in all three camps.

We stayed four nights at Khwai River Lodge in Sep of 2005. Here's just five pics from there. http://tinyurl.com/6jeyx6 The thatched/tent huts were luxurious, meals, service, bar, great as pumpkin13 said.

But IMHO game drives not so good, comparatively. KRL is not in Moremi Game Reserve, it is across the river so about a 30 minute ride to get into Moremi. Once in Moremi you can not go off road which severely limits your game drives. Also, you can not be in Moremi after dark so no sundowners there. In Moremi we did see some lions, leopard once, a few hippos, baboons, other browsers and grazers. As for elephants not many inside the reserve but lots outside the reserve not to far from the Lodge. So, the day time game drive is inside Moremi (from about 7am until 10:30am) and then the afternoon/dusk drive (4pm to 7:30pm) is on private land near the Lodge. On these later game drives we saw lots of eles and hippos but no lion nor leopards.

Bottom line, if Khwai River Lodge is your first and only safari camp, you will love it and talk about it the rest of your life. But I've also been to MalaMala, Little Governors, Leopard Hills, Kings Camp and, so, Khwai RL is at the bottom of that list for me because I go for the game drives.

regards - tom

hackerb

i support pumkin's discription.......
we spend a couple of nights there - but in 2003 when OE just had taken over but invented all the special OE features incl. minibar :-) in each accomm.


we liked it very much.

div

ps
you are lucky to look forward to experiencing it yourself !

hackerb
i haven't been to lt. vumbura so i had a look at the facts at the WS site.
they say ensuite tents, bathroom under same canvas as tent.
what made you think the bathroom is not adjacent to the bedroom-tent?

div

Most of the luxury tents have bathrooms that are definitely connected, but there is a little walkway with walls, though it is open to the sky, between the main tent and the toilet. Unless it is the number of steps you are objecting to for mobility reasons, you should reconsider Little Vumbura. The toilet is not out back like an outhouse.

The game around LV is usually wonderful and was for me in the month of Aug.

I hear you on Mombo.

I have not stayed at KRL, but Khwai concession is just as wonderful as Moremi reserve!! I have mobile camped in both twice in the past three years, and prefer Khwai (because you can go on game walks there)- but I do not know about the guides at KRL, which influence your trip greatly! Last year a KRL guide assisted us in locating 7 lioness who had been chasing a herd of 300 buffalo all night, but then the guests had to go back to KRL for lunch- big mistake!! Thet missed the girls killing a buff and having their own lunch, then they also missed the male and a seventh lioness mating.