Maasai Mara lodging question
 

And it happens...now the second guessing. I told myself I wouldn't do this, but I guess it's inevitable.

I was just wondering, after inspecting one of Eben's great maps, if the Mara Explorer Camp is considered to be in a "better location" than the Mara Sarova Camp. Obviously it's more centrally located in the NP, but is that necessarily better? I have heard lots about "the triangle" and the Explorer is clearly much closer to that. It appears that the Explorer is fairly reasonable in price, but I don't know how it compares $$$-wise to the Sarova Camp.

Any thoughts, suggestions, opinions appreciated.

Thanks,

Shane

Hi Shane,

I was at Sarova Mara some months back. It is a very comfortable with lovely tents, good food and service. However, probably not the best location. I found that to get to the best game viewing we had to drive about 30 mins at least. Inspite of this we still had very good sightings and game drives.

I have some pics of the Sarova tents at my photo gallery - see images 1172, 1175 and 1325 under Africa Images at http://www/abidally.com/mp/home

Regards
Mohammed

Sorry made a mistake in the link. It should be http://www.abidally.com/mp/home

Explorer should be quite a bit more than Sarova. Intrepids (Explorer's sister camp located in the same general area) which is larger, but not as large as Sarova, is priced lower Explorer.

&quot;lower <i>than</i> Explorer.&quot;

Thank you, Mohammed and Patty, for the replies.

I was under the impression that the Intrepids camp was more $$$ than Explorer. I'll investigate that option as well, then.

Shane

Eben has the 2006 rates for Explorer http://www.go-safari.com/Masai%20Mara/maraexplorer.htm and Intrepids http://www.go-safari.com/Masai%20Mara/maraintrepids.htm

What time of year are you going?

That will teach me to post at 2:00 a.m. I saw those last night and got them backwards when I was writing the post.

Thanks, Patty, for making me aware of my mistake.

We will be in the Mara the nights of Jan 12 - 14, 2008.

Shane

I've not stayed at Sarova but have stayed at Mara Intrepids 3 or 4 times and its sister camp Mara Explorer once. Explorer is about 1km up river from Intrepids and we're going back to Explorer in September.

Under another thread (Mara Intrepids - New Tents) a poster says that they are refurbishing the Intrepids tents and they're really nice. I can only comment up to 18 months ago and on my experiences over the years I'd go back to either.

However, they are two different types of camps. At that time Explorer was the more luxurious and having only 10 tents was more intimate. And the food was the best we've had on safari. Intrepids is about 30 or so tents and Sarova over 50 tents.

It depends on the style you prefer. I preferred the intimacy of Explorer but that's just my opinion. Other people like more people around.

Certainly at Intrepids or Explorer you'll get great game viewing and if you're going late September to early November you'll stand a good chance of seeing a wildebeest/zebra crossing of the Mara river which isn't too far away.

Chui

Shane,

Only just seen your last post so forget my reference to the Mara crossings.

Chui

Each time you leave the Sarova for a game drive, you have this &quot;nice&quot; view of Sekenani Gate and the nearby village with lots of huts made of corrugated iron. Not something I want to see when staying in a safari camp.

Thanks all for your opinions/suggestions.

Chui - I am not so much concerned with the ambience of the camp in terms of number of tents, etc. Perhaps when I am a more experienced and seasoned Africa traveler I will be. Right now I'm just so bloody excited that I am going at all, and happy that the vast majority of my safari trip is in tented accommodations. I am more concerned, I guess with getting accommodations in good locations - completely aware of and understanding that one never knows for sure what you may or may not see on any given day or hour - or minute, even, I suppose.

Nyama - thanks for the tidbit of info. I don't suppose that's the best eye candy one might see over there. Points to ponder.

In any event, I have emailed my TA to have him check on the prices of both and how they compare to our price for the Sarova.

Thanks again,

Shane

Sorry to but in but Nyama ,do you know Duma safari camp?
Met a guy Keith Joubert in Maun and he told me about it.
Would love to go to Masai Mara. Have only sailed past and stoped in Mombasa.

bots, I had some mail exchange with Jennifer Ratcliff (main share holder, www.jmarsafaris.com) but havn't been at Duma so far. Looks quite attractive to me - close to nature and very friendly people.

btw, I found it funny that a member of the Joubert family invested into a camp in the Mara. (Keith is the brother of Derek.)