atravelynn

excnSusan,
Glad you found this site of others interested in Africa.

Travelwmn,
I am still haunted by your pm lion encounter. The fact that it occurred at a recently designed, 6-paw, reputable Wilderness camp makes it more chilling. Do you know if bathroom trips will be escorted from now on?

napamatt

GEEZ, WILDERNESS CANT WIN.

Half the board complains about raised walkways and says you are perfectly safe at ground level if you know what you're doing (which I'm not sure I agree with) then others call into question the safety of the camp because Lions are walking through.

travelwmn

I'm not sure if Vumbura is going to change their policy about guests using the lobby bathroom at night. I do know that the managers notified headquarters immediately about my encounter. I'm grateful that Vumbura had the walkways. My personal opinion is that they saved me that night. Wilderness was extremely strict about escorting guests to and from their rooms at night. One evening at Mombo, we saw a hyena under the walkway on the way back to our room. Due to the height of that walkway, we were safe and we stopped with our guide to watch him. The biggest lesson I learned from the whole experience was to have a powerful flashlight at all times. While my light was not tiny, it certainly wasn't strong enough to illuminate the area sufficiently. One suggestion I would have for Vumbura is to install an exterior flood light along the walk way to the bathroom that they could turn on during evening hours. It would be a simple way to greatly improve safety. (Currently, there are small gas lanterns spaced about every 20 feet on the floor of the walkway).

In response to some of the other replies:

* The manager at Singita was on vacation, so we had a temporary person who was just filling in. She did a good job and I do not think she was responsible for the poor game viewing of half of our group. One of the rangers was (in our opinion) not as good as the other two. My ranger was born and raised at Exeter (neighboring Singita) and spent his whole life in the Sabi Sands. I don't think I could have asked for a better guide. The reason they sent the three vehicles out in different directions was because the game had spread out more than usual this winter. We had to search a little harder than they typically do. As a result, our vehicles were sometimes over an hour apart from each other and it would have been tough to meet up at a sighting.

*The dining service was slow at the Royal Livingstone even when we were just a party of three at a table. The staff was VERY attentive, it just seemed the kitchen had a hard time preparing the food in a timely fashion.
Otherwise, the hotel was lovely.

atravelynn

Here is another question for you. Did you say the four juvenile male lions were adopted? I had been under the impression that their mother just had 4 boys. Do you have more info on those 4 handsome young males?