Reviews of Sandibe Safari Lodge
Wildlife sightings and reviews
78 independent comments and wildlife information from our travellers who have visited Sandibe Safari Lodge and kindly agreed to share their thoughts. They do not necessarily represent the views of Expert Africa
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"Sandibe Safari Lodge review"
Electric boat for breakfast was a great touch, but the mokoro was pretty disappointing - very short trip on a small lagoon. It was about an hour's drive from the camp. This is probably due to the water conditions at the time, but it would have beeen better to tell us before that this was the case and give us the choice of whether to do it or not.
This was our first lodge and on a couple of drives we spent some time 'tracking' a lion which we never found as it had crossed out of the reserve. As this was the start of our trip we were happy to see anything so felt that this a bit of a waste of time. We did tell our guide this on other drives and he was perfectly heppy to do as we asked." See all these reviews: 8n in Botswana
"Birthday at Sandibe Lodge."
Our lodge was just great and we even had a visit from an elephant one morning - it was about 3 mtres form the door! Our guide and tracker at this lodge was BT and Bring who again were brilliant (BT had a great sense of humour). Again for much of our stay here we had the vehicle to ourselves so we could concentrate on birdwatching. We did however see more wild dogs, lions and leopards as well as a host of birds.
The fruit bats in the roof of the main building were quite cute although each night a genet came in to try his luck for one we also had a visit from an owl (Pearl spotted I think) which was after the flying insects attracted by the lights.
Again you couldn't fault the food and many thanks go to Bruce, Sasha and Ollie for putting on a birthday treat in our lodge a most memorable experience. Bruce I hope the hippo problem has gone away!!" See all these reviews: 12n in Botswana; 3n in Zambia
"Sandibe Safari Lodge review"
The manager, Sasha, is an extemely efficient and caring person. Sasha went out of her way to help my wife deal with a medical concern.
The food was pleasantly good and available to suit the guests. It is a camp we would return to." See all these reviews: 15n in Botswana; 2n in Zambia
"Sandibe Safari Lodge review"
Activities also excellent, the only drawback for us was the location completely hidden in the reeds, so no view at all. The room in itself was just beautiful !" See all these reviews: 10n in Botswana
"Slightly disappointed by CCA in Sandibe"
We were disappointed by the total lack of management ( every day there was a different manager who was never aware of what had been arranged the previuos day). As a result of this situation the clients were never treated with the attention we were used to.
The guides (a different one every day) did not look motivated at all. During the so called long day safari one of them quickly stole our place on the sleeping bags to take a nap leaving us standing up and waiting to start again. Another one gave us a terrible impression throwing a piece of dirt toward a hippo to find out wether was sleeping." See all these reviews: 6n in Botswana; 2n in Zambia
"I was really concerned to read about the total lack of Management that the guests experienced at Sandibe as well as the guide behaviour. CC Africa prides themselves in the quality of their staff and we put an enormous amount of time into training them, but clearly we have let your (and our) guests down and for this I must apologise. Please assure them that I will personally handle this going forward with the guides and management at Sandibe and make sure it never happens again."
"Sandibe Safari Lodge review"
The water activities were a little disappointing as mokoros weren't on because of hippo in the channel and we didn't see much from the slow electric boat although it was entertaining.
If we hadn't done water activities at previous camp would have been disappointed." See all these reviews: 6n in Botswana; 5n in Namibia
"Sandibe Safari Lodge review"
The staff at Sandibe were almost all excellent. But in common with some other guests we felt that the top management couple were a bit out of touch. The lady told us she was looking for a transfer (not a good thing to say to guests) and she was conspicuously absent for most of our stay. We formed the impression that she was not very happy.
After two guests complained about a lack of service her partner (Bruce) suddenly became much more visible and he was in fact very good at the front of house stuff.
Our guide at Sandibe (Bee) was a lovely guy but was not very good at handling his group. He did not communicate well and his timing was all over the place; this caused some resentment He also got us stuck in a river which we had successfully negotiated earlier in the day - he took a different line through the river for reasons best known to himself. This was after dark and the rescue team was not very fast off the mark; I suppose we were stuck for something over an hour.
The next day we had a puncture - hardly anyone's fault - and the day after the starter motor started playing up - perhaps a lack of maintenance?
Angela's dietary requirements were forgotten several times - we had to remind them.
No candles in rooms - requested some but they did not arrive.
One night we were stranded in our tent as the guide forgot to pick us up.
This was symptomatic of the lack of management we experienced in Sandibe.
It was very cold while we were at Sandibe and it seemed that the normal timetable of drives etc was inappropriate. The would drive around for 2 hours in the morning without seeing any game - we were assured that the animals were staying in the bush keeping warm (while we were driving around keeping cold!)
When this was mentioned we got a later start time organized, but even that was too early. Why do the camps adhere to the breakfast-drive-brunch-high tea-drive-dinner formula? When we got to Meno a Kwena their breakfast - walk or drive - lunch - walk or drive - dinner formula worked perfectly. They suggested that the other timetable was a hangover from the days of hunting safaris when people would breakfast, then drive two hours or so to the hunting ground, hunt then brunch, drive back to tea, etc??
Most of the other camps we went to had timetables similar to Sandibe's, but we question the value of this." See all these reviews: 12n in Botswana; 8n in Namibia; 2n in Zambia
Dear Sir,
Thank you for taking the time to send us your comments regarding your visit to Sandibe Safari Lodge. The majority of the issues raised all relate to effort and attention to detail, which is certainly something CC Africa Lodges are mostly very proud of. I am so sorry that in this instance we disappointed you and assure you that your feedback will be used in a constructive manner and will be addressed. I appreciate that despite this, you did still found some of the staff "excellent" and that you rated your overall stay "good". We do hope that you will return to one of our Lodges in the future and give us the opportunity to make up for were we fell short during this visit. Debra Fox - CC Africa Group Operations Director"
"Excellent game drives at this friendly camp"
Our room had a wonderful outside decked area overlooking the delta, although the linens/towels etc were a little shabby.The management here were all friendly and helpful.
However, we were disappointed that, as in Nxabega, the motor boat was not available (these were both CC Africa camps)." See all these reviews: 12n in Botswana; 3n in Zambia
"Sandibe Safari Lodge review"
The guides were, again, very skilled and knowledgeable and were very keen for us to see some wonderful animals. We saw lions here as well as leopards" See all these reviews: 9n in Botswana
"Sandibe Safari Lodge review"
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