Travel reviews by Dr M & Dr S from Middlesex

"The concept of Lake Maze as a simple camp being close to nature is a fabulous one but it just doesnt quite manage it in our view.
Negative points first..

The tents are great, but quite close together, overlooked by both neighbouring tents and a large number of Maasi guards and didnt actually look out onto the lake as we assumed they would (ours looked onto the back of the next tent).

One night both the tents either side of us were empty, wonderful we thought... we can leave the window flaps up and catch the breeze. Unfortunately the Guards sitting in the front porches of both neighbouring tents and their frequent torch shining onto ours meant that the windows went down pretty quickly - shame. We didnt quite understand the need for so many guards.

The guiding was very erratic, especially so on the drives which were very much in the 'tick the box and list the fact' style which unfortunately is all too common in Tanzania.

I think this is a Selous problem in general rather than just the camp area.. the animals, especially Elephants were very skittish.
It would have been lovely to have a place where you could sit with your Binos and a G&T to watch the action by the water, the camp really doesnt seem to make the most of it's location here.

Now the positives..

The Lake is the main attraction here and we ended up spending most of our time on it. We had an excellent boat guide one morning who obviously loved the birds in the area and was really enthusiastic in sharing his knowledge and experience. Fishing for catfish was also a great way to take in the calm of the lake.

Richard is a great character and runs the camp very well, it is quite regimented but we did get the impression that it needs to be. His conversation and wry questioning ended up being an unforseen highlight of our stay

There is a very wide mix of guests here, especially over the weekend when expats based in Dar visit for a couple of nights which made conversation in the bar very interesting, and multi lingual. We will always remember the baffled look on the face of the Spanish couple as our Belgian friend regaled them of the hunting style of the savnnah dwelling blue ringed octopus, complete with sound effects from the German vet sitting next to him!"

"Mdonya and the Ruaha park as a whole was the highlight of our trip to Tanzania. The camp is wonderfully simple and makes the most of the curve of the old river bed in its layout. We were in tent 10, the furthest from the camp with a wonderful view from the verandah out onto the river bed at the front and 'upstream' away from the camp at the side.

Wildlife is perfectly at home here, on our first night there were two elderly male lions lazing about 100m upstram from our tent in the riverbed, which amazingly (considering the doddery state of them) managed to kill a buffallo right outside the camp later in the night and stayed there guarding it for the duration of our 4 night visit. Both I and a giraffe had a shock when it popped its head over the side of the tent walls when i was having a shower one evening. The highlight in the camp though was listening to a leopard stalk and kill an impala right outside the front of our tent.

The guiding was variable, on our first day we had a driver and guide pair who seemed determined to drive the whole park in a day and only stop for a big cat. after a chat with Micol about this in the evening we were paired up with Zac for the rest of the trip. Zac is a much better guide with a huge amount of enthusiasim for the area and happy to talk about trees, insects, birds and find me my first ever Cheetah!

The food at the camp was good, very Italian but with a few odd twists and flexible in the timings of meals. Michol and Gil were very good hosts with lots of enthusiasim for the area and many stories to tell. The camp as a whole is much more relaxed than its sister camp in Selous - lake manze.

Mdonya is in the north of the park, a long way from the other camps and when we were there at the end of the dry season the majority of the game drives concentrated on the Mwagusi river area, about an hours drive away, as the local waterholes were mainly dried up, however we did see quite a lot of animals closer to the camp too. Our first guide insisted that we had whole day game drives in order to see anything but we did find that an early morning drive covering longer distances and a shorter evening drive in the Mdonya area was a much better combination.

We are very keen to go back early in the dry season when there is more water in the Mdonya and escarpment areas, as these are the most scenic areas of the park.

beware the Tsetse flies... evil little buggers."

"We only stayed here one night, after our safari.

It was nice to have a big, clean room looking out over the sea while we got back to the outside world. It is a bit of a long drive to the airport but we thought it was worth it.

The area is popular with expats from embassies and NGO's and felt quite safe to wander around with several reasonable cafes and resturants next door to the hotel."