Travel reviews by D & S from Shenfield Essex

"Great welcome to Africa! We had a good room - actually Prince Harry stayed there last year!

The food was excellent - all home made and the service was good. Very pleasant place to stop over."

"The camp itself very good. albeit quite isolated. The rooms and food were fine.

It was, however, extremely difficult to travel to anything of interest, which was limited. The roads (!) are almost impassable and. consequently, every drive was uncomfortable. We did see the desert adapted elephant but had to drive for 2 hours there and back. Then the following day, we did the same drive to see the paintings on the rocks.

We do understand that this is not the fault of the camp, but feel clients should be aware of the limitations of this area. Incidentally, before viewing the paintings, we feel we should have been warned that the climb up to them was extremely hard work and a long way in very hot weather. I think that people of a certain age (us!) should have been told this, so an informed decision could have been made to take part or not."

"Good camp with great sightings! We were really happy with our game drives inside the reserve.

However, we only took one trip to the Etosha Pan, which was not good! Unfortunately, the wind that day was very strong, almost to sandstorm level. This, obviously did not help our experience. The worst aspect, however, was the number of vehicles on the pan at the same time, including some very large 'coaches', where the drivers had no respect for other people, and did not even turn off their very noisy diesel engines.

The consequence being that filming contained the engine noise! After this, we requested to remain on the reserve, which was perfect every time!!"

"This camp has recently been refurbished to an amazing level - the accommodation was really good, with a bedroom, bathroom and separate lounge each. The game drives were good with great sightings. However, the big BUT - the catering and service were very poor. There was not enough staff to serve, and they desperately need someone who can actually cook!! Such a shame - this brought down the whole experience.

We have to also complain about one of the 'managers' - Rodney. He was totally incapable of a). sorting out our rooms, b).giving any information and c). any administration. To cap it all, he tried to charge us for standard alcoholic drinks, which we knew to be included. After arguments from all members of our group, he backed down and cancelled the charges. Not a good advertisement!"

"Same comments as before, but we were impressed with the early availability of our rooms - 10.30 am.

Thank you!"

"We have given this camo 'excellent' as we had such good experiences here. Although the accommodation was slightly rougher than elsewhere, we couldn't have been made more welcome. By this time there were only 3 of our group, and, as it turned out, the only 3 on camp!

The managers - Charlcie and Andy were so pleasant - we felt that we were staying at a friends' house. They are both passionate about their work. Charlcie is involved administratively with the local pre-school (which we visited - amazing!) whilst Andy, who is the son of the founder of the school, does the camp stuff.

The wildlife is limited but we did see 11 rhinos on one afternoon game drive! - apparently, that's a record! Incidentally, there is now no rhino tracking on foot - in fact, a lot of the information on your website is out of date and needs to be reviewed.

The food was brilliant - mostly home grown and well cooked, due probably to the fact that Charlcie and Andy are of mixed European origin. The meals were presented buffet style which suits everyone.

During conversations with them, we were told that they felt that the previous managers had let the camp deteriorate to quite a large degree, and they are both working so hard to bring it up to a good level. We do feel that with a little more upgrading of the electricity supply to the tents and the floodlit water hole (which wasn't) plus some guide training this could become an excellent and interesting camp."

"It was great to see the channel now full of water - which made for excellent game viewing.

Excellent guides - especially Ace - who had a great sense of humour.

Camp staff very friendly and accommodating"

"We did not feel that the camp was up to the usual standard and rather disappointing compared with our previous visit.

The staff did their best but we felt they required more training/backup from managers.

The guide - Sam - was great and we thoroughly enjoyed our game drives with him."

"Brilliant camp! The food and service were amazing and the hard work put in by Eloise was obvious.

Our guide was really good and was full of interesting information.

A good three days - thank you!!"

"No problems here, other than housekeeping, which was not up to usual standard. For instance, we had to ask for various items missing from our tent - sometimes more than once. The upkeep of the tent did not match other camps. When the weather was particularly wet and windy, the flaps on all windows did not hold and the rain poured in, resulting in a lot of wet floor and bed and clothes!

The guide - Fanie - was excellent with great sense of humour. We did not see a lot of game due to lack of rain and recent bush fire but really enjoyed the drives and also the walk."

"No problems here. Everything was fine."

"Still cannot be faulted - the best camp ever! Welcoming and friendly staff make a great atmosphere."

"This was good fun without losing the feel of luxury.

It was remarkable that it happened at all as the riverbed was a torrent of water 36 hours previously! Well done to the staff for managing to put it all in place for us."

"Oh dear! The management - Nick - was so poor that the whole camp lost any sense of cohesion. He was rarely seen by the guests - maybe once or twice each day for a few seconds. He did not join us for meals except for the first evening.

Luckily the 'lads' coped really well under the circumstances. However, maybe because of lack of leadership, everything had to be asked for and was not automatically provided.

This could be an excellent camp, but new management is needed. We would not suggest that you recommend it to any clients until this happens.

To add insult to injury: we knew we had to pay for drinks at this camp BUT we were charged for water on all game drives!!"

"A very good camp, well run by Libby - Chris was away and then ill!

We had the added delight of swinging across the raging river on a seat and pulley contraption 4 times a day - due to unexpected rains.

One small point - it seemed to be the only camp which did not provide a packed lunch for the flights to Arusha and Dar. However, our flight was an hour early so we had no problem."

"This was a Saturday, so more facilities available, but this also made for a slower service as it was quite crowded."