Travel reviews by Rhodes Family from London

"clean hotel, staff were helpful in the morning in coordinating various transfers for the guests"

"Sand River camp is a beautiful, romantic camp situated next to the Sand River. Close proximity to the river meant that we saw quite a lot of wildlife from the camp itself, for example, we saw elephants whilst having lunch. The tents are styled as old fashioned “colonial” and have a lovely historical feel, perhaps somewhat like Cottars. It was romantic and extremely comfortable. In particular we enjoyed the four poster bed with drapes, the roll top bath and the very hot water. You feel close to the animals in the tent and we saw baboons and monkeys from our room. It was a proper canvas tent so it did feel rather cold in the morning but that is to be expected.

The food at camp was a little variable, sometimes we had excellent meals and other times less so but we felt the hospitality was very genuine and the staff tried their utmost to provide a five star experience with management and the chef coming to speak to us every evening.

The main criticism would be in the overall experience we had with our guide. Overall we were happy with the game we saw (we were very lucky to come across 2 leopards on 2 separate days). However our guide was a rather fixed in his itinerary and probably needed to show more flexibility and communicate more. Our biggest issue was being taken on a very long and rather uncomfortable journey to Mara River even though we had advance notice there were no wildebeest crossings happening that week. Our guide insisted we should still go to see other animals and in retrospect we should have argued harder against that but the experience as a whole showed there needed to be clearer communication between the guide and client.

Despite this issue, overall the camp is good for migration, we saw huge amounts of wildebeest and we saw them cross the Sand River (which was quite dry so it wasn't a dramatic river crossing but still impressive). Unfortunately we were unlucky with the Mara River crossing as the timing was not right but in the right circumstances we suspect it would have been fantastic as there were plenty of crocodiles there. We got the impression the game is harder to find in the Sand River terrain, there is a lot of long grass so we did spend quite long periods looking for cats but ultimately saw a few lions and a leopard (we saw the second leopard on the way to Mara River, close to the Tanzania border).

Overall I would recommend the camp but advise that people will need to be patient when looking for game and also be clear about what they want to see/do when working with their guide."

"This is an extremely luxurious camp. The rooms are not really tents, they are more like lodges with canvas decoration. We were in the huge family suite, no 9, it was really stunning. The biggest plus point was the panoramic view and the really large terrace. We actually reserved an afternoon to stay in the room to enjoy being on the terrace.

The food was consistent and well prepared and the staff extremely hospitable and engaging. There is a "family feel" to the camp which they try to encourage amongst the guests as well by doing communal dining. Some days we were happy to go along with that and others we wanted to dine separately - you need to give the staff notice in advance as they have set up an extra table.

The conservancy is reasonably small so the guides seem to know it very well and where the animals reside so you are not being driven for ages before finding a sighting - that is a plus or a minus depending on your point of view. Our guide was superb, he knew huge amounts and was keen to share his knowledge about the animals and local life. He was an excellent communicator and attentive to our needs.

I would recommend this camp for cats, we saw several lions and a lot of "action" including fighting and communication within the pride. We also saw cheetahs. Overall I would not hesitate to recommend if a traveller was looking for a luxury experience."