Travel reviews by Mrs H from London

"Ecca Lodge is simply a dream! Extremely well organised, beautiful decor thoughtfully blending into the environment, fantastic food & service and very kind to the children.

Views and setting are amazing, in fact it's impossible to find something not to like! Beds are super comfortable, bathroom large with huge shower and deep bath. The days are very structured with drives leaving at approx 5:30am and 4:30pm (Dec times) although our ranger was quite relaxed so if we'd wanted to change something I'm sure he would have worked around it. We did find the schedule exhausting for the children because dinner ended up being quite late and so you do have to snooze during the day to be fit to enjoy the trips out!

Ranger and tracker were brilliant - so interesting and motivated to show us the best sightings possible....and they didn't let us down....we saw all of the Big 5 with lots of close up views and had wonderful views of the reserve along the way. As a first proper safari I can't recommend it enough because of the high probability of seeing lots of different animals and when not out on a drive then the Lodge is a beautiful place to hang out and relax. It also felt completely safe.

Finally, although Kwandwe was fully booked when we went it didn't feel too busy because the rangers worked carefully to ensure we were never too near more than 1 other jeep.

If you also want a sense of African vastness Kwandwe is a good choice. So pleased we chose Kwandwe!"

"We had to move to GFR Lodge for our last day/night at Kwandwe because Ecca couldn't accommodate us for all 3 nights.

To be honest this was a little annoying not only because it meant packing everything up but also because Ecca wanted us out of our suite before we could take our rooms at GFR. Although there wasn't too much of a wait it just meant that our last full day was not as relaxing as it should have been.

GFR has quite a different vibe, normally there are no kids, it's very quiet and it didn't seem as chilled out as Ecca. The rooms were still gorgeous and the view was better as you can look out at the hills and spot animals...we watched a group of giraffe as we ate breakfast! It's definitely a lodge for couples who want privacy and quiet."

"Vineyard Hotel was an excellent recommendation by Tracy L. In a quiet suburb of the city, it has a lot of charm and an amazing garden to wander around, sit in quietly and read and pet the resident giant tortoises.

Rooms were a bit corporate-like but bathrooms seemed fairly new and good quality. Our bathroom wasn't 100% clean though and there was a dirty wipe left in the corner! However beds were very comfortable and the breakfasts very nice.

Our only complaint was that it's a much larger hotel than we expected with probably over 400 guests and they were fully booked when we were there, which made the staff a bit stressed and getting a table for breakfast a bit of a scramble!

Being in Cape Town on 1st Jan should be avoided if possible....there were huge traffic jams everywhere and we had to give up on our planned trip to Table Mountain and nearly didn't make our dinner reservation in Clifton! After that though we were able to navigate around just fine and did most of what we had planned."