Travel reviews by Mr C & Ms S from Colorado

"Clean comfortable stay.

The guides were not as good as others we had later, but everyone was very accommodating and we enjoyed it very much overall.

We found the food not as good as other places we stayed."

"Ernest, the houseboat manager, spent an entire day with us on the river in the smaller boat. It was wonderful. We sat watching elephants up close for hours, just quietly. Magical. We also watched a pair of lionesses and one male make a charge on a cape buffalo herd, without success because a big bull kept fending off their charge. It was spellbinding. My husband is a photographer and Ernest and all the other staff guides were just excellent at holding the small boat steady so he could get the shot. They were exceptionally attentive and considerate.

The houseboat itself is beautiful, the food amazing (thank you Chester!!!), the company just excellent and I can can't say enough wonderful things about the staff. Whatever we wanted to do, we did. We will definately do this again, for more nights (3 were just not enough) and try for October when the elephant show is really hopping. We also met the owner who traveled with us a short ways, what a great guy. We had since recommended the houseboat to everyone we talked to, it's a wonderful way to see Chobe while staying away from the crowds. I probably think about this part of the trip once or twice every day now that we are home...with longing. I'd go back in a minute. And I wish you had more Excellent buttons I could check!"

"Our guide Paul was so knowledgeable and fun. I loved it that the camp was solar powered (except for the propane freezer) and that everything had been brought into the camp on mokoro! This was our second mokoro trip in the Delta and it was better than the first.

We had hippo chewing outside our tent each night, long cruises through the delta where we learning flora and fauna and heard waterbuck herds splashing their way away from us. Incredible food (including a very cool tour of the kitchen), lovely staff who sang to welcome us, sang Obama songs for us at dinner (we loved it), catered to our every whim and taught us about the gentle, quiet life on an island in the delta.

We saw amazing birds, including a Pel's Fishing Owl that Paul spotted and made sure we all had great views of. I loved it, loved it. It was here where I learned what the Hartlaub's Babblers sounded like, what Crested Barbet looked like, and heard the Fishing Eagle call every morning and evening. Add that to lions roaring at night...magical. I dream about this delta trip when work is stressful here...it's so nice to know that peaceful place is there. Highly recommended! We will also do this again."

"This was the best part of the trip of all, we think, our mobile safari with Letaka Safaris though Moremi and Kawai. We saw a cheetah just minutes from leaving on our first game drive, and I turned to my husband and said "This is too easy!" From there it just got better. We saw wild dog, African wild cat, lions (the pride of 10 seemed to be hanging around our camp area in Moremi), leopard on the night drive in Kawai, hyeena, birds galore include a bazillion endangered wattled crane and ground hornbills. The works.

Our guide Kurt, was so knowledgeable, funny and easy-going that he made the trip. We enjoyed the food, the camp was great, and I again loved sleeping out in the bush and hearing the night critters. I want to do the 14 day mobile safari with Letaka sometime, it was a great way to move through the parks and take it all in. I liked this better than moving from stationery lodge to lodge (even tho that was great, too). Letaka is a great birding safari outfit, which suited me to a tee, since I am a keen birder. We just loved it and was sorry when it came to an end."

"Riley's had a good shower, but otherwise the food was not that good and the whole place overpriced.

This was our third Cresta hotel of the trip and they were all that way, expensive for what you got. We would have prefered to stay in a b and b or something for that one night in Maun."

"Beautiful place to stay and we were sorry we were only there one night. Everything was exellent."

"Again, only one night. Food was amazing, I had Springbok for the first time, very delicious.

Not much action at the water holes but we hiked to the top of the mesa where their restaurant was and that was very interesting."

"This was the only place we were really disappointed with and mostly because our main guide was bad. The location and lodging were excellent, the food excellent, but on the one day we had to go out to look for rhino, we had a guide who must have been really out of sorts or something. He kept lecturing us about how this was the "real nature" when it because obvious we weren't going to be lucky enough to see a rhino and seemed almost sullen actually. Since we live in Colorado surrounded by wilderness areas I thought this was quite arrogant of him to assume that as tourists we would all be from a city. Besides, I'm a birder. I know animals don't show up when you want them to. I would have loved to learn tons more about the area, but the guide was only focused on rhino.

Although the topography and ecosystem were amazing, we heard nothing about it and mostly spent a very long day being driven at breakneck speeds though rough terrain, with the guide occassionally (and grudgingly it seemed) stopping for us to take a bathroom break, or even to snap a photo. When we did see a critter, he'd tell us the name, but that was all and then zoom on. Since we had been traveling in Africa by then for several weeks, his behavior was in stark contrast to all the other excellent guides we had had up to then. By contrast, another staff guide who drove us into and out of the Rhino Camp location was a GREAT guide (we saw cheetah and lions with him coming and going from the camp). Stopping to hunt for birds, setting up photo shots for my husband, frequently asking how we were doing and whether we were comfortable, etc. He was very considerate and seemed to really enjoy what he was doing.

I don't want to bash the whole place just because of one guide, but for all the hooplah Wilderness Safaris makes about its environmental ethic in its literature, I didn't hear anything about that from our main guide and by the end we were just ready to get out of there.

The road to the Rhino Camp from Vingerlkip was terrible--and took a long time to travel it. I would recommend only a 4 wheel drive vehicle on it, not our low clearance little Ford. (Leaving towards Etosha the road was much better).

So, considering that this was probably the most expensive of the lodges we were at in Namibia, and that once we finally made it over the road and got there only to have a crummy experience, makes me think we won't be returning to the Rhino Camp. I don't think it's worth it especially because of the several days it took to get there (overnight at Vingerklip made it a three night venture), feels like we wasted time there when we could have spent it somewhere else in Namibia. I think the Rhino Camp was our idea, actually, but please caution others who might get sucked into their advertising, that it's more of an iffy venture--and more expensive-- then other places."

"How about seven rhino in one night? The new lodges are beautiful and wildlife at the waterholes amazing.

Food was fine. The Brandt safari guide says that there is an internet cafe here, but that has closed. Also, they don't have a place to change money, so you need to use visa. Still a great park and we saw a ton of very interesting critters and behavior."

"Spent one whole day watching a lion family by a waterhole. Saw rhino and elephant vying for space at the waterhole at night, leopard come to drink, and hoards of sandgrouse at the waterholes at dusk.

Quieter than the bigger camp, lovely room, good food. Really liked the notion that we could just sit and watch the animals come to the waterholes. I would suggest Etosha after people have been other places with guides so they know what they are seeing and are better at spotting critters, because otherwise it would be easy not to see as many animals as we did."

"Wow, we should have stayed here 3 nights at least. I LOVED it. I loved the work they are doing with the cats, and their environmental education programs with kids.

We had very close up views of leopard (eating a baby zebra) and cheetah. The lodge was wonderful, we were upgraded to the bush camp whichi I would highly recommend. They gave us birdseed and told me to feed the birds from our cabin...I saw dozens of new species in just a few hours doing that.

Great lodge, great guides, wonderful food, great company. Highly recommended. Wish we would have stayed longer."