Reviews of Chongwe River Camp

"The first evening we went out for an evening cruise, very odd feeling after more than 10 days in the bush. We had a very nice evening with a French couple, who hardly spoke any english. As we speak French we had no problem and we had indeed a very interesting evening. In most of the camps (apart from Remote Africa) the evening conversation was a social event and not very interesting.

Very relaxing camp. The atmosphere of the lodge was very much family like, something we appreciated. We were picked up for a short, very short drive to a leopard chewing away on a baboon. The red light did not seem to bother her at all.

To wake up in the morning with the raising sun shining into the tent listening to all the birds was an experience never to be forgotten.

The food lacked a bit of imagination." See all these reviews: 17n in Zambia

"Chongwe River camp had a very special atmosphere - relaxed, friendly and very Zen if that doesn't sound too pretentious! There is such a lot lot of wildlife and birds that you can see and hear just sitting quietly in the camp, that you feel that you're amongst it all from the word go. It's in a beautiful setting on the confluence of the Chongwe and the Zambezi, and with good binoculars you can even watch elephants on the Zimbabwe shore.

The river trips,including canoeing and fishing, add an extra dimension to the safari., and watching the sun set with a sundowner on a boat on the Zambezi is sublime! Great guides, great staff and a fabulous place all round." See all these reviews: 11n in Zambia

"Very personal service and it worked out that we had our own guide, Chris, for our three three days. The team of guides worked together to provide a great safari experience in finding various animals. The camp staff was very friendly and accommodating. Nice touches such as greeting the jeep on return from a safari drive with wet towels.

The camp schedule was not rigid, and one day we opted to stay out on safari and have lunch by one the many lagoons in the Lower Zambezi Park.

The location of the camp provided a great view of the Chongwe river, and a boat ride on the river onto the Zambezi at sunset provided an interesting break from the jeep rides with an opportunity to get close to the hippos and crocodiles along the bank." See all these reviews: 10n in Zambia; 4n in South Africa

"Beautiful setting, comfortable camp. However we were a little disappointed with some of the activities. The guides were good, but on each of our excursions (except two within the park when a park guard came with us) we were accompanied by only by the guide and we did not have a guard as well, as we had had at the previous camp. This made a difference to the amount of wildlife spotted - impossible for the guide to be concentrating on the driving as well as the spotting.

More importantly, I also felt that the camp was a bit slack about safety. On one evening float trip on the Zambezi, our sundowners on an island in the middle of the river were followed by engine failure. The radio did not work so there was no way of summoning help. The boat was equipped with but a single paddle, not enough to propel a boat of that weight. As darkness fell, our guide heroically jumped into the thigh deep water and waded for 10 minutes towards the Zambian bank, pulling the boat behind him. Then in the darkness he shouted for help in the hope that someone might hear. Luckily they did and a relief boat was sent from the sister lodge. fortunately the other 2 guests and I were pretty unflappable. But I was VERY unhappy that the guide should have felt obliged to put himself at risk by jumping into water which we knew to be crocodile infested.

When we related this story to the camp manager, she was quite unconcerned. I think the management did not take it as an opportunity to assess the risks and act on risk managment e.g. simple measures like having an adequate number of paddles and punt poles in each boat. Is engine failure a rare occurrence? Not in our experience - it happened again the next day. The camp manager told us a story of some French guests getting very upset last year when their vehicle broke down on a night drive in the park, again I felt her point was that they were unreasonably bothered by this.

On this type of holiday, one should expect the unexpected to happen. What I would also expect is an appropriate response from management to minimise the rsik of recurrence. This and a few other very minor events made us think that at this camp the emphasis was on style rather than substance." See all these reviews: 10n in Zambia

"Lovely location.

Game not as easy to see as at Luangwa but enjoyed river activities" See all these reviews: 14n in Zambia

"Fantastic location - we enjoyed the variety of boat & drives and the different terrain from South Luangwa." See all these reviews: 9n in Zambia

"There is no doubt that the accommodation we had in the Cassia suite was superb, way beyond luxury though given the price we thought that we might have been given more choice for example on the food. There was no choice of menu. This is not to say that what we had was poor, the opposite in fact, it was excellent but we had what we were given.

Whilst the inital welcome was warm it was not very informative for example about what choices we had on activities other than we knew we could not have a dedicated vehicle which we had not expected anyway.

Joseph our butler was such a lovely man who could not do enough to make our stay a happy one. Never having had a butler before we almost felt guilty in asking him to do things for us.

The view of the river was beautiful though when the Hippo start calling just after three in the morning you may wish for a room futher up the Chongwe river. In its brochure the camp prides itself on organising things round you not the needs of the camp. In fact we found the opposite. In part this was a factor of being in the self contained Cassia suite at the opposite end of the camp to the general dining area. This meant we did hear about what was going on. Communication, particularly about activities, was not good. The issues were raised with Florence (Flossie) and she did respond as best she could given the circumstances. This was meant to be the highlight of the holiday for us but apart from the accommodation, it fell short of the expectations.

We had some wonderful Lion sightings of three males but apart from this the volume of wildlife was low with several "very quiet" drives. The park itself is very varied and has some really beautiful habitat. Guest should be prepared though for a 20 min or so very bumpy ride up into the park as it is on the opposite side of the chongwe river to the camp." See all these reviews: 12n in Zambia

"This was an amazing place to stay. The staff and accomodations were excellent. It was in a very safari location to get the real Africa feeling.

We very much enjoyed this part of our trip." See all these reviews: 7n in Zambia

"We absolutely loved our stay at Chongwe and cannot fault it in any way - all of the staff go out of they way to make sure that you have everything to make your stay enjoyable and you are made to feel so welcome that you really start to feel like part of the family.

All of the activities were excellent and the guides were very knowledgeable. There are also a good number of choices of activities from canoeing to fishing to walking safaris and game drives so you will never be bored. You are also very much in charge of your own itinerary and the staff will do all they can to make sure that you do whatever activity you fancy on a particular day.

I must also mention the food as this particularly good - the best we had on our 3 week holiday. I would recommend Chongwe without any hesitation." See all these reviews: 6n in Namibia; 6n in Zambia

"Although the setting is wonderful, game is not found in great numbers and game drives can be frustrating. In fact you can see most game on offer by sitting outside your tent. Night times are exciting with large elephants, hippos and sometimes lions walking past your tent.

We found just sitting by water waiting for game to come to drink and watching birds more rewarding than driving for hours around the bush. Elephants were seen in numbers and of course are never boring.

There are many activities on offer but even so I would not recommend staying longer than three nights at this camp." See all these reviews: 16n in Zambia