Mountain Zebra National Park — Attraction in Inxuba Yethemba Local Municipality

Beautiful place. Plenty to see and experience. Wonderful Birding. However the accommodation was disappointing, unless you are lucky enough to get a newly renovated chalet. The chalet we had was very tired, which is understandable with time. But if they did regular maintenance the chalets (which are not cheap) would be acceptable. They just do NO maintenance! In our chalet, the shower head was broken and sprayed water everywhere. The wooden surrounds on the mirrors had old varnish cracking and peeling off. The sliding door to the patio had a latch to keep it closed but it had been pulled out of the wall and never replaced. The kettle was rusted through and leaked onto the electric base making it very dangerous. The large plate on the stove just did not work. The double bed was a disaster. It must have been broken as it was collapsed in the centre. It was also very noisy! Every time you moved it made loud creaking noises - and not springs but wood-on-wood creaking noise, waking your partner up every time you turned over. The duvets were too heavy - good for times of snow but way too hot for other times, but there was no option of a blanket instead. The chalets exist in monkey territory, but there are no screens on any of the windows and so you have to survive with windows closed at all times, in a stuffy environment - the not what you go there for! The reception lady was very good when we notified her of the shower problem and promptly filled in a maintenance report. Impressive, but a complete farse as the maintenance person obviously came to check but did nothing at all! I think they believe their systems are working but nobody checks that they are - they are just going through the motions. If this was a private rental, given the price if it, it would be properly maintained. Not so for SANPARKS I am afraid. And by the way, the camp shop is RIDICULOUSLY expensive! Complete rip-off prices! Not good for the public. I recommend that visitors take ALL their own stuff and...

What a wonderful stay! We stayed in the self catering lodges which were very comfy. No 18 was very private and had a spectacular view.

Useful stuff to know: 1 There is a petrol pump at reception. 2 The shop at reception sells charcoal, wood, firefighters, matches and spices. 3 The lodges have dishwashing liquid. 4 The roads in the park are 100% fine to drive with a sedan (we drove in a vw polo). There are 4x4 tracks too if that’s your thing. 5 If you do stay over the camp gate opens at 07:00 and closes at 18:00. 6 There is a restaurant at reception. 7 Book your game drives in advance because the spaces get taken quickly. 8 Double check your game drive booking. We got double booked and nearly missed out. 9 The night drive is something totally different. You will see many nocturnal species including bat eared foxes. We were fortunate to see an aardwolf. 10 The cheetah tracking is amazing. Definitely worth it. It’s pretty much a morning game drive while your locating the cheetah, then you walk through the park on foot to get close to where the cheetah are. We viewed cheetah from about 30m away. It was magical. 11 The cheetah were so remote and camouflaged that we would never have located them without a tracker. We would never have seen them unless they moved. So if you want to see cheetah then do the cheetah tracking. You’d have to be incredibly lucky to see them otherwise. 12 Check the board at reception for recent sightings of game so you know where to look. Drive slowly and look carefully. Ask other people what they’re looking at. It’s how we saw lion. 13 Get the mammal and bird checklists at reception. 14 Take binoculars / a zoom lens. 15 If you can get Richard as your guide on any of the game drives do it. He’s amazing. 16 Don’t hide away in a storm. Drive up onto the top parts of the park, the views are...

It saddens me to rate the park at a 1 star but the following was my experience. My husband and I picked this particular park because of its fantastic website and all it has to offer (and to take a break from Addo Elephant Park where we usually go) so we decided to spend my birthday here Sat. We booked a nice chalet (which had no water the next morning) we also booked a lovely night drive (only to find out when we returned that the restaurant was closed ... Nobody bothered to inform us when booking the night drive nor give any info such as take jackets with or any communication really) we spent some more money on the cheetah tracking which we also booked the previous day only to find out the restaurant only opened at 11am, tracking was at 930am (nobody bothered informing us when we booked at the same front desk next to the restaurant, after we did talk about coming for breakfast before right infront of same staff etc) The morning of the cheetah tracking the water was faulty/off so no showers/toilets/coffee from our lovely not cheap chalet and cheek from the intern and student (as per name lables) at reception when reporting and asking about the restaurant and the chalet water issue. I would not recommend coming here for your birthday or any other special occasion as you might not get dinner nor breakfast or a shower and definitely no decent service from front desk staff. 'Great' 30th Birthday MZN, definately one to remember.

Back to Addo for us where all the staff are always ready to help, especially the front desk staff.

Very disappointing visit.

If not for the staff I would of rated 5 stars as the park is beautiful, animals amazing and the cheetah sighting was...