andBeyond Ngala Safari Lodge — Hotel in Bushbuckridge

What an unbelievable life experience for my wife and I with our three children. If you research Safari lodges a lot, you can tell that sometimes spotting all your wildlife, no matter how great a location, can be like fishing. Sometimes it takes a while, or sometimes you might not catch every fish every time. We stayed three nights, four days which gave us time to get the big 5 multiple times and so much more. It seems you can also probably over-spend on every imaginable part of a safari. While Ngala isn’t cheap, you could find spots to spend more. I feel this is fantastic value for the money and the ownership company andBeyond is a global, South African based operator, with a focus on conservation. Their mission, story, properties and how they do things is unique and in and of itself a reason to consider this spot. We thought our rooms were excellent. Some reviewers have had an issue here or there it seems with rooms, but I travel 60% of the time for my job, and I’d chalk that up to the reality of traveling at any type of high-end property. Same goes for the meals. We all thought those were great too, especially breakfast, lunches, and the bush grill out under lamplight. Everything is inclusive. You have spirits, sodas, wine, snacks, coffee, tea regularly supplied to your room including fresh ice. Bathrooms are great and the outdoor showers super cool. Here’s how a typical day worked: 5am wakeup, meet for coffee/tea/pastries at the lodge around 5:15-5:20, depart for morning safari. During the morning safari, you take a 20-30 minute break for coffee, tea, juice, pastries and light snacks. When you come back, there is a big, really good breakfast buffet but you also get to order multiple a la carte options from a menu. Then you have half a day at your leisure. Nap, go to pool, use their lounge areas, etc. You have a nice seated lunch that has different options every day. Then in late afternoon, you meet again for drinks and snacks before you depart for your night safari. You take a break again during that for drinks and snacks and drinks before departing for the evening safari. It’s wild, they’ll mix you cocktails in the bush or pour wine, or whatever, in the greatest scenery. You then return a little after dark for dinner. I can’t say enough nice things about the service. Every one of our family members received individual attention. They learn your names from the moment you arrive, never forget, and always address you and your kids by their name. It’s 5-star service and comes across so genuine. Literally every staff member. Our tracker was Siya and guide Mac. The two of them were rockstars. Found everything, super smart, my kids loved them. We did an additional, separate guided walk experience, my 17 year old son and I. We hiked in the bush for two hours, our tracker Siya and guide Mac tracked down three white Rhinos. Definitely worth it, you just seem to need to ask to do that. More examples of what we saw: all of the big 5, giraffes, African wild dogs (cooler than you’d think, and it’s the favorite animal it seems of all the trackers and guides), a lion ripping in half an impala 20 feet in front of us, elephants walking down the hill in front of the pool and then coming to the pool, and literally drinking out of the pool right in front of us. Life changing moments for my kids. We used Anja from Safari.com to book all of this. Anja and Safari.com were really, really good to work with too. Patient, and helped with so many questions. Some final things on amenities. They do your laundry free every day if you want. We had some special food requests for our picky eater kids, and they readily accommodated. Thanks to Ngala, and especially thanks to Mac (guide) and...

We loved everything about our stay here.

To give some background, it was my first time to Africa and first time on safari. My husband had been once before. We were travelling together for our honeymoon and stayed four nights (including one in the Ngala treehouse).

First and foremost, at every point during our stay we felt extremely safe and very cared for. Every single person from front desk, maintenance, house keeping would say hello with a smile, day and night. Not once did we return from a drive without a warm towel and Matt the jack of all trades (or one of the team) there ready to meet us. Such a special touch!

Our guide and tracker, Wiseman and Andzani made the trip absolutely spectacular. Their hard work and persistence in very difficult conditions (terrible rain, wind and road closures) was first class and despite the weather issues at no point did we feel we had missed out or had a second rate experience. Their ability to spot animals from extreme distances and track animal prints to find their current location was truly amazing. When these guys are on they are ON. Focused, on a mission, and always making sure we felt safe and comfortable every step of the way. Then once it was time for our morning coffee or afternoon g&t we had a great time chatting, learning and getting to know the guys. They were flexible to adjust game times to meet our needs (typically 5.30am and 4.30pm) and listened to our desires to see particular animals (for me, it was rhinos!). THANK YOU to our dream team W & A!

Secondly the hospitality. Never did we ever feel hungry !!! Proverb was a great host and very attentive. Plenty of options and as many wines and cocktails as you could ever need. Great variety of meals and some flexibility around ordering and special requests as well. For us the highlight was dinner in the boma on our last night with wiseman our guide. Absolutely gorgeous and very special.

The rooms are fantastic, loved the pool (disappointed we didn’t see the elephants drinking from the pool but there was so much rain they didn’t need to visit!!) and had a beautiful massage at the spa.

We also had a very special overnight stay under the stars are the Ngala treehouse. Dinner was brought to us and we spent the night listening to the spectacular sounds of Africa! A very special experience and the staff made sure we missed minimal game drive time which was important to us. Thank you Nico for being a fabulous treehouse host.

Our only gripe was that we had to fly out from an airport 3 hours away rather than the Ngala air strip - but this was a fault of the travel agent and not the hotel, and when we brought this up with the hotel they made great efforts to try and accommodate our request.

Loved it, just book it, we are already talking about when we can come back - we will be bringing the extended family and look forward to off roading with Wise and Andzania!!!!!! Thank you...

• I included a lunch and dinner menu as well as the spa menu for reference.

I came to Ngala by road with my mother, and we had an absolutely lovely experience. Our team was Ruel and Solly (who we hope continue their collaboration and write a book about Solly’s life together!!!) and both of them have a fantastic sense of humor, are very charismatic, and most importantly… clearly have true camaraderie between them. We found a baby rhino and baby elephants, and in one afternoon managed a pride of lions (2 males and 5 females), a hyena, an elephant taking down a whole tree, and finished up with a leopard in a tree.

The elephants came to the main pool to drink everyday for the two nights that we stayed at the lodge. We booked the safari suite (2 bedroom), hoping elephants would come to our pool, but it was only baboons for us. The suite itself is absolutely stunning, with incredible bathrooms and lush beds… and epic balconies that let you watch the elephants on their way to the main pool. Honestly, I would come back here for the interior design alone.

We had a massage by Glory that was truly glorious, and I can only recommend EVERYONE to get one as well!!!

Our butler was Treasure, and - it’s all in a name isn’t it? She didn’t stop smiling once. Herbert and Matt ran the lodge incredibly well, and literally jumped for absolutely any and every request (and sorry to say, we are not easy guests) - the surpassed every request we made. Very grateful to them.

The drives started at 5am and went to about 8-9am, and picked up again the evenings from about 330-4pm, with coffees, juices, teas and cakes for each drive.

Also, the hot chocolate was excellent.

My only suggestion would be to customize some post cards, as all the ones in the gift shop were photos of animals, which is very cool of course, but it would be nice to see actually where we were in relationship to Kruger or South Africa, or just something to see Ngala, rather than any...