andBeyond — Hotel in Gauteng

Marlise helped us to plan an absolutely incredible trip and safari in South Africa for our honeymoon. We did this trip in late September/Early October of 2021. Marlise helped us to start planning for a September 2020 trip in Feb 2020. We were so disappointed when we had to postpone by a year due to the pandemic, but Marlise helped us with every step along the way and we were able to re-arrange our entire trip for 2021 without skipping a beat! Below are some highlights from our trip -with AndBeyond which Marlise helped us plan (Part I of II): The trip was SO incredible! Everything was top notch. I wish we were back there now. We can’t thank you enough for helping us to plan and organize it all! You were there every step of the way with us in helping to arrange this amazing trip (and it was certainly a long time in the making with the year-long delay with COVID.

NGALA TENTED CAMP

This was an amazing introduction into AndBeyond’s services + our first Safari experience. The pickup from Hoedspruit airport was there on time, very friendly, and everything ran smoothly to get us to the camp. Upon arrival, we were greeted by Jameson and the rest of the staff. As soon as we sat down after our initial intro, we saw a herd of elephants come up to the watering hole right outside of the tented lodge. What a way to start! Our first drive (and really every drive) with Nick & Adam was amazing. We saw so much during our few days there! We actually saw the big 5 before heading to Tengile! Nick was very informative about everything that we saw, answered any question that we had, and was great about taking us to see anything we were interested in. Adam went above and beyond and seemed like he had super-human powers to be able to track anything. When we were really interested in seeing something, Adam would hop out of the car and would track for long periods of time in order to be able to find it. It seemed like he never failed! After we tried searching for a while, Adam was able to track down a pride of lions one night before sunset, making for one of the best experiences of the trip! He also had an incredible eye during our night drives – he spotted a serval cat on our first night drive! Nick and Adam helped us to see a pack of African dogs, as well as 2 of the white lions (Male & female), among the many amazing sites we saw. Every drive was incredible and really loved being paired up with Nick & Adam. They were a perfect team and we always felt like we got lucky to be placed in the best car there. Clifford was so great and made every effort to make us feel special during our time! Clifford helped to set up a private dinner on our back-deck on our last night was very special. The food during our entire stay was amazing as well! The accommodations were spectacular. We were glad that you recommended doing both the tented camp and Tengile so that we could get both experiences. We stayed in tent #9 which we thought was great and in an awesome location. Ngala Tented - We loved being able to go on 2 drives per day in the morning and evening. Having the afternoon to ourselves to enjoy the beautiful accommodations and campus was quite nice. The first night we were able to hear a lion very close to our tent! Treehouse – the treehouse was so spectacular! Nico arranged for our transfer and was great about getting us there safely. He was very friendly and went the extra mile to bring us our dinner as it was getting dark. It was so cool being in such a remote area and being able to hear all the sounds during the night. We still felt safe given the high fenced perimeter around the treehouse area. Having some drinks up there and breakfast in the morning during sunrise was very special.

(to be continued in...

Review 2: May 2021

My husband and I booked our second trip with And Beyond with Jojo and once again she knocked it out of the park!

The initial booking process was not easy as covid continued to interfere with our plans. We also knew that JoJo was working with many other guests while having to navigate the choppy waters of travel during the pandemic. This is not easy yet Jojo continued to cheery, patient and professional throughout the entire process. She is a saint and we feel so fortunate to work with her!

Once we arrived, our experience was nothing short of amazing. The team at Bateleur Camp was incredible. Attentive, personable, genuine and caring. They make you feel like family and are happy to accommodate every request. As a hotelier, I am able to see service through a different lens. I feel fortunate for this as it allows me to appreciate the team even further.

To give you an example, our friend Lazaras, who assisted with any butler related items, surprised us on our last evening with a romantic dinner in our cabin (this was in addition to a romantic dinner almost every night!). We were in room 1 which was a brisk 7 minute walk from the lobby area. Apparently, we made the surprise rather difficult as we skipped our last drive and moseyed on over to the bar for a few gin and tonics beforehand. Poor Lazaras had about 10-12 minutes to set-up the most ROMANTIC dinner. By the time he arrived to the bar he was out of breath. I asked him if everything was alright and he told us a little story about a bush baby sneaking into our room. By the time we arrived, it was very clear that the bush baby was a playful joke. We gave Lazaras a huge hug and thanked him. So thoughtful and such work!

Ravlin with housekeeping was incredible with the details! After leaving our clean laundry on the bed with a single white rose, I thanked him letting him know that white roses are some of my favorite. Shortly after our evening game drive, we arrived back to the room to find that the original red roses were swapped out for white ones. He didn't have to do that yet he did. He did so much more (bubble bath with roses, champagne, etc).

I could go on and on about the staff. Chef Jackson aka Magic Jackson, Dennis our driver, Steph and Markus (Steph says hello by the way!), Richard, Julius (makes the best cocktails) . Even Daryl was engaging with us through social media as we posted.

The hot balloon was killer! We LOVED it!

All of this was made possible by Jojo's hard work! We appreciate you dearly and love working with you!

Review : April 2019 I cannot say ENOUGH about how incredible Jomandie has been to work with.

We initially began working with her when planning for our honeymoon to South Africa and Mozambique. From start to finish she made the entire process seamless. Her attention to detail, patience, care and overall joyful personality was without a doubt amazing. We hadn't even left for our honeymoon and were already impressed with AndBeyond and their incredible team.

She loves what she does and it shows! This makes a significant difference when it comes to the initial guest experience. We were excited and she was excited for us!

She also connected us with some amazing AndBeyonders while we were on our trip. Daryl Dell (please do yourself a favor and book a safari trip with him. He is the BEST of the best) as well as Dean who drove us around while in Cape Town (he was amazing!!).

We loved our experience SO much that we are currently planning our next trip to Botswana - with...

Part II of II (continuing the post from my husband, Max, on his previous review)

TENGILE RIVER LODGE

Wow! We loved Ngala so much, but Tengile was a whole different vibe. These accommodations and the location was so amazing and breathtaking.

Being able to open up those huge doors Iin our suite and enjoy the outdoors while taking a nice bath was something else!

The drives were our favorite parts, but being on the river in such a location was special because we were able to see so much even during our down-time between drives! Our guide was Chris & our tracker was Lucky. These guys were great, very knowledgeable, and friendly. We saw so many amazing animals and sites while here. We also learned so much from Chris’s extensive knowledge. We were able to see the big 5 AGAIN here and saw some incredible leopards. We were lucky enough to be able to do an on-foot tracking of a white Rhino which was quite a special experience.

Chris and Lucky truly helped us to have a special time – we were able to see some lion cubs and their mother a few times which everyone really loved. Chris took us into an amazing location where we were able to view the lion cubs playing up in a tree and messing around with each other for 20 minutes or so which was one of, if not the coolest thing, we’ve ever seen! We were able to get so close to them! Similar to Adam, Lucky had an amazing eye on some of the drives and was able to spot some very cool things which we would’ve never seen otherwise.

Freddy was so friendly and always went the extra mile to make our experience a great one!

The food here was even better than Ngala tented camp (which is really saying something). These were some of the best meals we’ve ever had.

Our lodges were SO incredible. We started in lodge 6 which had breathtaking views in both directions of the river given its location.

The big Braai’s were amazing. We were lucky enough to have 2 of them while we were there! Freddy also arranged for a big breakfast in the bush one morning which was a surprise to us and was absolutely amazing! What a great experience! It was very clear that Freddy was willing to go above and beyond to make the guests have an amazing experience. We loved the bartenders who were working at night time also. They made some amazing drinks and were always very friendly and lively, making for a fun time upon our arrivals back from the night drives. Transportation was smooth on the pickup to and from the airport on the way in and out. It was awesome to have Chris take us to the airport on the way out! We actually were able to spot a huge Marshall Eagle with a lizard in the tree just as we were driving out.

Overall, it was definitely a trip that we will never forget. This was such an amazing and special time for us and we’re so grateful for you and everyone at AndBeyond for helping to make this happen. Hopefully we can make it back...