Letaba River Lodge — Hotel in Greater Tzaneen Local Municipality

It was the little things that were missing that made our stay poor to average. ||||Restaurant:||No Complaints, food was good. Very Pub and Grill style food, portion are good and its worth the money.||||Terrain:||To get to the lodge there is a 2/3km dirt road, road is fairly well maintained and is easy to drive with your daily vehicles.||||On the Lodge Premises, it would have been nice to see where things are once you enter the premises. On our visit, there was a wedding event starting, thus with a lot of people standing around and with no clearly visible boards for direction we ended up driving around and walking up and down to finally see the reception area at the bottom.||||The Predator Park is well maintained and the animals are well cared for. Shout out to the Park rangers, they are well educated on the predators and the animal interaction was a highlight.||||The Rooms:||||Our first room...the key got stuck in the door... it happens..and they switched us to a new room for convenience.||Our second room: I understand that being outdoors, getting some creepy crawlies are inevitable. Having a small bottle of Doom would have really assisted with the uninvited spiders and flying cockroaches. ||||The bedding: Sleeping was highly unpleasant, the mattress was so hard, it made it unbearable to sleep. We asked for a mattress change the next morning only to be told that they are unable to change the mattresses (I really don't know the exact reason why this was a problem) , So for 2 nights we barely slept. At least the Lions and peacocks kept us company through the night. ||||No spoons with our cups in the room.||||Cleanliness... All and all it was bearable. Our cups from Saturday night was not removed and replace with fresh ones. Instead it was rinsed out in our bathroom. It still clearly had the coffee ring...This was a no no for me. We had some spider skeletons between our bed sheets(I can accept this as it could happen I guess?) ||||Maybe we were just the unfortunate pair and maybe it was just a series of...

WORST experience ever!! We have been coming here for years and years, but it seems like the experience is just becoming more and more terrible!! Today was truly our worst we had. Previously, we were understanding, but today was just unacceptable. My brother and his fiance went to do the interaction. We have done it many times before, so we let them go alone for bonding time. Their guide has been there only for about 6 months, I think. He was rushing them the whole time. We could see my brothers fiance through the wooden poles. The guide gave her the baby lion, and not even 3 seconds later, the guide took the Lion back. She barely touched the baby cub and note, this was her first time here. We always bring new people here.... Anyways, as they went on with the guide. He kept rushing them and saying he had other people who were waiting for him. Keep in mind, it was really quiet there.... Some guides were sitting around on their phones, so yeah NOT THAT busy for him to rush. How is it that other people's money is more important than ours, why does the guide have to rush to meet with other people when he has paying customers right there with him. We went to complain at the reception, and the guy completely understood. He spoke to the other guide that was sitting on his phone. They said they would get the guide that had been there for more than 10 years, and he would guide them through properly. When the experience guide came, he only came with excuses. He didn't seem like he wanted to help us. He sounded irritated, saying if he is taking them out, then he should take other people out again, too. How is this good customer service? One says one thing and the other says another? I am truly sorry, but this has been the WORST service we have ever received, and we have been coming there way back when we could still hold the Honeybadger in our arms. That's years ago!!! If this is how Letaba River Lodge starts their 2025, I can't think this would be a good year for them....

Letaba River Lodge has a lot to offer. You drive in with a well maintained gravel road. As you get to the gate you can feel the excitement bubbling inside of you. The first thing you see is a row of large lion enclosures. When I drove in I was lucky enough to see two lions pairing.

The reception was friendly and the room was neat, well furnished and had a great view. The view could be seen from a balcony where I could stand for a long time and listen to the roar of the lions.

The service at the restaurant was friendly, but a little slow. The food was delicious and the plating beautiful.

There is a swimming pool, braai area, wedding and convention facilities.

I went to the lion park in the morning, there I could see a variety of animals. There are (white and brown) lions, (siberian, bengal and white) tigers, caracals, coati and a few other animals.

For R100 extra you can enter some of the enclosures with a ranger. The animals that I interacted with were; 3 month and 1.5 year old lions, adult and baby caracals, coati and one or two others.

All in all it was a great stay, with...