Elandela Private Game Reserve & Luxury Lodge — Hotel in Maruleng Local Municipality

Disappointing experience if you are looking for Africa feeling. This review is difficult as the lodge has all basics to be a great lodge and make the experience for its customers unique, but for whatever reason they do not do it. It starts with a mediocre welcoming, we were coming over the Christmas days and there was no whatsoever christmas spirit in the lodge. You dont want that fine, at least give us Africa feeling. Where is the fire in the evening, where is the possibility to enjoy a sundowner at the fire and maybe meet other guests and hear what they did see in the bush? The food has nothing to do with African food, they serve Pasta, Pizza, and fish. Despite the fact that they serve the same fish the next day, the quality of the food was not good, maximum mediocre. We would have loved to have more local food on the table. However, I did ask and they accomodated me the second night and made us a venison steak, which was excellent. Therefore, why are you not serving more local food, that you can obviously execute excellent? We had to sign a waiver, but there is no security information. We know the bush, but it is needed to advise customers that if Hippos show up, it is a dangerous situation; that you have the most poisonous scorpios around during that time and what to do. We saw one but only read in the news about their possibility to be fatal. Especially when children roaming around that is important. The rooms are fine and clean, my only advise is that you should have moskito nets on all beds, not only on the master beds. In the camp itself you can see the Rhinos (their story is described on Elandela Homepage) and girafes, zebras, baboons which is excellent. The sightings are not the best. They are having their own game reserve and you can see the white lions - guaranteed - which was a fantastic experience, you can also see the Rhinos. However, we didnt see anything in their lower game reserve around the camp and we don't understand why you would not always drive in the upper game reserve and make the sightings more realistic. We also did the Night Safari but the same outcome. They are offering trips to Krueger NP and Blyder River Canyon, which is a benefit but we didnt use it as we were only there for 2 nights. The team is trying their best to accomodate and therefore we cannot say anyhting negative about their team, they are friendly and always try to accomodate. They even organised a small christmas tree in the room. Especially the game rangers are very experienced and very engaged. I hope people can understand why I am writing that this review is difficult. We also saw so many excellent reviews beforehand and wonder how that is possible, only idea that these reviews come from the other camp and there everything is perfect. Why ? I leave it to the Management and the Owners to evaluate that in case they care. I cannot recommend to go to Elandela River View Lodge Camp. We have seen many camps throughout our lifes and it was just a disappointing experience throughout. Especially as we wanted to hand over to our kids the same excitement that we have for the bush but that failed. If you go to see the white Lions, then I recommend a max stay of one night and move on to another camp. Addition after owners comments: It is clear to us now what the issue is. Reading the comments of the owner it is clear that it is an ownership issue. Sorry, you think you do everything perfect and no criticism is allowed. Well here is the surprise - people are reading reviews and are allowed to send their opinions. You did not read any and try to understand to improve anyhting of former negative reviews. It is just sad for the animals. I stick to my opinion, "do...

What do you want to make out of your African vacation? Really, ask yourself this. If you want to get a proper safari you better book Elandela otherwise you might go back home without seeing much. We traveled all the way from Europe in order to see the big five and we initially booked ourself a budget lodge around Sabie River. We then paid extra for the Kruger Park safaris. Our disappointment came quickly - we did not see any big cats or predators 4 days into our holiday. We didn't know cars are not allowed to go off-road to find the animals. On our last day we saw a lion hundred meters away in the bushes and when we got close there was a traffic jam that made things worse. That's when we decided to book Elandela Private Reserve. We were very very lucky to find a free room during NYE time(it was cancelled last minute). Elandela Private Game Reserve shifted our previous experience. Completely. The lodge is located within Greater Kruger Area and spans over thousands of hectars. It is huge. An so is the variety of the animals, birds, plants, trees and insects within it. We were mesmerized by everything. Beside the wildlife we were thankful for the the staff. The patient guides - thank you Morne for answering our questions and staying overtime, curious just like us to find the god damn cats. Incredible Front Office- thank you Thembie for the smiles, Yvonne&Rocco - for the hospitality - that free upgrade made us smile all the time, for the food, for the good SA wine. JUST EVERYTHING. We have no words for this. I highly recommend to Book Elandela even if the price might seem high at the beginning - everything is included in the price - you get the safaris drives(on point!) and a full board stay. In the public reserves this is not included and the food is pretty terrible. Book Elandela and you don't need to stress over everything else. The place is beautiful -our room was cleaned twice a day and was facing the lake where the hypos swam. At night, monkeys were playing on the roof and zebras sometimes crossed our path. Lovely view to wake up to. PS: the owners are passionate about what they do and they opened a Rhino Saving Trust. With every donation we are closer to saving the rhino species that is soon to be extinct because of the poachers. Thank you Yvonne, Thank you Rocco!...

We loved this game lodge. We went for the start of our honeymoon and our first joint safari together. It is a private game reserve covering a vast area. In Africa they go about the 'Big 5' (Lion, Elephant, Buffalo, Leopard and Rhino) and at Elandela they have 4 of the 5. It turns out that Elephants are hugely destructive and not good neighbours for other animals. Elandela lodge is amazing. Immediately outside the rooms and main lodge is a small lake which had many wild animals around it including Zebra, Baboon, Giraffe, Wilderbeast several types of antelope and even had some Hippos in the water. The game drives run twice a day for around 3 hours each at 6am and 6pm. What we saw will stay with us forever: Elandela have white Lions! Yes, white Lions. They had had Zebra kill the day before we saw them and they were all chewing on various Zebra body parts when we caught up with them. We were a lot closer than I could ever have imagined and the four cubs were amazing. You will see all the other animals on the Big 5 list expiry the Elephants. We did have an excursion to Moholoholo, an animal rehabilitation centre which was a real eye opener and we had direct contact with a Cheetah and baby Rhino. Loads of other animals and experiences too. Our only other excursion was to the Kruger National Park. We felt this trip was somewhat disappointing. It was an hours drive to the park but you only really get to drive on the main tarmac through road and the animals tended to steer clear of roads with vehicles. In our opinion, the Elandela game drives were far better for seeing animals. Plus the rangers really know their animals. Another reason why we were disappointed with Kruger was seeing lots of evidence of widespread damage caused by Elephants. This results is major problems for many other species and makes the countryside look like the aftermath of a nuclear explosion! Whilst Elandela gets five stars for the lodge, food, location, game drives, service etc; the real stars of the whole trip was the staff - absolutely amazing! No if's or but's the staff were truly out of this world. Everyone of them put you first and we're real characters. Names we will never forget and people who made us both feel like friend and not just guests. 6 stars to Elandela, you deserve it....