Anantya Serengeti — Hotel in Ikoma

They advertise a luxury lodge with personalized service and a personal butler... it is none of this, and apart from the appearance of a fake design it is worse than many cheaper lodges that invest less in appearance but in substance give you much more for a much lower price!||From a luxury lodge we expected at least:|- to be able to take a nice hot shower in the morning and in the evening|- to eat well and according to our dietary needs|- to have wifi and light 24/24 as advertised||None of the 3 things went like this. And not having hot water for two days on two is not acceptable!||I booked 2 luxury tents (really not cheap) for two night for me and my family in total 4 adults and a 4 year old child.||We only found out at check-in that as a rule we would not have hot water after 10pm and the worst thing is that it was not possible to take a hot shower even in the morning! In reality there was not even cold water in the bathroom tap all day, but only a small trickle.||The dinner had very small portions and there was no choice other than vegetarian or non-vegetarian: it was neither an a la carte service nor a buffet service but a fixed menu with a vegetarian option! Also ask simple steamed rice is a problem!||The breakfast was far below the standards of other lodges: only 2 eggs, a tiny portion of fruit and some pieces of cake, nothing more. They have an espresso machine clearly visible but... they told me they didn't have some parts so it was unusable! ||They advertise everywhere a personalized service and a room service with iPad 24/24 to be able to order from the room what you want and when you want included in the price: but this does not exist either.||The camping tents at first glance seem nice, but in reality they are not functional and it is very cold because the closures do not have zips like all camping tents have. They are also extremely dark, there is only a central low voltage light bulb, there is not even a reading light near the bed!||The lunch box was highly inadequate: we didn't have a personal lunch box but they gave us tiny portions of overcooked pasta and some fruit all in a single container to share between all 5 members of my family and with the 2 guides: I have never seen anything like this in any lodge, not even the cheapest!||Having no choice but pasta for lunch box, 3 of us had asked for pasta without vegetables and only with meat and instead they put peppers so two members of our family didn't eat because they were intolerant, one asked for only vegetables and instead they prepared pasta with vegetables and another member of my family asked for a simple portion of chicken without pasta because he is celiac but here too they prepared pasta with chicken. We only discovered the problems with the lunch boxes during the safari!||But the thing that went beyond all limits was that when we returned from the game drive exhausted and fasting at 7:00 pm we discovered that even at that time, well before 10:00 pm, there was no hot water!||Final surprise, we discovered that on the second and last night the electricity went off at 11:00 PM! So no wifi, no light, and no possibility of recharging our equipment and obviously no room service (even at check-in they boasted about the 24/7 electricity)||We encountered too many serious problems and overall everything or almost everything that had been advertised about the lodge's services was not real.||In response to the obvious poor service, the lodge manager, responding to my complaints, told me at check-out that they would contact me that day from the central office to offer me a partial refund but after 10 days I had not received any contact, this was also a lie.||Finally, I had asked for camping tents next to each other since my parents, who are elderly, slept in one: this request was also not granted, despite the long notice and the online pre-check-in done...

We had a nice overall stay at Anantya. The lodge is newly refurbished to a high standard, set in beautiful surroundings where elephants and zebras frequently graze and where you can hear animals calling at night. The bed is massive and so comfortable - we also absolutely loved the outdoor patio space.

The staff really go above and beyond to ensure you have a comfortable stay and Anantya has got the personal touches right - a butler, hot water bottles, tea/coffee every night, really engaged staff etc.

Some of the basics however were lacking during our stay and could really be improved on to make a stay exceptional. I am including the below not to put anyone off staying at Anantya but rather with the hope that management will read this review and action the below accordingly to ensure exceptional stays all round:

The entire lodge operates off solar power which is totally hit and miss. We weren’t able to have a proper hot shower during our stay - sometimes the water was cold, other times only lukewarm. The solution the property has for this is hot water in a bucket which you can use for a shower, which isn’t totally practical or ideal after a long day of being dusty.

On our second morning, there was a power cut and we were without electricity for several hours, getting ready for our day in the dark. Back to the solar power, there wasn’t enough of it and this was also being used to build new tents in the area. A lodge of this size definitely needs a generator of some sort.

We found the food at Anantya to be the most disappointing of our trip which was a real shame after the many reviews we read mentioning the good food. The food is very much catered to the Westerners and doesn’t embrace the Tanzanian culture at all - it would be nice to have something different to a ham sandwich, bolognese or a burger on holiday. On the first night our burger and chips arrived cold with the chips undercooked (we didn’t have this issue on the second night though!). The toast at breakfast was always cold and overcooked and there also wasn’t much variety, we had the same fruits/dessert cakes daily. There also wasn’t the option for hot lunch takeaways although our tour company had the carriers for it.

There wasn’t a communal tip box at reception and given how exceptional the staff were, it would have been nice to make a contribution to be shared amongst the wider team

All in all, this is a new lodge which is still ironing out some issues as it gets up and running but we did have a good stay overall.

Anantya is totally worthy of a stay and we would return once and if, it is properly up...

Just book it. What a magical experience! I wanted to visit Serengeti National Park without using a travel agency. I stumbled upon Anantya while doing my research and they were amazing from the very first email. They organized an itinerary for us and made recommendations and adjustments as needed.

Everyone is amazing. John was our safari guide. He was kind, knowledgeable, and made every game drive a great experience. He knew the Serengeti inside and out. We saw so much wildlife including the big 5. We got picked up at our hotel near Kilimanjaro Airport and went down into the Ngorongoro Crater on our way up to the lodge. We booked a walking safari, 5 full day game drives, hot air balloon, and a bush dinner. I recommend all of these. Yes, you can do less than 5 nights and most people do but we loved the time spent because we never felt rushed and we were able to visit multiple areas of the Serengeti. For one of the days, we actually only did a short game drive after lunch because the walking safari does take up the morning.

Our Butler was Emmanuel. Truly a great person inside and out. We can't thank him enough for all of his help during our stay. Pascal was available to answer all of our questions and gave us great advice when adjusting our itinerary.

The food was simply amazing. Every dish was made with care. Chef Jackson did a great job with all the meals.

The lodges were clean and perfectly designed. We loved watching the sunrise from our bed. They greet you with open arms and when it was time to say goodbye, we truly wished we could have stayed longer. You can see elephants and giraffes from your room or the main common area. The surroundings are so peaceful.

While the common area has enough space to sit everyone, it is not that large. The sit-down area feels intimate with dimmed lights during dinner time and we loved having dinner there every night but would find ourselves trying to avoid to be sit down at the same time as a large group due to the volume. Its dinner, obviously people are having conversation but perhaps dividing large groups to sit at neighboring tables instead would help keep the volume down. Otherwise, we have no other complaints. We hope to one day return. We can't thank the Anantya staff enough for making our trip so magical....