Reviews of Lagoon Camp
(93%) From 113 travellersThey do not necessarily represent the views of Expert Africa.
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Lagoon Camp review
A luxurious camp in a beautiful setting. Tents are very luxurious. Good sighting of 2 herds of 30 -40 elephants.
Service a little less personal than little Kwara.
Lagoon Camp review
Again, we were completely amazed by our experience at Lagoon Camp. Everything was perfect and well above our expectations.
Read more about the whole safariGreat camp; wildlife a bit scarce
Overall
A very well run and comfortable camp but due to certain circumstances pointed out below the game was not as plentiful as we would have hoped.
Location
Wonderful location on the edge of a lagoon of the Kwando river. Superb views. However due to certain circumstances game not as plentiful as we had expected. Reasons seem to be:
1. Concession very large and not fully developed hence animals can retreat to inaccessible areas and sightings at one end of the concession can be difficult to get to from the other end
2. Some larger animals migrate across the Kwando river into and out of Namibia where there are shooting concessions. This means they can very shy of humans
3. A three year drought and the water in the Selinda Spillway which has been dry for many years means that certain animals that used to be resident in Lagoon have moved to other concessions
Rooms
Excellent - 24/7 electricity, fans, inside and outside showers, bath tub, safe, large comfortable bed, no mosquitoes. Could have done with a little more storage space. Wonderful views across the lagoon. Hippos outside room at night.
Service
Quietly well run camp. Nothing too much trouble for staff who joined us for dinner and were great fun.
Food
As in Little Kwara good , plentiful but could become a little repetitive. Drink selection excellent.
Activities
Driving and tracking very good and as in Little Kwara drivers always prepared to go off road. We saw Lion, Leopard, Elephant, Hippo, Giraffe, Zebra, a Hyena den with very young Hyena cubs, Jackal, Ostrich with young, Marshall Eagle and many other birds. A particular feature of the concession is the resident pack of Wild Dogs which although hard to find when we did find them were fascinating.
The sunset boat trip was great and especially the colony of Carmine Bee Eaters.
Facilities
Excellent - particularly the library, pool, lounge and recharging station!
Excellently run camp
Thuso and his deputy Obi were very involved seeing that the guests had a good experience. For instance Thuso arranged for a private safari the next morning when we had been disappointed in not seeing the carmine bee eaters at their nests.
Our guide Bali and his tracker Julius were good and we had good sightings of leopards and wild dogs.
Why did we go there?
The vehicles were boneshakers and the roads were horrendous. Please see separate email and attachment.
Read more about the whole safariExpert Africa comments
These travellers saw wild dogs here, which were high on their wish-list. Despite this, they were very unhappy here, especially with the camp's vehicles and the quality of the reserve's tracks.
By way of a post-script to this story, Kwando Lagoon took delivery of new vehicles toward the end of 2012. Lagoon tell us that they're not allowed to lay anything to improve the tracks, but they do drag them periodically to try and reduce the ruts.
Kwando lagoon review
This was our last camp. Left waiting at the airstrip for 45 mins to be met, very hot!! Jeep with no roof and no means of attaching one so late am safaris were very uncomfortable.( did not know about no rooves at Kwando until just before departure so probably would not have booked here). However they did try very hard to accommodate us on game ride timings and I used a sarong and umbrella!!
The setting was absolutely fantastic. The rooms huge and very comfortable ( but with slippery rugs on highly polished floors!) the ceiling fans were excellent.The elephant swimming across the river was stunning and the evening boat ride very enjoyable .Paul , our guide , tried very hard to find game but there was disappointingly little about. We drove a long way to see the wild dogs which were great but didn't manage to track the cheetah due to the lack of game.
The camp is in an excellent position with great views across the river. The pool area great for relaxing in the shade and fishing from the deck was fun.
Expert Africa comments
We were delighted that these guests had a good time at Lagoon Camp (and did finally see the wild dogs there!) but sorry about the delay at the airstrip. Such flight delays are rare in Botswana but thats no consolation to these travellers.
The vehicles at Lagoon and Lebala camps are open to the skies; they dont have roofs. Although we make this clear on our website pages for these camps, were very sorry that we didnt draw this travellers attention to this fact when she was planning her trip. We now have a system to do this to inform travellers who are thinking of including Lagoon or Lebala of this fact as they plan their trips.
Incidentally, these open-topped vehicles at Lagoon and Lebala are gradually being replaced by new vehicles (with three rows of seats rather than two), which are due around the end of November 12. These will have the facility to add a canopy. However, the default practice of Lagoon, Lebala, Kwara and Little Kwara will remain for these vehicles to have open tops, without any canopies, as the camps believe it gives better all-round visibility. They plan to only add a canopy, on request, if all guests on a vehicle agree it's desirable.
Lagoon Camp review
Beautiful, comfortable camp. The management and staff were very accommodating.
The game drives were spectacular! We were there in August and were lucky to see many predators and other game. Spencer and James were our guides/ driver. They were amazing. They successfully tracked cheetah, leopard, and lion. We had the most incredible experience with a pride of lions--I will never forget it. We were also able to see the wild dogs and their puppies!
We love the open trucks that Kwando has, even the Yuri!
Kwando Lagoon - home of the wild dogs
After leaving Muchenje Safari Lodge we've had a scenic flight to Lagoon Camp located at the Kwando river.
We stayed for 3 nights at Lagoon Camp and enjoyed it very much!
The lodge is located at a lagoon and you can hear (and sometimes also see) elephants and hippos close by. The tented rooms are more than spacious with a large living-sleeping room and a bathroom with a bath tub facing to the lagoon - amazing. All people are very friendly and helpful and they create delicious meals. They offer game drives in the morning and afternoon and also a boat cruise an the Kwando river
Joe (a bushman!) and his tracker A.T. were a fantastic team to guide us. Because Lagoon is a private concession the drivers are allowed to drive off road and also at night. This is a big advantage in comparison to the National Parks where vehicles have to stay on the road and have to be back at the lodge/outside the park at sunset.
We've chosen this camp because we hoped to see wild dogs .... and we did!!! At the time of our visit the Lagoon pack consisted of 18 adult animals and 10 puppies (about 5 weeks old!). The den was just a 10 minutes drive away from the camp so it was easy to visit them (and we did it every day!!!). We saw them sleeping, suckling the puppies, playing, doing their famous ritual greetings, preparing for the hunt and also joined them hunting - an unforgettable adventure: we followed the dogs through the bush overriding bushes, logs and even small trees with the indestructible URI vehicle and joined them chasing a herd of about 100 buffaloes trying to bring down a calf (finally successful!).
But we've seen also a lot of other animals in this concession incl. elephants, buffaloes, wildebeests, topi ..... and we also saw a pride of 4 lions and not to forget a clan of hyenas at their den with 3 cubs !!!!
The boat cruise was nice but a little disappointing because we've seen only a few animals but other guests were more lucky in seeing more animals.
The camp was great and because of our wild dog experience this camp will stay unforgettable for us and of course we can't recommend it high enough !!!
Wild dogs everywhere!
Our first camp in Botswana - very spacious and luxurious rooms. Friendly and welcoming staff and expert guiding. We had fantastic sightings of Wild Dog everyday of our stay, as they had set up their den very close to the camp.
Bali and Aaron our guide and tracker looked after us very well. Keeping up with the dogs while they are hunting is no easy task and you need to hold on tight as the vehicles do follow them everywhere!! But with expert driving by Bali we arrived at two kills very soon after they were made by the dogs.
We saw 7 species of antelope including Eland. We also had good sightings of both side stripe and black backed jackal. Also good birding with sightings of many raptors, Giant Eagle Owl and Kori Bustard.
We have always believed that acting responsibly is the only way to approach tourism and we're one of
the few companies to hold AITO's original coveted 5-star status for responsible tourism. It's a lead
that others are now following.
