Reviews of Lagoon Camp
Wildlife sightings and reviews
265 independent comments and wildlife information from our travellers who have visited Lagoon Camp and kindly agreed to share their thoughts. They do not necessarily represent the views of Expert Africa
90% success
68% success
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93% success
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"Beautiful riverside Lagoon Camp"
As our trip was a special celebration, one evening we returned to find a card and present on the bed and at dinner some of the staff appeared singing “Happy Birthday” and carrying a delicious, decorated cake with candles. It was a wonderful surprise and much appreciated.
Again we had some amazing sightings both during the day and at night when spot-lighting thanks to some excellent work by both the guide and the tracker. Among the highlights were the tracking down of two cheetah brothers, as well as sightings of sable, roan and porcupine." See all these reviews: 10n in Botswana; 2n in Zimbabwe
"Lagoon Camp review"
But, food and service very poor.
Breakfast before a drive: porridge and cereal and sponge cakes. No proper orange juice. No cheese. No fruit. (Although i did get some cheese and fruit by asking for it; but why not put it out.) No eggs. No meat, cold or hot (bacon). (But they did produce specially strong coffee for the Notts every day after we had asked for stronger on the first morning.)
Lunch unimaginative and again only boring fruit: apples.
Dinner very poor and dull food. e g overly spiced lentil soup followed by dry tasteless roast chicken underdone carrots and tinned peas . No choice.
Very hot Mexican soup followed by shredded beef ( dry and tasteless ) cold stir fried broccoli, cold stuffed gem squash . Inedible bullet like chocolate donut to finish. No choice of wine unless one asked for it. Service, particularly of wine, incredibly slow.
We had a torch in our room. It didn't work. And when we went to the management they said "It's a wind up torch". But no-one had explained this to us (and we left the torch as we were about go on a drive and it did not get back to the room).
I suspect a combination of not enough staff and no proper management of the staff that were there.
Night drives are a waste of time unless you are a fanatic. In all our trips, we saw half a civet, half a hare, and a black backed jackal. And we saw the jackal in daylight which was much more use.
We did have a wonderful sighting of lion cubs with Spencer and James.
The other guides spent far too much time talking on the radio turned up very loud. Much of what was said appeared to be either repetitive or idle chatter or both, and it was very distracting and off putting. Radio transmissions should be kept to a minimum and when made should be as brief as possible.
Problems of communication. Language was a problem. They did not have a good grasp of Enlish. One example only. We asked the camp to get their office in Maun to reserve us seats on a booked BA fllight as we could not do it ourselves as there is no wifi. We gave them all the details to allow them to access the BA website and told them to do so after 7.20 pm on the day we handed the details over as we could not reserve seats earlier without paying. First they came back about 6 pm and said we had to pay. Then, when we again explained they had to do it after 7.20, they went off and, in effect, never came back. We did eventually get our flight details paper back but not reservation.
For sighting details see my separate e-mail." See all these reviews: 12n in Botswana; 3n in Zambia
"short stay but great introduction to Botswana"
Excellent food.
Very good guide and tracker with good information.
Despite only staying one night we saw a number of animals in that 24 hours.
Beautiful location by a river, close to hippos and elephants, and one or two crocodiles." See all these reviews: 10n in Botswana
"Lagoon Camp review"
Also liked the the Kwando model of having a guide and a tracker for each truck. This was especially important for the night drives which were rather uninteresting when there was only one guide/driver searching for night-time beasts. Also Kwando camps were private concessions allowing off-road exploration and a maximum of 3 trucks per 'action site' so there was never overcrowding of the tourists or by the tourists." See all these reviews: 11n in Botswana
"Great safari at Lagoon"
Elephants in abundance - even delayed our arrival at the camp and in getting from chalet to the bar.
Great staff and great sightings including aardwolf, jackal and one wild dog." See all these reviews: 8n in Botswana
"Top service safari at Lagoon "
The safaris were as exciting and varied as one could wish with lions, elephants, a profusion of birdlife, hippos and antelope including red lechwe, impala, kudu etc. Very impressed by the large numbers of hippos. Didn't see wild dogs, but not for want of trying. The staff were exceptional, their cheerful teamwork reflecting genuine enjoyment of their lovely camp.
Cannot fault the experience here and will be my top priority to come back." See all these reviews: 10n in Botswana; 2n in Zimbabwe
"Lovely Camp in a Beautiful Setting"
One of us has mobility challenges, and the staff could not have been more helpful, finding ways to make it easier to get and out of the vehicle and negotiate steps and ramps within the camp.
We had a great team in our guide and tracker, Poster and KT. The wildlife was amazing: numerous antelope species, including roan; zebra, elephant, giraffe, hippo, baboon. We had wonderful close-up encounters with two magnificent male lions; witnessed lions mating; found a beautiful female leopard lounging in a tree; and after a hectic chase through the bush, saw a wild dog kill.
We also saw, for the first time, brown hyena." See all these reviews: 10n in Botswana
"Top Notch safari at Lagoon Camp"
The staff were really friendly and efficient and looked after us well with great food. Our cabin/tent was perfect, roomy, very comfortable and blessed with a wonderful outlook over the lagoon where we could watch numerous different animals and birds. The whole experience was excellent, the time just passed too quickly." See all these reviews: 9n in Botswana; 2n in Zimbabwe
"Lagoon Camp review"
Special thanks to our ranger/guide (Spencer) with his great stories and unbelievable energy. He has some great stories and anecdotes. Esp ask him about Howard, the croc if you ever visit this camp.
long game drives (5 hours each) maybe for some guest (we liked it) too long. one afternoon gamedrive a surprise with a white linnen bar set up in the middle of nowhere to have our sundowners. Nice surprise!" See all these reviews: 14n in Botswana; 4n in Namibia; 2n in Zimbabwe
"Mission accomplished seeing wild dogs"
Also lucky to see 2 young Aardwolf at the entrance to their den on the way back to camp on the night-drive.
No large quantities or variety of wildlife otherwise during our 3-day stay.
We were concerned by the amount of time spent searching for a particular animal in a particular area when we should perhaps have done more general searching throughout the concession.
Apart from the Aardwolf siting (location previously known) we gained very little from the night-drives and arrived back at camp quite late (7.30 to 7.45) - just in time for dinner but with little time to freshen-up." See all these reviews: 11n in Botswana
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