Travel reviews by Mr R from Rickmansworth

"Staff very friendly and helpful. Location is ideal in terms of closeness to park headquarters. As a general comment, the lodge bedrooms are dark, especially the bathroom.

The rooms are also very cold partly due to the wasteful and inefficient open fire."

"Nyungwe Forest Lodge is lovely, beautifully located on the edge of the rainforest. The staff were friendly and helpful.

Chimp trekking takes up a large part of the day, so allow extra time to simply appreciate the surroundings and go on some excellent-sounding walks directly from the lodge.

Without appearing to be trivial, there are a couple of points to mention. The rooms are clustered together in threes and our neighbour's bathroom extractor fan discharged directly - and noisily - onto our balcony, drowning out the beautiful natural sounds of the rainforest. It stayed on as long as they had their light on. The main reception and restaurant building has awful, unnecessary piped music.

On two consecutive days, we were the only people at Nyungwe getting up at 4am to go and trek to the chimps, yet on both days we returned at lunchtime to find our rooms were being cleaned, so we were unable to enter, use the loo, get out of muddy clothes etc. This could be better organised.

For a 5* hotel, there is a very limited menu and there is a strange set-up where you have to order all courses at the same time, whether you know you want dessert or not."