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Safarihoek Lodge
Safarihoek Lodge
Safarihoek Lodge
Safarihoek Lodge
Safarihoek Lodge
Safarihoek Lodge
Safarihoek Lodge
Safarihoek Lodge
Safarihoek Lodge
Safarihoek Lodge
Safarihoek Lodge
Safarihoek Lodge
Safarihoek Lodge
Safarihoek Lodge
Safarihoek Lodge
Safarihoek Lodge
Safarihoek Lodge
Safarihoek Lodge
Safarihoek Lodge
Safarihoek Lodge
Safarihoek Lodge

Reviews of Safarihoek Lodge

Wildlife sightings and reviews

36 independent comments and wildlife information from our travellers who have visited Safarihoek Lodge and kindly agreed to share their thoughts. They do not necessarily represent the views of Expert Africa

Wildlife sightings by our travellers
Starting in Jul-2018, 30 of our travellers have recorded their wildlife sightings at Safarihoek Lodge.
Lion

75% success

Leopard

6% success

Cheetah

6% success

Giraffe

100% success

Oryx

100% success

Zebra

97% success

Black Rhino

93% success

Wildebeest

93% success

Elephant

87% success

Eland

86% success

White Rhino

57% success

Sable antelope

55% success

Spotted Hyena

33% success

Brown Hyena

18% success

Roan antelope

18% success

Pangolin

11% success

Aardvark

0% success

Showing 1-10 of 36
Duration
Arrival date
Mr & Ms W
Manchester

"Safarihoek Lodge review"

2 nights Arrived 21 Sep 2023
"Good rooms with a nice view out over the reserve. Could view a waterhole through binoculars from the balcony.

Went out on 3 drives over a day and a half with a very knowledgable guide. Saw alot of general game, a couple of black rhino but the highlight was a group of 7 lions which we were able to follow for a while.

Because you are on a private reserve with a guide driving, you could leave the road and get closer to the wildlife than at Etosha." See all these reviews: 12n in Namibia
Experience Report
Overall Rating:
Excellent

Rooms:
Excellent
Food:
Excellent
Facilities:
Excellent
Service:
Excellent
Activities:
Excellent
Sightings Report

Black Rhino

Multiple sightings

Eland

Multiple sightings

Giraffe

Multiple sightings

Lion

Multiple sightings

Oryx

Multiple sightings

Wildebeest

Multiple sightings

Zebra

Multiple sightings

george
up north

"Safarihoek Lodge review"

2 nights Arrived 4 Jul 2023
"this was the pinnacle of the trip. great setting and views. good food and friendly staff.

michael the guide found so much stuff and cocktails at sunset on the plains was lovely followed but a drive home under the stars.

definite must for anyone." See all these reviews: 15n in Namibia
Experience Report
Overall Rating:
Excellent

Location:
Excellent
Service:
Excellent
Activities:
Excellent
Rooms:
Excellent
Food:
Excellent
Facilities:
Excellent
Sightings Report

Black Rhino

2 sightings

Eland

4 sightings

Elephant

2 sightings

Giraffe

6 sightings

Lion

3 sightings

Oryx

9 sightings

Wildebeest

4 sightings

Zebra

6 sightings

Mr A
Mallorca

"Safarihoek Lodge review"

2 nights Arrived 29 Dec 2022
"An amazing experience. This is like Etosha, but private, so you have much more freedom.

We were tracking elephant, rhino and lion and finding plenty of them all with our guide Mike, (who was great). Etosha heights shares a 75km border with etosha, where the fence is open in many places. This has allowed the game to migrate into the private reserve and they are now here in large numbers.

We had a great time here and saw masses of animals, (including 14 rhino in 2 days), and would even recommend that if you are limiting your number of safari days, that you come here over Etosha itself." See all these reviews: 21n in Namibia
Experience Report
Overall Rating:
Excellent

Sightings Report

Black Rhino

10 sightings

Eland

10 sightings

Elephant

10 sightings

Giraffe

10 sightings

Lion

10 sightings

Oryx

10 sightings

Wildebeest

10 sightings

Zebra

10 sightings

Mr & Mrs M
London

"Safarihoek Lodge "

2 nights Arrived 30 Aug 2022
"Very nice welcome by 2 members of staff. We went out on the afternoon game drive which was very good and saw lots of different animals with our guide Mumsy who was very nice and certainly went out of her way to find the animals for us.

After the drive she drove us to the hide overlooking the waterhole for a surprise BBQ dinner along with the other guests. This was was nice but very cramped with hardly any space between each guest sitting in a long table.

We had a further 2 game drives the following day which although good we didn't see nearly as much as we did on our first drive so a bit hit and miss. Although we did see a spitting Zebra Cobra with head up which Mumsy said was a rare sighting and has requested from us the excellent photo my husband managed to capture of it!

We didn't see the member of staff that greeted us so warmly upon our arrival again and have to say some of the staff that were on duty the 2nd day and indeed breakfast on our last morning (terrible service) were not so friendly" See all these reviews: 21n in Namibia
Experience Report
Overall Rating:
Good

Location:
Excellent
Service:
Average
Activities:
Good
Rooms:
Good
Food:
Average
Facilities:
Good
Sightings Report

Black Rhino

2 sightings

Eland

Multiple sightings

Elephant

3 sightings

Giraffe

Multiple sightings

Lion

2 sightings

Oryx

Multiple sightings

White Rhino

1 sighting

Wildebeest

Multiple sightings

Zebra

Multiple sightings

P and V
UK

"Safarihoek Lodge review"

2 nights Arrived 6 Jul 2022
"A quite mainstream experience as high end lodges in Namibia go. Excellent comfort, very good food prepared by an engaging and welcoming chef, competent and friendly guiding (Teek) and a relaxed atmosphere in a very nice location. The wildlife experiences were pretty good but not outstanding (luck plays a part in this of course). Nothing to fault but nothing truly exceptional. The lodge is on a private reserve and we struggled to understand quite how it is organised and the relationship with Etosha which it neighbours and shares a very porous fence. We believe game hunting has stopped here but we drove past a few very imposing private lodges in the reserve and wondered what they are used for?" See all these reviews: 16n in Namibia
Experience Report
Overall Rating:
Good

Location:
Good
Service:
Excellent
Activities:
Average
Rooms:
Excellent
Food:
Excellent
Facilities:
Good
Mr & Mrs B
Colorado

"Safarihoek Lodge review"

2 nights Arrived 4 Jul 2022
"The positives:

Safarihoek Lodge is absolutely beautiful. The lounge and dining area are very comfortable, clean, well designed and contemporary. There is always a little snack and drink station set up with cookies, dried fruit, marshmallows. The staff in the lodge itself were outstanding–they were so welcoming to us and our son, always available to make a coffee or help with questions. The food was very good at every meal and the chef was especially wonderful–coming out to chat with me to plan meals for my vegetarian son and myself and offering to make custom options. This was very special to us. They even had a beautiful high chair with animals painted on it for our son set up at our table. We very much enjoyed our meals and all of our time spent hanging out in the lodge area.

The family chalet was enormous and well appointed. The beds were very comfortable and balcony was amazing with a sweeping view of Etosha Heights. The only things I would ask the lodge to improve on is better toiletries for guests (shampoo, conditioner, etc) as well as a shelf to put things in the shower. Also, for having these enormous balconies, the furniture on the balcony from which to enjoy the view was very limited- only two very basic chairs. But again, we were very happy with our chalet and these are just areas of opportunity. They also had a wonderful set up for our son, and put a beautiful crib next to our bed with mosquito netting going around it, and a soft little children's blanket.

The photography hide was outstanding–the nicest, best-appointed one I have been to. It has two stories- one with higher up view where you could enjoy the fresh air and scope out what wildlife might be approaching, and the lower level perfect for those ground-level perspective shots for photography. It even had two bathrooms and charging areas/plugs, and bed-type lounge areas. Really a very comfortable place to spend time. We had some nice Hartebeest sightings from the hide.

The very large negative: I will caveat this by saying I think we would have had a very different experience if we were assigned any of the other guides at Safarihoek - the others came up and introduced themselves in the lodge, joked around with our toddler, and were so engaging and eager to converse with us. What we experienced with our guide, however, was probably our worst guiding experience ever. I have never been on any drive in which I had so few opportunities to take photographs, despite his introductory speech that stressed that he knew we were photographers and would be happy to take requests and adjust to our views and help us get great photos. We spent our entire first night's drive going very fast around the property, with little care taken for extreme bumpy roads with our 2 year old son in the vehicle.

He finally had a call from a different vehicle and we had an incredible lion sighting with cubs–we sat and watched them for a long while and got some great shots. That was our only quality opportunity for photographs despite going on three drives with him. After that first experience, I made sure to be very specific in the morning that we would like him to stop anytime he sees running animals of any species as we would like to photograph them. We passed by multiple antelope species and wildebeest in what would have been gorgeous shots, but he still did not stop. Once, hartebeest were running right in front of our vehicle in this incredible scene and he was not going to stop on his own. My husband had to say "can you stop" loudly about 4-5 times before he finally stopped completely and we missed the shots.

The other several times I had to ask him to please stop for us, he did not do some basic things guides everywhere else would do–he never turned off the vehicle to eliminate shake. He would be very slow to respond to requests to stop. He also left several times while I was still shooting and would never ask if we were ready or done. He also completely missed any opportunity to try to engage with our toddler. We gave several opportunities that most good guides would have capitalized on–telling him that our son was curious about which animal's poop that was, and he answered the question once for him, but despite us talking about it and enanging our son in that vein, the guide never again mentioned it or told our son what it was. (For comparison sake–at the Frans Indongo lodge, immediately upon hearing us make this comment- the guide jumped out of the vehicle, grabbed a rhino poop and brought it to show my son and explain how he could tell it was white rhino poop). He also skipped doing sundowner drinks with us both drives and never commented on it or explained why. Again-the other guides we met in the lodge seemed so friendly and engaging,

I think we just had truly terrible luck which left us with a very bad experience. I was so sad to leave this beautiful place with hardly any photos from our drives." See all these reviews: 9n in Namibia
Experience Report
Overall Rating:
Good

Location:
Good
Service:
Excellent
Activities:
Terrible
Rooms:
Excellent
Food:
Excellent
Facilities:
Excellent
Sightings Report

Elephant

1 sighting

Giraffe

Multiple sightings

Lion

6 sightings

Oryx

Multiple sightings

Sable antelope

Multiple sightings

Wildebeest

Multiple sightings

Zebra

Multiple sightings

T&M
Queensland

"Safarihoek Lodge review"

3 nights Arrived 19 Jun 2022
"I can't rate the staff of Safarihoek highly enough. Titus, Teek and our 2 chefs couldn't have done more to make this our most memorable experience in Namibia. The food at Safarihoek was outstanding and easily the best we had while in Namibia. The manager, Queen, deserves a lot of credit as the whole team was by far the happiest, service oriented group we encountered.

The chalets all have views over one of the waterholes, they have private decks, a kitchenette and an outdoor shower. Everything was well laid out and very comfortable. The lodge itself is a beautiful, relaxed space to have a drink or a swim and view the waterhole.

We loved Safarihoek in June but suspect it will really shine in the drier months when more animals from Etosha are looking for water away from the Etosha crowds. The manmade waterholes here are very picturesque particularly compared to neighboring Etosha NP and it has an outstanding photography hide near one of them. It was interesting that given 7 years ago this was a hunting lodge, we saw so many of the elusive species here such as Eland and Rhino. We also expected the animals to be more skittish but they seem to be relaxing. As photographers we fully intend to return here." See all these reviews: 15n in Namibia; 7n in Zambia; 5n in Rwanda; 1n in South Africa
Experience Report
Overall Rating:
Excellent

Location:
Excellent
Service:
Excellent
Activities:
Excellent
Rooms:
Good
Food:
Excellent
Facilities:
Excellent
Sightings Report

Black Rhino

3 sightings

Brown Hyena

1 sighting

Eland

4 sightings

Elephant

5 sightings

Giraffe

10 sightings

Lion

2 sightings

Oryx

10 sightings

Sable antelope

1 sighting

Spotted Hyena

1 sighting

Wildebeest

10 sightings

Zebra

10 sightings

Alice
Dusseldorf

"Safarihoek Lodge review"

2 nights Arrived 1 Jun 2022
"It was the best safari experience of the trip. The park is private and during the safari it is possible to go anywhere in the park without restrictions.

Spotted great wildlife. The lodge itself is rather modern very different from the classics lodges. Our room was super with view to the Pond and shower outside. The common areas could be improved in terms of decorations.

Service is very good but I think there is room for improvement for the food." See all these reviews: 13n in Namibia
Experience Report
Overall Rating:
Excellent

Location:
Excellent
Service:
Good
Activities:
Excellent
Rooms:
Excellent
Food:
Good
Facilities:
Excellent
Sightings Report

Black Rhino

1 sighting

Eland

Multiple sightings

Elephant

Multiple sightings

Giraffe

Multiple sightings

Lion

1 sighting

Oryx

Multiple sightings

Pangolin

Multiple sightings

Wildebeest

Multiple sightings

Zebra

Multiple sightings

Dr M & Mr D
Yorkshire

"Fabulous!"

3 nights Arrived 20 May 2022
"Everything about this place is stunning and, if you stayed long enough there would be no need to go elsewhere due to the number and variety of animals in the reserve (buffalo and hippo aside). We had incredible sightings, thanks in large part to Mike our guide who went to (literally) great lengths (distances) to ensure we saw an amazing array of wildlife. Nothing was too much trouble for him and we had great sightings of rhino (some dehorned), lion, hyena, eland, red hartebeast, zebra, giraffe, elephant, as well as the more commonly seen springbok, gemsbok, etc. We went to the photography hide twice, it was a wonderful space, though there was unfortunately little wildlife at the waterhole while we were there - the first day this was due to the windy conditions, the second it was due to the three lions that were coming for a drink! Had a wonderful time photographing them and Mike ensured that we got the best possible angles.

The drive to the lodge was interesting as you drive through (?alongside) several other private areas, at least one of which designated for hunting. As we drove along the road we saw giraffe, kudu and mongeese as well as the most beautiful cattle we have ever seen (seriously, they were gorgeous! - no idea what breed but, certainly, not one we had seen before). We were warmly greeted on arrival by the manager (TJ), Mike and others who, between them, efficiently checked us in, talked us through everything we needed to know and took our bags to our beautiful room. The main area has really good wifi, is spacious and airy with comfortable seating and is beautifully decorated - and absolutely spotlessly clean. There is always a member of staff on hand to help out or serve a drink and they could not have been more friendly.

As I said, our room was beautiful with a lovely view which included the waterhole (though that is a little distance away and binoculars would be helpful if you want to see the animals in better detail). All fittings and furnishings were of a very high standard. The bathroom was fantastic and included an outdoor shower.

The food was exceptional for every meal and all members of staff (chefs included) seemed genuinely concerned to ensure that you enjoyed the meal. In addition to the main meals, absolutely delicious snacks were laid out in great quantity every afternoon. Hot drinks were permanently available.

We will definitely return here and would recommend it to anyone." See all these reviews: 17n in Namibia; 3n in Botswana
Experience Report
Overall Rating:
Excellent

Location:
Excellent
Service:
Excellent
Activities:
Excellent
Rooms:
Excellent
Food:
Excellent
Facilities:
Excellent
Sightings Report

Black Rhino

3 sightings

Eland

10 sightings

Elephant

5 sightings

Giraffe

10 sightings

Lion

10 sightings

Oryx

10 sightings

Spotted Hyena

7 sightings

White Rhino

2 sightings

Wildebeest

10 sightings

Zebra

10 sightings

I and C
Worcester, UK

"Safarihoek, Etosha Heights"

3 nights Arrived 14 Mar 2022
"Whilst originally booked for Mountain Lodge, we were transferred to Safarihoek to consolidate bookings. Initially we were little wary of this prospect given some slightly lukewarm comments in respect of the decor and decoration at Safarihoek - however our stay was fantastic! Marvellous siting overlooking a vast plain with its own private waterhole, very comfortable, really good food and great staff. Our room was super comfortable with its own veranda with a slightly different view of the same water hole.

The area of the private reserve is vast with a common border with the Etosha National Park. The game fence is breached in several places and the there is free flow of animals in both directions. Our guide - Romon - was tremendously enthusiastic and knowledgable and went to amazing lengths to get us good sightings.

It is often said that March towards the end of the rainy season is not great for game - maybe its not so easy as the game disperses to use widely accessible seasonal water - but there is plenty to see and we were delighted." See all these reviews: 12n in Namibia
Experience Report
Overall Rating:
Excellent

Location:
Excellent
Service:
Excellent
Activities:
Excellent
Rooms:
Excellent
Food:
Excellent
Facilities:
Excellent
Sightings Report

Black Rhino

Multiple sightings

Eland

2 sightings

Elephant

2 sightings

Giraffe

10 sightings

Lion

2 sightings

Oryx

10 sightings

Sable antelope

1 sighting

White Rhino

2 sightings

Wildebeest

10 sightings

Zebra

10 sightings

Showing 1-10 of 36
95%
36 reviews of Safarihoek Lodge by travellers since August 2007
Overall rating by our travellers
28
7
1
0
0
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