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Chongwe River Camp
Chongwe River Camp
Chongwe River Camp
Chongwe River Camp
Chongwe River Camp
Chongwe River Camp
Chongwe River Camp
Chongwe River Camp
Chongwe River Camp
Chongwe River Camp
Chongwe River Camp
Chongwe River Camp
Chongwe River Camp
Chongwe River Camp
Chongwe River Camp
Chongwe River Camp
Chongwe River Camp
Chongwe River Camp
Chongwe River Camp
Chongwe River Camp
Chongwe River Camp
Chongwe River Camp
Chongwe River Camp
Chongwe River Camp

Reviews of Chongwe River Camp

Wildlife sightings and reviews

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

Wildlife sightings by our travellers
Starting in May-2018, 28 of our travellers have recorded their wildlife sightings at Chongwe River Camp.
Lion

93% success

Leopard

54% success

Cheetah

0% success

Wild dog

4% success

Elephant

100% success

Hippo

100% success

Buffalo

85% success

Spotted Hyena

78% success

Zebra

58% success

Aardvark

17% success

Eland

13% success

Sable antelope

8% success

Pangolin

0% success

Showing 81-90 of 120
Duration
Arrival date
Mr & Mrs L
USA

"Chongwe River Camp review"

3 nights Arrived 7 Jul 2011
"Very personal service and it worked out that we had our own guide, Chris, for our three three days. The team of guides worked together to provide a great safari experience in finding various animals. The camp staff was very friendly and accommodating. Nice touches such as greeting the jeep on return from a safari drive with wet towels.

The camp schedule was not rigid, and one day we opted to stay out on safari and have lunch by one the many lagoons in the Lower Zambezi Park.

The location of the camp provided a great view of the Chongwe river, and a boat ride on the river onto the Zambezi at sunset provided an interesting break from the jeep rides with an opportunity to get close to the hippos and crocodiles along the bank." See all these reviews: 10n in Zambia; 4n in South Africa
Experience Report
Overall Rating:
Excellent

Location:
Excellent
Service:
Excellent
Activities:
Excellent
Rooms:
Good
Food:
Good
Facilities:
Good
Mrs B.
Cambridge

"Chongwe River Camp review"

4 nights Arrived 17 Oct 2010
"Beautiful setting, comfortable camp. However we were a little disappointed with some of the activities. The guides were good, but on each of our excursions (except two within the park when a park guard came with us) we were accompanied by only by the guide and we did not have a guard as well, as we had had at the previous camp. This made a difference to the amount of wildlife spotted - impossible for the guide to be concentrating on the driving as well as the spotting.

More importantly, I also felt that the camp was a bit slack about safety. On one evening float trip on the Zambezi, our sundowners on an island in the middle of the river were followed by engine failure. The radio did not work so there was no way of summoning help. The boat was equipped with but a single paddle, not enough to propel a boat of that weight. As darkness fell, our guide heroically jumped into the thigh deep water and waded for 10 minutes towards the Zambian bank, pulling the boat behind him. Then in the darkness he shouted for help in the hope that someone might hear. Luckily they did and a relief boat was sent from the sister lodge. fortunately the other 2 guests and I were pretty unflappable. But I was VERY unhappy that the guide should have felt obliged to put himself at risk by jumping into water which we knew to be crocodile infested.

When we related this story to the camp manager, she was quite unconcerned. I think the management did not take it as an opportunity to assess the risks and act on risk managment e.g. simple measures like having an adequate number of paddles and punt poles in each boat. Is engine failure a rare occurrence? Not in our experience - it happened again the next day. The camp manager told us a story of some French guests getting very upset last year when their vehicle broke down on a night drive in the park, again I felt her point was that they were unreasonably bothered by this.

On this type of holiday, one should expect the unexpected to happen. What I would also expect is an appropriate response from management to minimise the rsik of recurrence. This and a few other very minor events made us think that at this camp the emphasis was on style rather than substance." See all these reviews: 10n in Zambia
Experience Report
Overall Rating:
Good

Location:
Excellent
Service:
Excellent
Activities:
Average
Rooms:
Excellent
Food:
Good
Facilities:
Good
Mr & Mrs W
Croydon

"Chongwe River Camp review"

3 nights Arrived 18 Sep 2010
"Lovely location.

Game not as easy to see as at Luangwa but enjoyed river activities" See all these reviews: 14n in Zambia
Experience Report
Overall Rating:
Excellent

Location:
Excellent
Service:
Excellent
Activities:
Excellent
Rooms:
Good
Food:
Excellent
Facilities:
Good
Mr H
Bristol

"Chongwe River Camp review"

3 nights Arrived 8 Sep 2010
"Fantastic location - we enjoyed the variety of boat & drives and the different terrain from South Luangwa." See all these reviews: 9n in Zambia
Experience Report
Overall Rating:
Excellent

Location:
Excellent
Service:
Excellent
Activities:
Good
Rooms:
Excellent
Food:
Good
Facilities:
Good
Mr & Mrs B
Bucks.

"A camp of two halves"

3 nights Arrived 4 Aug 2010
"There is no doubt that the accommodation we had in the Cassia suite was superb, way beyond luxury though given the price we thought that we might have been given more choice for example on the food. There was no choice of menu. This is not to say that what we had was poor, the opposite in fact, it was excellent but we had what we were given.

Whilst the inital welcome was warm it was not very informative for example about what choices we had on activities other than we knew we could not have a dedicated vehicle which we had not expected anyway.

Joseph our butler was such a lovely man who could not do enough to make our stay a happy one. Never having had a butler before we almost felt guilty in asking him to do things for us.

The view of the river was beautiful though when the Hippo start calling just after three in the morning you may wish for a room futher up the Chongwe river. In its brochure the camp prides itself on organising things round you not the needs of the camp. In fact we found the opposite. In part this was a factor of being in the self contained Cassia suite at the opposite end of the camp to the general dining area. This meant we did hear about what was going on. Communication, particularly about activities, was not good. The issues were raised with Florence (Flossie) and she did respond as best she could given the circumstances. This was meant to be the highlight of the holiday for us but apart from the accommodation, it fell short of the expectations.

We had some wonderful Lion sightings of three males but apart from this the volume of wildlife was low with several "very quiet" drives. The park itself is very varied and has some really beautiful habitat. Guest should be prepared though for a 20 min or so very bumpy ride up into the park as it is on the opposite side of the chongwe river to the camp." See all these reviews: 12n in Zambia
Experience Report
Overall Rating:
Good

Location:
Excellent
Service:
Excellent
Activities:
Good
Rooms:
Excellent
Food:
Good
Facilities:
Good
The D Family
Ontario

"Chongwe River Camp was wonderful"

3 nights Arrived 9 Nov 2009
"This was an amazing place to stay. The staff and accomodations were excellent. It was in a very safari location to get the real Africa feeling.

We very much enjoyed this part of our trip." See all these reviews: 7n in Zambia
Experience Report
Overall Rating:
Excellent

Location:
Excellent
Service:
Excellent
Activities:
Excellent
Rooms:
Excellent
Food:
Excellent
Facilities:
Excellent
Mr & Mrs C
Edinburgh

"Chongwe River Camp review"

4 nights Arrived 24 Oct 2009
"We absolutely loved our stay at Chongwe and cannot fault it in any way - all of the staff go out of they way to make sure that you have everything to make your stay enjoyable and you are made to feel so welcome that you really start to feel like part of the family.

All of the activities were excellent and the guides were very knowledgeable. There are also a good number of choices of activities from canoeing to fishing to walking safaris and game drives so you will never be bored. You are also very much in charge of your own itinerary and the staff will do all they can to make sure that you do whatever activity you fancy on a particular day.

I must also mention the food as this particularly good - the best we had on our 3 week holiday. I would recommend Chongwe without any hesitation." See all these reviews: 6n in Namibia; 6n in Zambia
Experience Report
Overall Rating:
Excellent

Location:
Excellent
Service:
Excellent
Activities:
Excellent
Rooms:
Excellent
Food:
Excellent
Facilities:
Excellent
Chris
Bath

"Chongwe River Camp review"

6 nights Arrived 18 Sep 2009
"Although the setting is wonderful, game is not found in great numbers and game drives can be frustrating. In fact you can see most game on offer by sitting outside your tent. Night times are exciting with large elephants, hippos and sometimes lions walking past your tent.

We found just sitting by water waiting for game to come to drink and watching birds more rewarding than driving for hours around the bush. Elephants were seen in numbers and of course are never boring.

There are many activities on offer but even so I would not recommend staying longer than three nights at this camp." See all these reviews: 16n in Zambia
Experience Report
Overall Rating:
Average

Location:
Excellent
Service:
Average
Activities:
Excellent
Rooms:
Average
Food:
Average
Facilities:
Average
Mr & Mrs T
Beds

"Memorable experience at Chongwe River Camp"

3 nights Arrived 3 Sep 2009
"Chongwe River Camp is in a delightful location, absolutely fabulous area. We had some very memorable experiences in the camp with the Elephants that came through every afternoon and at night to eat the fruits that fall from the trees in camp, some fantastic photo opportunities. Our guide Patrick was also very knowledgeable, particularly with the birds and good at tracking lion. We had some lovely encounters with Lions in the early morning. Also the variety of birds were fabulous.
We saw far more animals around the camp than in the National Park and were disappointed in the game seen within the park boundaries.
Our accomodation and service received by Debbie, Cariline, Neil, and all the staff was really great. Unfortunately Chris went down with a tummy bug which lasted through to our next camp (Tena Tena). We can't be sure but suspect it must have been caused by something consumed at Chongwe as the Doctor seen by Chris at Tena Tena said it would have been caused by something she ingested. Note I only mark down the Food below because of this occurence." See all these reviews: 12n in Zambia
Experience Report
Overall Rating:
Excellent

Location:
Excellent
Service:
Excellent
Activities:
Excellent
Rooms:
Excellent
Food:
Average
Facilities:
Excellent
Mr & Mrs G
Bucks

"lovely camp in beautiful setting."

3 nights Arrived 3 Sep 2009
"the camp and surrounding area were superb. we had elephants in camp each day, so close you could almost touch them. great photo's taken from my bed!!

water excursions excellent. unfortunately the park where we spent most time on the drived was almost devoid of game for the whole of our visit.

patrick was am excellent guide and the camp staff were also great." See all these reviews: 12n in Zambia
Experience Report
Overall Rating:
Good

Location:
Excellent
Service:
Excellent
Activities:
Average
Rooms:
Excellent
Food:
Excellent
Facilities:
Good
Showing 81-90 of 120
96%
120 reviews of Chongwe River Camp by travellers since August 2007
Overall rating by our travellers
99
17
4
0
0
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