Reviews of Victoria Falls Hotel
(93%) From 140 travellersThey do not necessarily represent the views of Expert Africa.
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Victoria Falls Hotel [Simbabwe 11-2019]
Travel intention: 9th trip to africa, looking for unique safari experience throughout Africa in a comfortable to luxurious setting.
Facilities: This hotel is a special place and every detail breathes history. While other places try to get themselves an artificial "vintage"-like Feeling, this Hotel is proud of its authenic history. It was originally built as a stop-over place on the Cape-to-Cairo railway and later upgraded to a luxury accomodation. Many details (carpets, curtains, windows, lamps…) enrich the overall experience of emerging into a forgotten area, where you might meet some members of the old british nobility around each corner.
Service: Overall excellent Service at breakfast/Dining area. Part of our luggage arrived one day later and the staff took excellent care of it communicating with the airport and delivering the luggage to use.
Experience: The Hotel itself has a nice garden area to take a short walk around, get a distant view on the mist from Victoria falls or relax at the pool area. High tea as well as dinner in the Livingston room is highly recommended. Great breakfast buffet, one of the best I experienced on my travels throughout africa. You can directly take the short walk to the Falls from the Hotel or you will be picked up for booked activities.
Overall: Due to excellent connections of Vic Falls airport, a visit to Victoria Falls is a great part of trips in the area. Victoria Falls hotel is highly recommended for those travellers looking for a unique, history-rich luxury experience.
Timeless
My stay at the Falls was very brief. I went down to the waterfall. I have never seen it like that before: 100% dry from Livingstone Island all the way east. Horseshoe Falls, Rainbow Falls, The Armchair, and the whole Eastern Cataract utterly dry. It in a way it was quite fascinating for me as have so many, many hours with that waterfall, but I did feel sorry for those who might have been seeing it for the first time like that.
I had a terrific dinner at The Three Monkeys - it was doing roaring business as usual and the food was excellent. I’d like to say a special thank you to the Activities Desk Manager at the Hotel for all her help.
Victoria Falls Hotel review
Hotel is as I remember it from over 15 years ago. Great service and staff. A dated but charming building in a colonial style.
Unfortunately what had changed was that each day from around 8.30 am and pretty much all day the peace was disturbed by the constant sound of circling helicopters. A great shame.
The spa and gym facilities are basic
Victoria Falls Hotel review
On arrival, we decided to upgrade to a better room----they were almost full to bursting, but the Operations Manager on duty, worked his socks off to accommodate our request--which he managed to do and the room was great
Read more about the whole trip
Frayed Victorian Grandeur
The Victoria Falls Hotel is a classic Victorian Colonial Hotel in a park like setting. The public areas are grand but the furniture looks tired and the rooms need a refurbishing. Air-conditioning was marginal and loud. In our digital age there are limited plugs and no USB charging outlets in the room, bedside lamps with charging outlets and USB ports would be a wonderful addition.
The staff were excellent, in particular the head bellman with his pith helmet and white uniform covered in pins from locations around the world! There is still an air of Victorian splendor and formality at the hotel.
There is a formal dining room but we did dine, as there is a formal dress code, people on safari only have a duffle bag with 20 lbs. which leaves no room for formal wear! The hotel should relax the dress code two or three nights a week to accommodate those guests. Fortunately there is an outdoor dining room overlooking the river valley was the highlight but watch out for the cheeky monkeys that try to steal table scraps!
Contrary to the information on their website the hotel does not have a view of the falls, one only sees the mist rising, and there is no direct access to the park associated with the falls. The only animals seen on the hotel grounds were the monkeys and tame warthogs.
Colonial era luxury at Vic Falls Hotel
Great stay in a wonderful, colonial era hotel; like straying into an Agatha Christie thriller 'Death at Victoria Falls'.
Read more about the whole tripFrom another era
Victoria Falls Hotel appeals to many people but it wasn't necessarily my style, which I realized when the desk clerk told us about the formal dress code for one of the restaurants!
The location had a very nice view of the bridge, although we were disappointed that the walking path to the bridge was closed. The veranda restaurant is where we generally ate. The desk clerk was marginally helpful but the activities desk clerk was fabulous. Each evening we were inundated with smoke and I'm not sure where it came from but it made it hard for me to breathe even with the A/C on and a towel covering the gap under the door.
Also, we weren't picked up for our safari transfer until 11:20 and we weren't allowed to have a late check out. So it was not the greatest having to hang around the lobby for almost 1 1/2 hours waiting. If I went back to Vic Falls, I'd stay in a small, boutique lodge.
It was very fun to watch the baboons, mongoose and warthogs playing on the grass.
Victoria Falls Hotel
Talk about a step back into a Bygone Era.!!!
Staff were great, very attentive & helpful but not in your face.
Rooms perhaps a wee bit dated to say the least, but the location overlooking Vic Falls Bridge breath taking to say the least.
Food was variable, we thought the Stanley Terrace Restaurant was good but not so impressed with Jungle Junction where we thought the Buffet was average & over priced; we didn't frequent the "Fancy Restaurant" - The Livingstone Room but I dont think we were alone there.
Entering & Leaving Zimbabwe was a night mare due to the various Customs Officers on duty who seemed to take a pleasure in Refusing Kaza Visas at will.!!!!!
Our son did the Micro light flight in Zambia / Bungee Jump from the Bridge & Devils Pool Trip. Fantastic Experience although perhaps more background to Livingstone Island would have been good.
Water Levels very low so spectacle diminished slightly.
A visit to the Micro Brewery - - The River Brewing Company a must do if you like your Ales.
Victoria Falls in general shabby & frequented everywhere by guys selling "Tat" unfortunately.
Great stay at the Vic Falls Hotel
After 2 weeks driving around Namibia it was wonderful to relax at the Vic Falls Hotel and wash the dust out of our ears.
Wonderful stay at the grand old dame which really does take one back in time.
Cannot fault it except for the cost which is pretty eye watering having come from from Namibia which was was extremely good value.
Victoria Falls Hotel review
The service at this hotel was excellent. We particularly enjoyed the evening show the hotel puts on every night with the buffet dinner. Many activities are on offer in the area, and we booked a sunset dinner cruise and helicopter ride ourselves. The only negative was the 15-20 minute walk to the Falls by road/path via the town. The shorter direct route was closed. The walk offered little or no shade, and the street vendors were plentiful and persistent. Safety here was always a concern for us.
Although the view of the Falls is more extensive from the Zimbabwean side, we were surprised by how little time it took to see all the viewpoints. We spent longer on the Zambian side of the Falls and enjoyed it more. Crossing the bridge by foot is very tricky with 2 immigration stops in each direction.
