Zaheer and I travel extensively to private lodges and we decided that this would be a great way of telling you all what we loved and what we didn’t love so much about the lodges we stay at and that way you can decide for yourself if it works for you and if it doesn’t.

We recently returned from Imbali River lodge, a concession within The Kruger National Park bordering the Manyeleti and The Sabi Sands.

What we loved about Imbali:

• The meals were amazing.
• We were able to self-drive into the Kruger if we wanted to
• Each room had a plunge pool
• The rooms were nice and spacious as well as the bathroom
• Upon request our guide Andrew took us to Satara to see the famous white lion that we had seen that morning on self drive.

What we didn’t love so much:

• We felt that the staff were a bit ‘helter-skelter’ – there were incidents where they did not know which rooms were for which guests etc.
• There was no wifi in the rooms as well as no telephones to communicate with anyone.
• The wifi was in the lounge area and it hardly worked
• We had no hot water throughout the stay
• The plunge pool motor stayed on right throughout the night and we were unable to hear any bush sounds.
• The game drives and guides were not enthusiastic at all and we found that we had seen more game on our self drive to Satara
• Our dietary requirements were not adhered to throughout our stay and we were offered meat and alcohol on drives and post-drive.

Every person will have their own experience so if you have had a different experience let us know we would be glad to have lodge reviews as a part of our website.