Madikwe River Lodge by Dream Resorts

The staff were AMAZING, from reception, to management to waiters and cleaners. All extremely accommodating, smiley and client focused. Cannot fault Them at all. As for the rest, the place is very tired and needs quite a lot of work. The eating area needs a good re-do and there is very little place to just sit and chill, so I’d the. Weather is not great you are stuck in your room for most of the time and that also needs a fresh coat of paint, carpets etc. bathroom although clean, is not up to scratch. The area around the rooms need the grass to be cut and neatened up. Our air conditioner condenser exploded during the night and this was purely due to lack of Maintenance. The food was very average except for the last night when we had a served meal. The Lodge shop was almost empty to buying momentos was out of the question. They need to pull their socks up or they will be out of business

We were lucky enough to spend 4 nights at River Lodge and our stay was incredible! We have been lucky enough to stay at many different safari accommodations and this was on of our most memorable. Our riverside accommodation had many different visitors to delight us between game drives. The food was plentiful and service was always with a smile. The game reserve has a diverse range of habitats and wildlife. Guides in the reserve work together to give you the best opportunities to view the wildlife. We will definitely be back.

We stayed in this lodge for 4 nights and had a truly unique and amazing experience. The lodge has a great location, superb cottages and (large quantities of) amazing food. But I definitely need to give a thumbs up to its staff who went the extra mile to make our stay an experience to remember. Especially our guide and driver Jerry who is most likely the best wildlife spotter I've met in all my safaris. He showed us what it means to have "bush eyes" which resulted in a lot of unique wildlife sightings.

I love Madikwe. This is my fourth trip there. We like to choose a different lodge each time and Madikwe River Lodge was the choice this year. Situated on the river bank, we were able to watch Elephants, Warthogs and Impala come to drink and wallow. The lodge itself was similar to most others, open plan, lots of places to sit. Perhaps a little tired with some of the walkways and stairs needing some work as they could be trip hazards. The rock pool also needs work as it was not easy to get in or out of, but was lovely to sit in the sun and commune with the visiting warthogs. The staff were wonderful, the food delicious, the bush breakfast that we had asked about but were unsure of the availability, was a great surprise and really wonderful, thanks to all the hard work by the staff. Our guide/ranger/entertainer, Takura (aka Charles), was absolutely the best. So knowledgeable, so good at finding animals. We had a wonderful time. Highly recommended.

No info given on check in (game drive times, meal times, can you drink the tap water? etc) and we weren’t shown to our room so we had to hunt for it ourselves. The bathroom was dirty and the towels torn. The staff struggled to manage a group booking. Not enough game vehicles to take us all so we had to overload the vehicles and all squash to fit everyone. The one game guide Jerry was so rude, didn’t communicate with us, ignored our questions, didn’t offer us the poncho blankets on a freezing morning drive, and didn’t even let us stop for a quick bush coffee to warm up which is supposed to be included on the drives. The curio shop shelves are completely empty. The chef in the morning struggled to make a fried egg, and the coffee was awful! Bedding substandard and bed was rock hard. Madikwe itself was amazing and the sightings spectacular so I would visit again, but definitely not stay at this lodge.

I have stayed at Tau game lodge in Madikwe many times and wanted to stay at a lodge on the east side of the reserve so I could see hippo. Madikwe River Lodge was surprisingly inexpensive compared to other lodges. There was confusion when trying to book my FederalAir flight through the River Lodge - they were unable to help me but eventually I was able to book with Federal Air directly. The lodge is a totally different scale to Tau and appreciated the small more intimate atmosphere. My room was perfect with a lovely bath and overall the same quality as Tau, the food was good but not great (compared to Tau), however the staff were all wonderful! The game drives were excellent and you see the same animals/birds at Madikwe whether you stay at a $1500 a night lodge or $500 a night lodge! I would recommend this lodge and in my current research for booking a stay in April 2025 is half the cost of Tau! To be clear, I love the Tau lodge and everything about it but Madikwe River Lodge is a gem!