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Old April 30th, 2006, 08:42 PM posted to rec.travel.africa
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Default Honeymoon Lodges Tanzania/Zanzibar

writes ...

my fiancee and I are looking into booking a 2 week
honeymoon in Tanzania in early October. Can anyone
recommend really mice lodges to stay in Tanzania
(Ngorogoro & Serengetti, specifically)


My wife and I went to Tanzania in the dry season (January) and wet
season (April) in 2006 ... at Ngorongoro the absolute best lodge is the
CCA property 'Crater Lodge', from what I hear, but movie-star expensive
(
http://www.ccafrica.com/destinations...ia/ngorongoro/ ).

A step down (say class IV instead of V) would be the Serena and Sopa
Lodges, which are much larger than the CCA property and about half the
cost but still rated deluxe. We ate twice at the Serena while passing
thru and it's beautiful, but we stayed at the Sopa because it was the
only hotel on the opposite side of the crater and it had one road for
entry/exit, so we could photograph more with less driving around and we
had fewer people around early in the day.

From what I saw I'd recommend either the Sopa or Serena at Ngorongoro

if the price is in your budget. All the staff we came into contact
with were helpful and friendly and the food ranged from OK to very
good. If you can afford the CCA property then that would likely be a
more intimate, deluxe experience though.

As for Serengeti, the bulk of the migration in Oct is usually in the
far north of the eco-system, which is the Mara reserve in Kenya. If
you can afford the CCA prices then they have a deluxe lodge up there
near the border, which has maybe 10 rooms instead of 200 like the ones
I stayed at (
http://www.ccafrica.com/destinations...ns/default.asp ) ...
the other lodge in this area is the Lobo Wildlife Lodge but all the
drivers and tour operators I know say to avoid the "Wildlife" lodges
.... these were formerly owned by the Tanzanian government in the
socialist days and typically featured underfunding, mediocre at best
food and lackadaisical staff ... they were sold a few years back but I
hear the owners aren't putting the necessary funding in them to improve
things much.

There is a nice Serena Lodge in Serengeti (I just stayed there for 7
nights) but it's a bit far from where most of the game will be in Oct.
Also a nice Sopa Lodge but it's even further from the best game areas
in Oct. For those reasons many people skip Serengeti in October, I
hear. I'm thinking of a camping trip in Oct but will be staying up
north if we do this and wouldn't particularly want to stay where these
lodges are at that time of year.

Actually I've been told by several people that in Oct Tarangire
National Park is probably better for game viewing than most of
Serengeti because it's very dry so the animals (especially elephants,
they have more elephants than the other parks up north) are
concentrated near water holes on the river. We stayed at the Sopa in
Tarangire in January and it's a nice hotel, but there are others in
better locations, I've heard. If we do this camping trip we'll spend
more days at Tarangire than in the Serengeti.

also is October a good/bad time to go (weatherwise, migration)?


Supposed to be excellent for weather (end of dry season) and good for
game viewing since game is concentrated around water ... Serengeti
migration is up north, largely out of Tanzania and into Kenya. Most of
the animals in Ngorongoro Crater do not migrate (I hear some wildebeest
get swept up in it but most are resident) so you should see plenty of
lions, hyenas, elephants and other game there year-round.

I would also suggest a night or two at Lake Manyara National Park if
you like birds, but if not you can pass on it.

Here are links to some photos my wife and I took in January (Tarangire,
Lake Manyara, Ngorongoro) and again in April (3 nights Lake Manyara,
seven nights Serengeti, where we saw many hundreds of thousands of
migrating zebra and wildebeest near the south entrance on the short
grass plains). Most nights we stayed at Sopa or Serena Lodges except
for a remote rustic lodge at the boundary of the Ngorongoro
Conservation Area for a few days ...

http://members.aol.com/bhilton665/ta...2006/index.htm (January dry
season, more similar to what you'd see in October)

http://members.aol.com/bhilton665/ta...2006/index.htm (April
wet season)

Bill