Average User Rating
Rating Breakdown
Write a User Review
Fernando Arbach
AR
Visited:
June 2024
Reviewed: Jul 6, 2024
Email Fernando Arbach | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
The bush is very friendly to navigate, which allows you to see the animals easily.
Fabrizio Gentili
DE
Visited:
June 2024
Reviewed: Jul 23, 2024
Email Fabrizio Gentili | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
The big 5 in only 6 hours. Never happened before.
What a beautiful trip.
Ben Johnson
SG
Visited:
August 2024
Reviewed: Sep 1, 2024
Email Ben Johnson | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Sabi Sand was incredible and the better of the two reserves we went to from a wildlife and game drive perspective. It felt like at every turn there was the next incredible thing to see!
Jose Castro
US
Visited:
November 2024
Reviewed: Nov 23, 2024
Email Jose Castro | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Read more
In the morning drive we had amazing coffee and in the evening we had great cocktails. The Lodge itself is amazing and clean. The dinner from chef Betty was some of the best food we have ever had! 10/10 food! We could not have asked for a better experience. My wife and I will never forget EP and this trip as it has instantly become a highlight of our life. Highly recommend EP 11/10 and we hope to come back soon!
Carole
AU
Visited:
June 2025
Reviewed: Jun 15, 2025
Email Carole | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
a wonderful experience
Nottens Bush camp was a delightful place to stay; the staff were very friendly and helpful and the standard of service and accommodation was excellent; the experience of the game drives was unbeatable
Jennifer Morrison
US
Visited:
February 2026
Reviewed: Feb 19, 2026
Email Jennifer Morrison | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Above and beyond our expectations. Created the experience of a lifetime from the time we got there till the time we left. We seen so many (almost all the animals you could imagine) expect a leopard.
Donal Heffernan
GB
Visited:
February 2026
Reviewed: Feb 25, 2026
Email Donal Heffernan | 65+ years of age | Experience level: first safari
Two tours a day, early morning and late afternoon into night tours. Thus avoiding the midday heat. it was dark when we returned to the compound so were looking for smaller animals via a spotter sitting in a chair at the very front of the vehicle with a spotlight. We spotted a rare owl one night hooting loudly. No light polution so the stars were plentiful and bright.
Also the tour operators supplied extra surpises, like one morning, a breakfast served in a field as the sun rises.
Another day there were drinks and snacks again served in a field as the sun set.
Also Ice creams were served one midday to cool us down. These were lovely unexpected touches.
We were allowed out of the vehicles for these treats and were able to stretch our legs.
We saw four of the big five animals, the leopard staying out of sight. Of coure plenty of other animal too.
Drew C
Visited:
April 2007
Reviewed: Aug 9, 2012
You will never get an experience like this almost anywhere else in the world. Off roading that gets you side by side with the wildlife!
Igor M
CA
Visited:
February 2015
Reviewed: Aug 7, 2015
Email Igor M | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Up-close and Personal in Sabi Sands Game Reserve
"It's a walking zoo! Why would you spend so much money on it?", said my friend and declined to go on a safari with me. For months, I debated and researched whether to do one. Finally I decided that I shall go big or go home. To fly for 30 hours and not to experience the true Africa, the one that I as a kid watched on Discovery channel was not an option. So I went, crossing the country all the way to the border with Zimbabwe and Mozambique, to Sabi Sands game reserve.
There where three requirements that had to be fulfilled in my mind: I wanted to see the big five in natural setting where they roam freely, I wanted to stay as close to them as possible - hence, in the bush, and I wanted to see leopards. The former one was the most challenging requirement because leopards
Read more
are masters of disguise and could be seen only when they allow to. However, for some reason leopards love Sabi Sands, which turns to have the greatest concentration of them. Without a doubt this was the place where I had to be!Following South African plantations of oranges, bananas and olives, behind the mountains of evergreen trees, lies the wilderness disconnected from the civilization with an electrical fence. This is the place where nature sets the rules and men oblige to them if they do not want to be hurt or in the worst case eaten. Little did I know that after three days of staying in the bush, my life will never be the same again.
What really changed is my appreciation of nature and my understanding of human vulnerability. National parks are the last pieces of wilderness where human involvement is forbidden; where African elephant dies from starvation after loosing its sixth and last set of molar teeth and where the lion leading it's pride will kill all cubs that are not his in order to secure his hereditary line. This truly is the survival of the fittest. For the first time ever I also felt vulnerable but in an odd way.
The night before flying over from Cape Town to Johannesburg to embark on the journey to Sabi Sands, I ate a kebab that consisted of ostrich, impala, kudu, and wildebeast meat. 24 hours later I saw those animals in the natural setting, and realized that I would have to turn vegetarian because I would not know how to kill these huge and rather vicious beasts.
The safari was everything and so much more. It is an unpredictable game where one roams at dawn and dusk looking for animals in the waste land that is occasionally disrupted with an acacia or marula tree and an elephant right below it. Yet after 1.5 days of looking for big cats, I got impatient. I stopped caring for zebras, elephants and giraffes. What I wanted were lions and leopards that were hidding somewhere in high savannah grass, but there was no sign of any.
After series of false baboon alarms on a potential predator sighting, our fortune finally turned around. Our tracker received a call that a leopard was spotted, and we sped to the location in what was described by everyone as Ferrari safari. My last wish of what to expect from a safari was about to come true.
What happened in the next 12 hours following the news of leopard sighting deserves a blog entry on its own. It was National Geographic worth material, and the experience that defined awesomeness of my safari trip.
In the late afternoon, a male leopard was taking a nap hidden in the tall savannah grass before heading for a stroll, marking his territory, and coming to a clearing to look for a prey. His meticulously planned hunt went well into the night until he interrupted our dinner. Around 9.30 pm as we sat down around the lodge fire, our guide started shouting at us to jump back onto the truck and head into the bush because killing sounds were heard. Not even 100 m from our camp, same leopard that we spotted earlier today, was dragging a baby deer. Grabbing the deer by its neck, he dug his claws deep into the tree bark, and in few jumps, climbed up, securing the prey on the branches right above me. Deer's urine and blood started dripping right in front of us while ripped deer's hair flew in the air like fluffy feathers. The leopard moved from the deer's neck to buttocks, and the feast finally began. So there I was - in the deepest part of Africa and away from civilization - witnessing something that only a few get to see. At this point there were only two sounds that I could hear - crickets in the distance, and leopard's teeth ripping deer's flesh, fiber by fiber. As grotesque as it sounds, it was one of the most beautiful things one could experience and the act of nature at its finest. Mesmerized with the view, we all watched the leopard eat for over 40 min. before heading back to the camp to have our dinner.
Many say that an African safari is one of the lifetime experiences. But once you experience it, you realise how addictive it becomes, and how one safari is not enough. After visiting Kruger National Park and Sabi Sands, I want to experience this continent so much more. I want to go to Namibia where red desert sand dunes collide with the Atlantic and where lions roam on the beaches, to Botswana where hippos and crocodiles fill up river banks, and to Tanzania where thousands of wildebeest and zebras create stampedes that are earth shattering. ...
The following was an excerpt from my blog. For more entries and pictures, visit: http://wohesitation.wordpress.com
Diverse and abundant wildlife with guides and trackers who go above and beyond.
I stayed at the Idube Lodge and the staff was very friendly especially the ladies in the kitchen. The local staff was very quick to offer up smiles and say hello and even lend a hand with greetings in local languages.....more than one! The game drives and access to the Sabi Sand were the shining star in my experience here. (I managed to poison myself by spraying the "Sleep Ease" bugspray in my room with the doors closed....not advised!). However, I got very,very lucky where I had a vehicle all to myself on one drive........Also quite unique was my guide, Promise, a local, whom I was told by a driver is a Prince in his tribe.....can't get much luckier than that! This was an unforgettable experience!