Buffelsdrift Game Lodge

We love it! We will definitely come back again and recommend it to our friends. Good food, clean room, a good place to relax, and get back to nature and animals.

It could be an amazing experience but you can see that the staff are new, and probably also a little unqualified without intuition to make the guest experience enhanced. We had the coldest welcome in our whole South Africa tour, no explanation on any game activities other than a sheet of paper with the titles and price, we had to probe and question the front desk for information around timings, what to expect and where to go, which were given eventually but without a smile. It really felt like we were putting them out by being there and asking questions for the activités that we would pay extra for. Whilst we waited out the storm, we were asked if we would wait for the porter or make our own way to the room as it wasn’t far - we weren’t shown a map or location to our tent so we had no idea where to go. A simple explanation of the layout would have been appreciated and saved us all time. We don’t have highest of expectations however the basics of hospitality would include a warm welcome, a smile, and introduction to upsell their own activités (which were well worth it thanks to their amazing game drive hosts) however the front desk really did that team an injustice by lack of explanation. On top of that, the room wasn’t ready for the storm to come so there was water in the tent, which was also quite dirty already with vintage flies and it was missing some basic items such as a bottle opener for the wine and beers they provide. We asked twice at reception for a bottle opener, both times they didn’t mention they were not provided in the room, instead on the second ask they sent us to the bar, where the lovely bar man said he didn’t have one either and he opened his bottles with his ring. We were finally lended a bottle opener which was for sale in the shop… a basic if you are offering beers and wine in the room no? Overall a great location, fantastic extra activités and game drives, but really disappointing front desk with lack of information and enthusiasm for the basic requirements of the stay. We wouldn’t recommend to our friends coming to SA on this basis.

Our visit to Buffelsdrift coincided with a cold snap but was compensated for by the warm hospitality of the resort. Our luxury lakeview tented accommodation was a unique pleasure as were the game drives with knowledgeable guides. Highlights were the meerkat and elephant experiences. The restaurant meals were well prepared and served by attentive staff. Hippos grunting in the dam just outside our tent on two nights and the call of a fish eagle in the early morning added to this unique African experience!