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Honeymoon to South Africa, Botswana & Mauritius
Anonymous, 16th September 2011We sincerely loved every minute of our honeymoon…it would be just impossible to choose what were the highlights because everything was simply amazing…First we loved travelling around south-africa on our own with the rented car; we really enjoyed the gastronomy in cape town, going up table mountain, the road trip down to cape of good hope, the days we spent doing wine-tasting in the winelands, hermanus, would be difficult to pick one…those were really memorable days. Then we also enjoyed big time our stay in Botswana; the two lodges we stayed in were great and we had never been in safari before so we were basically stunned the whole time by everything we saw…we specially loved the first one, Muchenje, the people running the lodge were really lovely and the athmosphere was great. we also loved banoka, since the place is just beautiful, but the whole service (food, staff attention, etc) was much worse than in Muchenje. (the organization and leadership of the camp was quite poor). But we still enjoyed it a lot. And finally Mauritious. The hotel was exactly what we were looking for (so not a big 5 star hotel but more a small-boutique type of hotel). So all in all, great great honeymoon organized by mahlatini.
Countries Visited
Botswana
“Highlights: The river cruise in chobe, siting in muchenje sundeck looking at the namibia plane, seeing lions at 1meter in the okawango delta.”
Mauritius
“reading on the small hotel beach adn walking around. never felt so relaxed”
South Africa
“as said before loved every minute. cape town, hermanus and winelands. i'll go back some day for sure.”
Zimbabwe
“it was good we were there only for 1 day”
Accommodation Visited
“good location. the room was specious, the breakfast nice, we could always park at the door and the guesthouse was clean and tidy. exactly what we wanted.”
Abalone Guest Lodge
“well, we didn't stay in abalone. the booking agency made a mistake and they booked us in another abalone lodge 'somewhere else in south africa'...which was unfortunate cos the hotel looked very nice. so we got relocated to another hotel, which i don't recall the name but which was ok.”
River Manor Boutique Hotel & Spa
“the hotel is really nice and the breakfast is great. the only 'con' is that we got stolen about 300 dollars from the safety box (we don't know if that was in river manor or in the previous one in hermanus...our suspicion is that it happened in river manor but we can't tell for sure). so that leaves us mixed feelings about that hotel..but as said, we can't tell for sure that's why i'm still rating it as 'excellent'.”
The Victoria Falls Hotel
“we didn't like victoria falls. the room was dirty, the moskito net broken, bugs everywhere,...also the service was very poor; we both got a stomach bug and we both had been vomiting for the full day and asked for plain rice and they said they couldn't serve us anything outside the menu at lunch...so we couldn't eat anything...at the end after talking to customer service they ended up speaking to the chef and they finally served us rice for dinner. but seriously we weren't asking for the moon and they treated us as we had requested 'rosted duck'...all in all, below average.”
Muchenje Safari Lodge
“Amazing. lovliest place i've ever been. specially after coming from victoria falls hotel; arriving in muchenje felt like entering paradise. the couple running it were great, we totally felt at home. they served us lunch, explained us the activities, ... we loved it there. the ambience, the food, it really felt like we were at an african 'home'. also the drivers were great, and they were very attentive to details. they were always arranging groups so taht we'd go with another honeymoon couple, which was very nice. i can't say anything negative about muchenje. i just hope i can go there again some day!”
“The place is great but the staff is not...which is a shame...in muchenje everyone was always hanging around the common space having a drink...this was never the case in banoka, the place wasn't 'cozy' at all, ...not even in the swimingpool, cos it was disgustingly dirty. the lodge was run by very young people (below 30) with white t-shirts and felt like being in a summer camp...(vs. muchenje which felt like being at the managers house). the food was quite bad and the staff wasn't very friendly and paid no attention to details..they put us with 2 couples in their 60's who only spoke french; so we spent the full 3 days translating everything the guide was saying to them, cos they spoke no english...and there were otehr young couples in the camp so we couldn't understand why didn't they group us by age (as they'd done in muchenje). also we didn't have much chance to choose the activities...they were always dictated. and we did tones of game drive...since we had already been in a dry area in muchenje we would probably have prefered a wet camp with more mokoro-activities...since it ended up being quite repetitive. HOWEVER, the tents were amazing, and being in the tent sundeck reading and just hearing the noise of the elephants around was priceless...we loved our tent...and as part of the honeymoon pack they organized a dinner under the stars for the two of us which was really special...also in okawango we got to see the lions very closely which we really liked. so, that stay had really really nice parts too. but i don't think i'd recommend that camp”
“we were there in our way to mauritious. so stayed one night and left...not much to say. was good.”
“perfect. exactly what we were looking for. super relaxing days. beach walks, massages, cocktails, golf playing,...staff were super nice adn sunsets from that beach are a dream. just perfect.”
Staff Review
“The service provided by Sarah Fox was simply outstanding. We have to say that we’re a one picky couple and she really went out of her way the whole time trying to arrange the perfect trip for us. I don’t even recall how many versions did we do of the itinerary and Sarah kept on being flexible, kind and extremely fast all the time. While planning the itinerary we would be constantly emailing each other about new options and we really thank her for having organized our dream honeymoon. At the end we’re a couple from spain living in Switzerland and we really checked many agencies…the great attention and service of Sarah was what made us choose mahlatini over the rest of the agencies. She was simply perfect.”
