Luxury Glamping Night Safari Review: Is This $8,000 Experience Worth the Price?
The third hotel 🏨 was actually the one I was most looking forward to among all the hotels, but the experience left me feeling it wasn’t great value for money ✖️✖️.
Hotel 🏨: Neptune Mara Rianta Luxury Camp
Located in a private conservancy, it offers night safaris and is situated in the northern part of the Maasai Mara Reserve. The common areas and rooms are set along the Mara River, where you can spot hippos 🦛 and deer 🦌. All accommodations are tented camps.
Price: On Booking.com, this hotel costs 8,000 RMB per night—absolutely shocking. Africa’s prices are truly outrageous, with such expensive hotels despite an average income of just 1,000 RMB per person [disappointed]. Most hotels and tour operators have partnerships, and the pricing is murky.
The main reason for booking this place: the night safari, which runs from 8 PM to 10 PM. The hotel guide asked us what we wanted to see, and we said “Simba” (laughs). In the end, we saw plenty of lions! But that was about it—no thrilling hunts or anything exciting…
Room Pros:
1. A small camp with only 20 tents, no room categories—just spacious tents of over 50 square meters. Hot water bottles are prepared by the bedside at night.
2. The entire hotel is set along the Mara River, with all rooms facing the river. The views are stunning, and security is reliable.
3. Supposedly offers free laundry service, but I was too concerned about Africa’s water quality to try it.
4. Wake-up service is provided, with the butler bringing coffee and tea snacks.
Cons:
1. Service was somewhat lackluster—staff were noticeably more enthusiastic toward white guests, and the wake-up service even had different menu options for them.
2. Meals are à la carte, but the taste was inferior to other hotels, and the waitstaff’s attitude was quite poor!!
3. The hippos are incredibly noisy—their loud calls at night were very disruptive to sleep.
Light sleepers, beware!
4. It’s quite far from the Maasai Mara Reserve, which wastes a lot of time—and wasted time means wasted ticket money!
Overall, aside from the night safari, this place isn’t great value. The private conservancy offers much less to see compared to the Maasai Mara Reserve itself. That’s my take on this “glamping” experience.
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟
