This property is beautiful and rustic with a lodge feel. The game drives were outstanding as MAGGIE was our guide. She was informative and very fun to be with duirng both the morning and afternoon game drives. I have given this resort a 4 out of 5. There are a few things I think they could do to improve the place. Without sounding like a travel snob, here are my thoughts.

1. Enlarge the on premise curio shop. ( I heard they are going to do this) It needs to be bigger, offer more items like safari shirts, pants, hats, etc.
2. Offer larger sandal and robe sizes in the spa area. The spa area is beautiful, they just need a better selection of robes and sandals for "larger" American guests. A robe doesn't work well if you can't close it.
3. Offer a bar service, drinks, juices, lemonade, etc in the spa area. They have a great pool with giraffes within sight but they need to have a limited bar service available.

The staff was extremely helpful and these are things that would make the lodge more money and provide services guests want with a minimal amount of effort.

Thanks again MAGGIE for a great trip

Doug Eberhart
Bigdaddystraveladventures.blogspot.com

Kapama River Lodge is situated on the Kapama Private Game Reserve just outside Hoedspruit Airport. The reserve includes 13.000 hectares with a great variety of birds and animals and
four different lodging facilities. We stayed for four days in a Spa Suite in the River Lodge in January 2011. Although the lodge hosted may guests (20 spa suites, etc.) we enjoyed our
stay very much. The interior designer did a great job. The lodge is efficiently organized.
Many open air Toyata's with excellent rangers and trackers will show all those people around.
But when finally the leopards were found, there was only one car at the scene. We rarely encountered another vehicle. We saw so many different birds, small animals, the big five too, girafs, impala's, jackals, warthogs, zebra's, etc. at close range. Our tracker, Petrus, has great skills to find all those animals. We had a great time. We certainly had value for money.

Excellent room (standart).
Good food, specially dinner (lunch is average). Non-alcoholic drinks are not included, what I think is not polite, considering the rates.
Friendly staff.
Safaris are nice, but took a lot of time to find some animals and we havent seen leopards. Snacks and drinks during safari take too long and seems that they dont want you to see all animals in the same day to keep surprise factor for following safaris.

We had a wonderful visit to the lodge. All the meals were great and the lodge staff was top notch. They all went out of their way to make our visit enjoyable. The trackers and guides all were very knowledgeable. My only regret is that we did not get a chance to visit the spa because we traveled with a large group and the all the spots were taken. As some others have noted all drinks (even diet coke) were extra and I would have preferred to have these included in the cost. All in all it was a great experience!