Tshukudu Game Lodge

My first experience at a Game Lodge in South Africa was pleasant. The rooms were in small villas with adjoining rooms if one chose. They are spacious, air conditioned and the king poster beds had all around netting. Bathrooms are very spacious. The porch like balcony comes in handy during sunset and sunrises, as you hear the beautiful sounds of the wild. The restaurant was decent and was open Aired facing the pool and several outdoor lounge areas. The spa provided great massages and was easily accessible. The nightly dining space was set around a bonfire and provided a buffet setting with a full bar.

Such an perfect and friendly place to visit in the Greater Kruger area. The staff is friendly. The animals are everywhere to be seen. Facilities are clean, up to date and offer more than surrounding lodges in area. Truly recommend this lodge to anyone.

The reception was unpleasant and poorly trained and as the main point of contact, our stay went from bad to worse. The food was underwhelming. The bedroom and bathroom were old and in need of an upgrade. I have never received such shocking service before at a hotel or game lodge. We did have 2 nice game drives and the massage at the Spa was very good.

Beeware of booking this lodge, they use a company named touchdown africa. I have been trying to get my deposit refunded since I cancelled in Mach well outside the time limit. We were due to travel this month. The reviews on facebook all are bad I feel I need to warn travellers of this. So if you book make double sure you do not need to vcancel your travel. travel. I have been emailing company and received nothing but lies.

I stayed here as part of a Go Touchdown package, and having come straight from Humala, it was a very different vibe and I'll admit I wasn't sure about it at first. I ended up loving it. The timing worked out so that we were the only guests for most of our stay, and it ended up feeling like a personal experience for us. Our guide was Tyler, who knows so much and on the first drive sped us back to the lodge to make sure we were able to meet Floppy the resident cheetah, who had been lounging outside my friends' room. We also got to do things like track lions on the hunt and have sundowners next to hippos, and I had an incredible time. One friend also got sick one night, and the staff was so concerned and helpful. Douglas even went and brought her food because she was going to miss dinner, and everyone from the manager to the excellent wait staff all asked after her and welcomed her back when she was feeling better.

We stayed 2 nights at tshukudu as part of our honeymoon. My parents had been there a few years previously and recommended it to us- we are s glad we went! We had a beautiful room right next to a semi- private pool which was only used by us. The main pool is gorgeous and sitting by there for sundown is really beautiful. The staff were absolutely excellent- so nice and laid back, nothing was an issue for them at all. They even did a special bed layout with petals and swans for our bedroom after they found out we were there for our honeymoon- a really thoughtful, lovely touch. We will absolutely be back again next time we are in South Africa. the game drives were also amazing and the guides are very friendly. The only slight negative I have (which isn't necessarily a negative, just something to be aware of) is that the cleaning staff do come fairly early in the morning, I think it was around 8am or so. This was fine by us as we were actually heading out at this time but, but I can imagine for people who like a lie in that this may be quite early to be disturbed. Having said that, the lodge was exceptionally clean and standard of cleanliness is clearly very high.

This is a tough one because the good was REALLY good and the rest was slightly harder to stomach. The positives: Upon arrival we were greeted with a drink and a cool towel. The receptionist was lovely, as were all the staff. Truly amazing. We drove to our apartment which was everything I expected and more. We had booked the most luxurious accommodation – the cottage. It was far more stunning than in the pictures – all brick, airco in the bedroom, best kitchen we had on our entire trip and the best pool too. Deep, long, perfect temperature, lovely. We were told upon check in that the main pool was out of service and that other guests would be using our private pool, but that there were only 2 other guests at the time. People did use it and they were lovely and all was well. Dinner was also lovely. In short, our first night was amazing. The next day. I was sunbathing when the manageress came up to me and said she had just checked in a group of 15 and they wanted to come to the pool. The pool is literally 1 metre from both our windows, pretty intimate. I understood fully that the other pool was broken, but the lodge didn’t tell us that a big group was arriving the next day, nor offer us another room in light of this. Nor did they offer us anything in the way of compensation (free drink at the bar etc.) Also really odd is that this is the only game park I have ever been to where you cannot self-drive. There are NO signs saying you cannot self-drive and we were not told upon checking in and were afterwards told that it is on page 3 of our welcome pack item number 7. Not making this crystal clear to guests, both before they stay and during is a mistake that management should redress. Our pool had no chlorine in it after the first day and there were insects swimming half way down in it. Someone came every day to remove debris, but no chlorine was added meaning It was too much of a risk to swim in there sadly. Also, the Wi-Fi was horrible and there is no mobile phone reception to make a hotspot. I understand we are in the bush, but people want to advertise this and post pictures of themselves on social media in this lovely place. This should be redressed. On our last morning we went on a game drive. It was the oddest game drive I have ever done. The guide was driving quite fast and not speaking very clearly. Also, I got scratched by brambles and bushes several times. I would recommend to management doing some bush maintenance. It was also crazily full. We would have like to have known in advance when busy days would have been, so we could have done our drive earlier. Also, upon check-in, we were told it was included in the price. They ended up trying to charge us for it (the took it off the bill eventually though.) The staff were lovely but terrible Wi-Fi, unclean pool, lack of compensation for having a group descending on our privacy, game drive as if we were in a computer game and lack of information regarding non-self driving made this a dif

Dit voorjaar ons 7e en laatste bezoek gebracht aan deze lodge. Helaas is de sfeer van toen, het familiegevoel van de familie Sussens, helemaal verdwenen. Tshukudu is eind 2021 verkocht aan een keten/investeerders. Ja er is een prachtig nieuw zwembad gekomen, maar dat weegt niet op tegen de matige gamedrives. Geen idee wat er hier fout gaat, maar er is geen tijd in onderhoud van het park gestoken, wegen waren slecht, veel overhangende takken en te weinig wild. Waar je hier in het verleden uren kon genieten van neushoorns, laten deze zich niet meer zien. We reden er uren rond zonder iets te zien. Tshukudu had een aantal unieke kenmerken deze zijn er stuk voor stuk uitgesloopt. Jammer....