Encounter by Ongava

This place is magical and went far beyond expectations. Watching elephants drinking at our pool was insane, and our guide Zuma was incredibly knowledgeable and gave us a great drive experience, walking close to rhinos, elephants and spotting a lion tribe. Food is awesome too. i wish we could have stayed longer!

Absolutely nothing!

Everything was fantastic!

Bush supper and excellent hospitality in making a birthday occasion special.

In Ongava Tented Lodge you're one with nature. The camp is open and the feeling of being close to lions, elephants and more is special. The rooms are beautiful with the typical tent luxury feeling. During dry season, you can watch animals drinking from the waterhole in front of the lodge. The tents/rooms are five-star and have everything you need. The food is the best we had in Namibia. Breakfast, cold or hot, is fairly limited but is of high quality. The lunch offer is relatively simple, but good. Tea-time at 16.30 includes a gourmet snack and home-made pastries. Dinners were delicious. Meat of the highest quality and Italian ice-cream. We missed the opportunity the celebrate the chefs, but they need to be told! The staff is the friendliest you can think of and will resolve any request you have. The stay includes two game drives per day. Michel is the perfect guide. Very professional and easy going. We left with the feeling of leaving good friends.

Ongava is priced (€1500/night at the time of writing) as a high-end tented camp and expectations were high. It is important to be aware of the differences between dry season and wet season. During the latter, the probability of seeing animals in front of the lodge is minimal, which kind of kills the whole concept. The lodge itself is definitely not worth its rate compared to similarly priced lodges in Namibia and other parts of Africa. The common areas, i e spaces where you can sit and enjoy a good book or a drink, are very limited. The lodge lacks the luxurious details that one would expect (with the exemption of the coffee machine) from this category of hotel. Other details such as a clean swimming-pool (the bottom was full of gravel and dirt) and a lack of a clean lodge in general (a pile of plastic rubbish during our whole stay behind the toilets, mud on the restaurant floor even though the rain had stopped hours ago, a messy courtyard and so on) gave a sad impression. A serious issue are the night butterflies. It is impossible to have dinner in the restaurant. They fly around as kamikazes and attack everyone and everything (they love food and beer). Difficult to resolve and maybe it only happens during the rainy season? The second night, the staff turned off all the lights which kind of solved the problem (but you couldn't see what you were eating or with who you had dinner). The walkaways to the rooms are made of mud, i e it's impossible to get to the restaurant during rain (maybe gravel instead?). Bottom line. This is a nice lodge with amazing food, nice rooms and friendly staff. Is Ongava worth its current rate? Absolutely not. Would we come back? Possibly. But only during the weeks with a (very) high probability of visitors to the waterhole and given a general upgrade to the lodge. And with much more attention to details. A lot of dedication and work is required to take the lodge to the level where it pretends to be.