Deception Valley Lodge

Never in my 25+ years of traveling have I experienced a lodge like this: A beautiful place in a remote area that has it all! Great massages, beautiful rooms, amazing food (sometimes served under the African sky) and dedicated guides who will show you all the wildlife that there is and educate you along the way. But what made this place special is a heartfelt hospitality that is rarely to be seen in hotels these days. You really meet as strangers and leave as friends there. Highly, highly recommended.

Our room was large and spacious. Comfortable bed with mosquito net and windows with screens was useful to get air through. Ceiling fan and stand alone fan in the room. Hot water available. Guides and trackers were excellent, working hard looking for animals. Staff at lodge were good overall but need some additional training. Eg. When ordering fried eggs one waitress didn’t understand our request so we changed it to scrambled to avoid confusion. This same waitress also didn’t understand our order for two portions of bacon one day and only placed one order. However the biggest let down especially for the price was the food. When you read how they describe their food on the website it does not match with what we received. Breakfast was very bad. Some yoghurt, fruit one day, no fruit another day. One muffin per person. This is not an adequate breakfast. One brunch “two course meal” (that the waiter proudly announced) consisted of a few spoonfuls of avocado salad from a shared plate and then noodles with chicken stir fry which was served cold to everyone because they said they had already plated but were waiting for all guests to arrive before serving. This idea of waiting for all guests before serving means the guests ready to eat are impacted by the guests who are late, also making the kitchen look worse than it is, as the food sits around getting cold. One dinner soup was tepid, main also cold. After having received western food of mainly average quality, we suggested they cook a typical Botswana meal. They did do this which was probably the best meal we had but again served tepid/ warm. Other guests also commented that they would like to receive piping hot food but unfortunately through the stay the type of meals and standards was not to the standard for the price point. Guests were also asked for their dietary requirements but the kitchen did not follow the requests and served as they wished even though it was items guests had said they wanted to avoid/ couldn’t eat. If visiting the area again we would look to stay somewhere else.

Deception Valley Lodge (DVL as they call it!) was the start of our Botswana trip. We loved the lodge, its facilities and services. Special shout out to the warm & friendly staff and their excellent hospitality. Everyone was very welcoming and helpful. While we don’t know the names of all but would like to mention those we do – Georgina (the manager), Dix (our guide), Xoma (our tracker), Siamo, and the entire staff in the kitchen and dining area. We had great animal viewings during our drives…lions, cheetah, impalas, steinbocks, black mamba, kudu, zebra’s, warthogs, mongoose etc. Also the waterhole across the dining area of DVL offers great animal viewing specially in the mornings. For us the highlight was the deep knowledge and understanding of animal behavior shown by our guide (Dix) and our tracker (Xoma), together they tracked fresh pug marks through dry and bushy vegetation and successfully tracked a lioness. The cultural experience with the San Bushman community was exceptional and very informative. We would recommend DVL to anyone visiting a private concession in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.