Onguma the Fort

Wow! What is there to stay about this place? We do not stay in 5 star places but this was the only way to make our trip to Namibia happen after a mix up with another hotel. The entire experience is nothing short of incredible. The welcome is incredibly friendly, with the main reception area having lots of water, a wonderful restaurant view of a watering hole with plenty of animals visiting throughout the evening. The accommodation is away from the main reception, and is very large. With an amazing veranda overlooking the outskirts of Etosha. You can expect to see wildebeests, other antelopes, warthogs and elephants. The food is nothing sort of amazing! We booked two guided tours, both with David and he is an expectionial guide - finding all of the major animals in Etosha and some lions on a sundowner. The experience was nothing short of amazing!

My companion and I arrived at Onguma The Fort in the evening. What splendor... The welcome ritual made us feel like distinguished guests... There was a great deal of elegance in the service and an attention to detail that we have rarely seen. For us, Onguma the Fort was the most beautiful hotel of our stay.

This place is magical! The view and the rooms are incredible. Everyone there is kind and helpful. Our guide, Tristan, was so knowledgeable and enthusiastic. The food, massages and staff were excellent. The attention to detail and the architecture are amazing. Our family of four had a fabulous time exploring the reserve, walking with elephants and driving into Etosha.

A 3 nights stay. The lodge is very good, but they have a security problem: we placed the wallets and the passports in the security box. We were stolen 400$. The lodge did not assume the responsability. Pay attention, this is not a safe lodge. They have a thieve among the staff.

We stayed for three nights as part of a tour. First and foremost the hotel has air conditioning. The rooms are spacious, clean, and provide great opportunities to view animals at the watering hole. The staff are superb. The heat in March was oppressive, and the staff worked hard in difficult conditions to make our stay enjoyable. The food was excellent. Had opportunities to dine on the patio and the animals “came to us.” For safety reasons you can’t walk around the property on your own, but the hotel has golf carts and they promptly come pick you up. All rooms have phones. Would highly recommend this property.

I have rarely been so embarrassed to write a review because it is very mixed... On the one hand the hotel itself is sumptuous! A remarkably well-executed, Moroccan-inspired palace with impeccable, friendly service, wonderful food, a magnificent location and a remarkable intimate “home” feel. On the other hand, we come here mainly for Safari and game drives. and there, it doesn't work. The first thing that sells luxury and service at a gold price would be to have only one family per vehicle. Nay!! And making everyone's desires coexist, which can legitimately be different, necessarily involves concessions that we are not prepared to make at this price!! And then the guides are frankly not very knowledgeable, don't "pull" and finally the environment is much too dense. good for the animals but… suddenly we don’t see them!! so hours of being tossed around in quality vehicles, with a guide who doesn't explain much, to possibly see a bird wanted by the other family while I came to photograph the big five. Big miss

“The Fort” is a very suitable name for this lodge. It could not be more different to the tent lodges. It is luxurious and beautiful but very solid, they have made use of a lot of limestone (even if it looks like concrete) to build it. The terrasse is well furnished with nice chairs and an outdoor shower, that I liked a lot. We are apparently surrounded with dangers animals since they insist on driving us in a golfcart between the main building and the suits. There is just one decent chair in the room but four on the terrasse and also a sofa. This is odd since you cannot use the terrasse most of the day. Hower, the staff does not to seem very friendly and they did not welcome us with wet towels and some juice as in the other lodges we have visited, in spite of the fact that we could see a stack of dry towels. This welcoming was better after our morning walk. And the guide was good. The food is excellent both the breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and we have a very nice waiters at the dinners.

This is a luxury operation. We had a lovely welcome from Given who was informative, helpful and friendly. The public areas are unique, built in a moorish style, you could be in a Riad. Views to the rear are overlooking a water hole with constant toing and froing of different animals. We had the Sultan Suite, which was exceptional although not necessarily worth the extra cost. I had a massage which was both inexpensive and very good. We would happily stay here again and you should too.

This lodge consists of a central building and a small number of individual private lodges with wonderful views. All architecture is inspired by a northern African kashba, modern, tasteful and spacious. It is outside Etosha National Park, the must visit here, reached after a 30-45 min drive. The welcome was however rather disappointing, as our requested suite wasn’t available, which we had to find out ourselves based on the alternative lodge offering. Very strange, as we had written confirmation and still needed to push. We were compensated for the lacking nights prior to our stay in the suite at our final night. Not a nice start of our stay with high expectations. The staff really made an effort, while the manager seemed more business than customer/hospitality oriented. Apart from the start, our stay was very enjoyable. The lodges are beautiful, luxurious and very private. The lodges have an open air shower and a fireplace (which the super spacious suite hasn’t). The food is very good: lovely made to order breakfast and very nice three course meals. Great animal views from the terrace during the meals due to the nearby, illuminated water hole. Also the guides were professional and nice, especially Liberty. Don’t miss the photo hide if you want to watch animals from nearby and/or like to take pictures. Also not to miss is the small roof terras on the 2nd floor of the central building, for a romantic private sundowner. Between the lodges and the central building transport is offered, as walking in this wild animal environment is not advisable. I would certainly recommend a stay at Onguma The Lodge, but make sure you get the lodging you got confirmed by your agency. It’s recommended to check your bill upon departure (ours contained too much, which was refunded after a complaint). The airport ***** is only a 15-20 min drive away.