This is a large lodge in Tsavo West National Park. One of its main assets is the view from the main lodge and most rooms, which encompasses the water holes and views of the Chyulu Hills and if you are lucky Kilimanjaro. The front of the lodge is entirely open which enhances the experience. The rooms are mainly to the left of the lodge as you enter but there are some rooms to the right as well. On the left the rooms are on the ground floor or first floor. The rooms to the right I think are bit larger and are ground floor only. All rooms have a balcony so you can enjoy the view when back at your room. The waterhole is floodlit when it’s dark. We stayed a suite so I cannot comment on other rooms but I guess they have generally much the same type of facilities. We had a mini bar and tea and coffee which may not be present in all rooms. There is a bar which you can either order from or just take a seat in the viewing area and staff will come to you. At the time of our stay Tusker was on draft as well as in bottles. Breakfast is buffet style, with lunch and dinner soup is served at the table and then it is buffet style. Seating is allocated so groups will be sat together. With couples, in particular, staying for more than one night often have tables reserved for them. One possible drawback with group seating is someone might end up with their back to the view, however this may not be an issue for some. The breakfast times are enough to cater for most situations, e.g. early morning game drives, mid-morning departures. There are gardens you can walk around and a small swimming pool at the far left of the gardens as you face the lodge. What animals are seen and their number depends on the time of year or in the event of unseasonal rains, as in January 2024. The rain means there are other sources of water and animals do not need to come to the lodge water holes. This was most marked this time by only 2 elephants being seen and one of these just walked straight through. One person announced rather loudly to their group that the lodge was known as the “elephant hotel” and they would see loads of them, unfortunately it appeared that in their 1 night stay they saw none (although there were quite a in the nearby vicinity). This was in total contrast to our last stay in October 2022 with drought conditions and there was a almost constant turnaround of groups of elephants. That said the following were all seen from the lodge, Common Zebra, Impala, Giraffe, Giant Eland, Waterbuck, Buffalo, Dwarf Mongoose, Ostrich, Spotted Hyena, Jackal, Verreaux’s Eagle Owls. When I first came here in 1996 evening meals and post game drive drinks were generally very quite and some animals came really close, e.g. a leopard walking along the very front of the lodge and lion drinking from the swimming pool. Now, unfortunately, noise levels are much higher and it appears from my observations over 6 nights were in 2022 and 2024, for quite a few the attention to meals is more important than attention to the water hole and what’s happening. Speaking with the staff the lodge does cater a lot for one night stays for those taking 3 night safaris out of the Mombasa cost areas (Tsavo east, west and Amboseli). Nothing wrong at all with this, we stayed a week near Mombasa and took a 1 night trip to Ziwani Tented Camp. But the safari enthusiasm appears rather less than in the past and more about mobile phones and updating social media. The staff we found to be helpful and friendly. Apart from perhaps the noise issue I was perfectly happy with our stay and would certainly return again.…