Deception Valley Lodge

A well-named lodge. I'm French. Deception, in French, means disappointment. The accommodations are good, a little showy, but nice. The wood, leather and copper decoration make you feel a century back (Doctor Livingstone, I presume?). The rooms are outstanding. The personnel is fine. If you just want to stay in...

A well-named lodge. I'm French. Deception, in French, means disappointment. The accommodations are good, a little showy, but nice. The wood, leather and copper decoration make you feel a century back (Doctor Livingstone, I presume?). The rooms are outstanding. The personnel is fine. If you just want to stay in the hotel, you'll be fine. Problem is tours. Their main guide is - well, not good. Too bossy, and, well, downright rude : yep, diner with all the guests, and the guide and his aide spent the whole diner talking to each other, in their own language nobody could understand. Both nights we were there. What am I, furniture ? Rude, no other term. Tours : well, for that price, I don't expect to be 8 tourists in one land rover (max possible capacity). Which means you get to see the wildlife, framed by the heads of the two tourists sitting in front of you. And if the lion is on the other side of the car, well, you'll have to rely on hearsay. Damn, for the price we're paying, they could take out two cars. Three abreast looks like coach class in a very busy airplane, when you're seated in the middle of the middle row. After the first tour, I made a request for a second car. Well, I'm just a paying customer, that obviously gives me no say in the matter. What most turned me off : he did the two things all our other guides told us they would NEVER do. Reminder, this is not DisneyWorld, the animals live there, you don't. We want to keep disruption at a minimal. So there is two things a decent guide would NEVER do : - if the animals (whomever they would be) look uncomfortable with your presence and move away, YOU DO NOT FOLLOW THEM. EVER. - you do not make animal sounds to attract their attention, for a better photo shoot. If they want to look at you, you're lucky, if they don't, well, you'll just have to do with a bum shot. You get the pictures they will give you. We're intruders. Try to make your presence as little perturbation as possible. Yep, you get my drift. Those rules don't apply in Deception Lodge. In short, the most expensive stay of our two week trek. And, by far, the most disappointing one. There are much better ways to spend much less money.

Fabulous accompaniment to our 9 day camping trip in Botswana. The lodge was so comfortable. Everybody was so welcoming and kind, professional but relaxed. The food was exceptional. Our guide, Knowledge, went above and beyond the call of duty (please don't do that again!). Knowledge and our tracker, Chota, ensured...

Fabulous accompaniment to our 9 day camping trip in Botswana. The lodge was so comfortable. Everybody was so welcoming and kind, professional but relaxed. The food was exceptional. Our guide, Knowledge, went above and beyond the call of duty (please don't do that again!). Knowledge and our tracker, Chota, ensured we had the best game viewing. The new manager, Tembo, was extremely attentive to all of our needs, along with the front of house team, Mario and Kisha. The accommodation was spotless. Anyone thinking of going to Botswana or who have been before, I would highly recommend including the Kalahari, and in particular Deception Valley Lodge. I have travelled in Africa extensively and this place is something special.

Cold when the sun goes down- have a coat and hat. Beautiful lodge, good food and wonderful amenities. Wildlife at your front porch- I loved watching the watering hole and just finding peace in nature at first dawn. TT was an amazing guide, attentive and knowledgeable. Georgia & Mario were...

Cold when the sun goes down- have a coat and hat. Beautiful lodge, good food and wonderful amenities. Wildlife at your front porch- I loved watching the watering hole and just finding peace in nature at first dawn. TT was an amazing guide, attentive and knowledgeable. Georgia & Mario were very hospitable and gracious.

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...

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.

An amazing experience! Beautiful site. Loved everything . The Lodge was beautiful. Spacious, clean, comfortable bed, beautiful bathroom plus an outdoor shower. Our Game driver was very implicated in showing us the most he could. The staff were truly friendly and accommodating.

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...

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.

This is a beautiful lodge in a very well managed game reserve. The staff were attentive, friendly and knowledgeable. Our guide and tracker were excellent. They really focussed on helping us see the animals we were most interested in. We had a lot of very close lion interactions! The cultural...

This is a beautiful lodge in a very well managed game reserve. The staff were attentive, friendly and knowledgeable. Our guide and tracker were excellent. They really focussed on helping us see the animals we were most interested in. We had a lot of very close lion interactions! The cultural experience with the San community was a highlight for us. The group made us laugh and seemed to really enjoy demonstrating their skills and knowledge. We were a bit disappointed by the dinner menu, however. We were anticipating local cuisine with a modern twist, as described on the website. But this was not the case. It was a western style menu, adequatley prepared, but left us feeling a bit let down. Had the menu received the same level of care as the guides offered us on our game drives, it would have been a 5 star experience! We drove in to the lodge and the road was no problem in a 4x4. Took about 2.5 hours from the B300 (tar to Rakops)

We stayed at DVL at the start of our safari tour and it was such an incredible experience. We were woken on the first morning by a lion growling and later saw the lioness drinking at the waterhole... such a great start to the day! All the staff were so...

We stayed at DVL at the start of our safari tour and it was such an incredible experience. We were woken on the first morning by a lion growling and later saw the lioness drinking at the waterhole... such a great start to the day! All the staff were so friendly and welcoming, Georgina and Emmanuel were very attentive and great fun! The food was delicious and plentiful. The lodge rooms are complete luxury in such a remote place and we really appreciated the 'bushbabies' (hot water bottles) in our bed at night. This is an amazing lodge, we absolutely loved our time there.

Luxuary accomodation, fresh food expertly prepared by Chief Jack, Game Drives with expert guide Knowlege (animals NOT surrounded by circle of vechicles of noisy tourists) , every staff member mets your every need ... efficient friendly service with great humour. The waterhole near lounge sports a miriad of animals coming...

Luxuary accomodation, fresh food expertly prepared by Chief Jack, Game Drives with expert guide Knowlege (animals NOT surrounded by circle of vechicles of noisy tourists) , every staff member mets your every need ... efficient friendly service with great humour. The waterhole near lounge sports a miriad of animals coming to drink. Truely magical experience BEST HOLIDAY EVER Thank you

We flew into Deception Valley from Maun on a very small plane. Here are all the “pluses” of DVL — and there are no “minuses” there. The room/suite was perfect, outside shower so nice; our guide and tracker were excellent and we had wonderful game drives. The night skies are...

We flew into Deception Valley from Maun on a very small plane. Here are all the “pluses” of DVL — and there are no “minuses” there. The room/suite was perfect, outside shower so nice; our guide and tracker were excellent and we had wonderful game drives. The night skies are fabulous and our guide whose name is Knowledge pointed out the Southern Cross, Orion, and Scorpius for us on multiple occasions; you’ll see a beautiful Milky Way too. The dining at DVL can’t be beat — not only is the food fantastic, the service is impeccable. Here are some of the foods Chef Jack cooked that I still remember: Stuffed mushroom to start, goat stew, panna cotta, lentil moussaka, seafood corn chowder, poached pear (amazing and beautiful), spaghetti bolognaise, tenderloin with baby Brussels sprouts (didn’t know there was such a thing), white sweet potato. Well, you can see we love our food! On the game drives I made a list of new things we saw and this included Jackel, Porcupine, Wild Cat, Honey Badger, Lion Ant, Leopard Tortoise. Also saw a lion kill of a zebra (sad for me to see!), many other zebras, amazing bird life, oryx, impala, wildebeest, and more. We were treated to the Bushmen Walk and that was fascinating. The San are so knowledgeable and skilled at survival; an impressive experience for sure. DVL provides a wonderful Guest Info Guide with an illustrated animal identification checklist. The illustrations are so helpful — thank you! We loved our three nights here — I hope you get to experience it too.