Four guests, one vehicle, no queue.
Off-road driving and night drives are permitted in the conservancy and forbidden in the national reserve next door. It is the same wildlife under different rules.
01 — game drives
Four guests to a vehicle, twice a day.
Game drives run in specially adapted safari vehicles carrying no more than four guests, so nobody sits in a middle seat and everyone has a window. Drives are led by local Maasai guides who know the region intimately and will show you how they track.
There is no better place in Kenya to look for the Big Five. The Maternity and Aitong prides range near the lodge, and the area between Royal Mara and Aitong is hunting ground for three cheetah coalitions. Rhino Ridge and Musiara Marsh — both filmed by the BBC — are within a morning's drive.
02 — balloon
Lift off at six, breakfast on the ground.
A sunrise balloon safari lifts off around 6am, in time to watch the light come up over the Mara. The grazing animals are just waking, elephants are in the forest and the hippos are heading back to the river.
You float over rolling hills and open savannah, dropping to around a hundred feet for the wildlife and rising for the view — river, forest, flatlands and distant hills in one frame.
03 — bush dining
A table carried out to wherever the light is good.
Bush breakfasts, picnic lunches on a full-day drive, and bush dinners around a fire with music or Maasai dancing. Menus run from packed lunch boxes to multi-course cooking, depending on where you are and what the day looks like.
Sundowners are the fixture: a drink in hand on high ground west of camp, the plains going gold, a fire lit behind you.
04 — maasai
The families who own the ground you are staying on.
Mara North is Maasai land. A cultural visit means meeting a family, walking through a boma and the manyatta huts built from mud, cow dung and wood, and — if you want — visiting the local school or clinic.
You can extend it to a full day and spend it with a young Maasai herder, which is a very different experience from the hour-long version.
Activities charged separately
- Hot air balloon and champagne breakfastUS$550 per adult
- Night game driveUS$55 per person
- Bush breakfast, lunch or dinnerUS$50 per person
- SundownersUS$50 per person
- Maasai manyatta visitUS$35 per person
- Eco walkUS$30 per person
- Maasai cultural danceUS$110 per person
- Exclusive vehicle, Mara North ConservancyUS$270 per vehicle
Indicative and confirmed on enquiry. Game drives, a night drive, a guided camp walk, a bush breakfast, sundowners and a village visit are already included in the fully inclusive rate.
Rates
From US$684 per person sharing, per night, fully inclusive.
Rates are indicative and confirmed on enquiry. Conservancy fee of US$130 per adult per night is charged separately.