Lake Manyara Serena Lodge
Location - Perched on top of the Manyara escarpment with views over Manyara NP and Mto wa Mbu
Experience - Great views, lovely swimming pool, game drives into Manyara
Price Guide - $375 - 485 pppn
Lake Manyara Serena is a comfortable, but rather unexciting hotel, but it does have one of the country's best swimming pools. There are also possibly the best views of Lake Manyara and easy access to the park for game drives. Read more?
Lake Manyara Serena is a fair quality hotel within easy reach of Arusha and very close to Lake Manyara National Park. It sits on the top of the Rift Valley escarpment overlooking the northern end of Lake Manyara.
Like all the Serena Hotels this place is more dependable than exciting, with extremely nice staff and good quality of service. Rooms are comfortable and clean and food is of good quality. Serena Lodge isn't, and doesn't pretend to be, a small bush camp so it slightly lacks the atmosphere and intimacy that you'd get in many of the smaller camps in Tanzania. It's also not as luxurious as somewhere like Lake Manyara Tree Lodge.
If you prefer smaller camps then Gibb's Farm and Plantation Lodge in Karatu are probably a better bet. However, there are a couple of things about Lake Manyara Serena Lodge that are outstanding. The first is the stupendous view of Lake Manyara itself. You are literally right on the edge of the escarpment and below you the ground falls away over 1000ft to the bottom of the rift valley floor. Add to that the second thing, which is the swimming pool at Serena Lodge, right on the edge of the rift and you can see that there aren't many better places to while away an afternoon, particularly if you have children with you.
Location - Lake Manyara
Lake Manyara often receives the hard sell - with promises of trees stuffed full of lions or elephants that are personal friends of Saba Douglas-Hamilton. However, while both of these are possible, it's actually somewhere that benefits much more from a quiet contemplative approach for which time, and a visit to the far south of the park is neccessary. Jump to page?
More articles that you might find helpful
Northern Tanzania - Serengeti and the rest
Mobile Tented Safaris
Tanzania visa requirements
Do I want a private vehicle and guide?
Flexibility - the real luxury
For videos, articles, ideas and news from Africa:
Have a look at our blog at safarigeek.com
1747 898 104Do you need some help with this?
At Natural High, we've all lived and worked in Africa, so our knowledge is born of
hands-on experience rather than simply visiting on holiday. We can't over-stress how
worthwhile it is to take a few minutes to call us. We're not in the business churning
out thousands of packages so if you'd like to discuss things in detail, take a few
minutes and call Catherine, Fiona, Vanessa or Alex on 1747 898104.close
