Serengeti Serena Safari Lodge is set high on a hill with breathtaking vistas of sweeping grasslands and the unspoiled wilderness landscape of the Serengeti plains. Big game feed in full view of the lodge. The Serengeti is a natural paradise and home to one of the greatest wildlife spectacles on earth - the annual migration of millions of wildebeest, zebra and gazelle.

The lodge design is simple but stunning. Inspired by a traditional African village, separate rondavel "huts" house the luxury guest rooms that have their own view of the vast Serengeti plains. From the overall impression to the smallest detail, the lodge is rich in local atmosphere created by indigenous handicrafts and art.

A delightful water feature runs through the main public areas, creating a natural source of waterborne plants and provides a home to many indigenous species of reptiles, amphibians and birds.

Inspired by a traditional African village, separate rondavel "huts" house the luxury guest rooms.The uniquely crafted bedroom units maximize the use of local materials in order to blend with their surroundings. The grass capping of the roofs comes from locally occurring (but outside of the Serengeti Park) savannah grass. The buildings' stone facings utilized the stone shale that was found on the site and is common throughout the Serengeti area.

Each bedroom has its own self-contained private shower-room and toilet as well as its own balcony with views across the Serengeti plains.

GUEST ROOM INFORMATION

Total Guest Rooms:	66
Rooms with two twin beds: (all rooms en suite with shower )	57
Triple Rooms: (all rooms en suite with shower )	8
Suites: (en suite with bath and shower )	1
Check in time:	14:00
Check out time:	11:00

 

The architecture and design of Serengeti Serena Lodge makes maximum use of locally available, naturally occurring, materials and indigenous designs. Walking to the dining room and bar area of the Lodge, guests pass through open corridors with rich African carvings and high roofs.

The lodge's cuisine is focused on its use of fresh food that is sumptuously prepared and cooked in front of the guests. The full-service lounge and bar serves fresh fruit juices, soft drinks, tea and coffee, cocktails, wines, spirits and liqueurs.

Dining Room

Seating capacity 140.

 

Breakfast:	6:30 am to 9:30 am
Lunch:	12:30 pm to 2:30 pm
Dinner:	7:30 pm to 9:30 pm

Lounge and Main Bar

Seating capacity 60 - an additional 30 people can be seated on the terrace.

Full service bar open from 8:00 am to 11:00 pm

Yellow fever trees and palm thickets line the Seronera River and its hippo pools. This is a superb area for seeing predators such as lions, leopards, and cheetahs, along with giraffes, topis, bohor reedbucks, defassa waterbucks, buffalos and impalas. The kopjes host hyraxes, dwarf mongooses, and red-headed agamas. The open grassland is home to large groups of Thomson's and Grant's gazelles, spotted hyenas, jackals, and such birds as the double-banded courser, yellow-throated sandgrouse, red-capped lark, Fischer's sparrow-lark, and capped wheatear.

More than a million wildebeest, accompanied by hundreds of thousands of other herbivores, descend upon the short-grass plains of the southeastern Serengeti at the start of the rainy season around December. After calving in January and February, they scatter over the southern and central plains. By May the rain ends, the grass has been reduced to stubble, and the animals begin their long march to dry-season grazing grounds near the permanent waters of the Serengeti's northern woodlands and Kenya's Masai Mara. Reaching these destinations by July or so, they remain until October, when they head back to the southeastern Serengeti.

(Alden, Estes, Schlitter, McBride, National Audubon Society Field Guide to African Wildlife Copyright 1995 p. 132)

The lodge has four landcruisers which can seat 6 persons each. Game drives across the rich plains of the Serengeti are scheduled daily.

Early morning from 6:30 am to 8:30 am
Morning from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm
Afternoon from 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm

Hot air balloon safaris can be booked in advance or at the balloon safari reservation desk in the lodge. These unique and exciting adventures require a very early morning start and a one-hour drive to the balloon's take-off point. After "adventures aloft" and the thrill of viewing the plains game from the air (the flight is usually of a forty minute duration), a champagne breakfast is served under the shade of an acacia tree - in the midst of the Serengeti.

Al-fresco, catered poolside barbecue can be pre-booked for groups of ten or more.

The lodge can arrange a visit to the Serengeti Park headquarters and visitor center as well as trip to Frankfurt Zoological Society Serengeti Center.

Serengeti National Park (3,646,500 acres/1,476,300 hectacres) lies between Ngorongoro and Lake Victoria and adjoins Kenya's Masai Mara. Isolated lodges dot its northern, southern and western sectors, but the tourism center of the park is Seronera, with several lodges and camps, 197 miles (318 kilometers) west of Arusha. To the east and south vast open grasslands are punctuated with occasional kopjes (rocky outcrops), while to the west and north grasslands are interspersed with hills and open woodland and sliced by rivers. Near Seronera, yellow fever trees and palm thickets line the Seronera River and its hippo pools. This is a superb area for seeing predators such as lions, leopards, and cheetahs, along with giraffes, topis, bohor reedbucks, defassa waterbucks, buffalos and impalas. The kopjes host hyraxes, dwarf mongooses, and red-headed agamas. The open grassland to the east is home to large groups of Thomson's and Grant's gazelles, spotted hyenas, jackals, and such birds as the double-banded courser, yellow-throated sandgrouse, red-capped lark, Fischer's sparrow-lark, and capped wheatear.

As part of their famous clockwise migration, more than 1 million wildebeest, accompanied by hundreds of thousands of other herbivores, descend upon the short-grass plains of the southeastern Serengeti at the start of the rainy season around December. After calving in January and February, they scatter over the southern and central plains. By May the rain ends, the grass has been reduced to stubble, and the animals begin their long march to dry-season grazing grounds near the permanent waters of the Serengeti's northern woodlands and Kenya's Masai Mara. Reaching these destinations by July or so, they remain until October, when they head back to the southeastern Serengeti.

The seasonally saline Ndutu Lake, in southeastern Serengeti, sits in arid thorny acacia country with a lodge nearby. The area's inhabitants include Kirk dik-diks, giraffes, elephants, lions, pygmy falcons, gray-breasted spurfowls, Fischer's lovebirds and rufous-tailed weavers.

Alden, Estes, Schlitter, McBride, National Audubon Society Field Guide to African Wildlife © 1995 p. 132

© Serena Hotels Ltd / Choices Wild Limited, 2005.