Lake Munyanyange Caves Lodge – Uganda Safari Hotel Review
Located just outside of Queen Elizabeth National Park in Uganda, is the Lake Munyanyange Caves Lodge. This is one of the many safari lodges in the area in which visitors stay during their visit to this national park. Our safari company booked us here at the Lake Munyanyange Caves Lodge for two nights during our trip to Uganda. In this post, I’ll review the Lake Munyanyange Caves Lodge and give you an honest review and tell everything you need to know, should this be one of the choices for lodging.
Like most safari lodges, you will not be booking this on your own; your safari tour operator has negotiations with the various lodges in and near the game parks and will book you in a lodge according to your budget. We had mid-range safari budget so your budget range is the same, you may be staying here.
Related: Need help figuring out how to chose a safari tour company? Read my guide here!
From what I understand, I believe this lodge is under new ownership. When we stayed here in March 2023, there were hardly any reviews, and any reviews that were out there seemed very, very suspicious (which was the case with every lodge out there. Based on my experiences at these lodges, I’m convinced that these reviews are fake and game’d.) Fear not! I’ll give it to you straight!
Lake Munyanyange Caves Lodge Location
This lodge is located just outside of Queen Elizabeth National Park.
Safety
Not to scare you but you should be aware of the potential danger of visiting this area. Currently, the Department of State has issued a Level 3 travel warning for Uganda (when we visited in March 2023, it was a 2). If you look at the map, you’ll see how close you are to the Democratic Republic of Congo. In October 2023, two tourists and their guide were killed by a DRC rebel group, right along the main road that leads to this lodge. (It’s the road you’d take for your game drives in Queen Elizabeth National Park. We were on this road several times). Being that I’ve been there before, this whole situation freaks me out. This is a remote area!
Our Experience
Upon arrival, we were given a glass of fruit juice that was really refreshing. It was a long, 8 hour drive out to this lodge, as we arrived in Uganda at the Entebbe International Airport, where our driver picked us up.
Being that this was our first lodge in Uganda, we weren’t sure what to expect — in Kenya, the lodges were bustling with activity, lots of other guests, and each meal was buffet-style. In Tanzania, it was much quieter — hardly any other guests (sometimes we were the only guests at the lodge) and we always had a fixed menu for dinner and breakfast.
Related: What is a typical day like on safari?
This is likely a factor of traveling in the shoulder season/almost low season. High season for safari in this part of the world is typically June – October. We traveled in March.
Just like our experiences in Tanzania, this lodge was quiet; in fact, we were the only guests here. By this point in our trip, we were growing weary of this; we wanted to see signs of life at these lodges! Instead, every staff member here was there just for us. Not a fan of that – it’s just too eerie for my tastes. Even though it definitely wasn’t an amazing stay by any means, we would’ve welcomed a busy Kibo Safari Camp experience like we got in Amboseli National Park!
The staff served us our dinner almost immediately after our arrival, which was much welcomed (even though, yet again, we weren’t quite fans of the food).
One of the activities you might be doing while staying at this lodge is taking a boat cruise on the Kazinga Channel. Read about my experience here! (it was a ton of fun!)
Amenities
Not much to speak of. You can somewhat see a lake from the lodge, and this lake has flamingos in it, but we didn’t see any. It is a nice view though, especially at sunset.
There is no wifi reachable in your rooms, you will not have any data service for your phone, (another reason why it creeps me out being the only guests at these lodges…), essentially no way to contact the outside world. You can get wifi at the restaurant, but it’s pretty weak.
Power is cut during the overnight hours. We never had issues with hot water for showers.
The lodge does not have a pool but it does have a large fire pit area with looked pretty relaxing. We did not use this, but I imagine that this gets much more use if there are more people staying here. However, the staff uses it for their own staff parties. Both nights, we heard very loud music and partying going on well past midnight, making it a bit difficult to get to sleep.
Meals here are served sit-down style, and the chef will ask what you want and cook it for you. That first night here, the meal wasn’t very good, but once the chef learned how much we liked chicken dishes, we actually got some decent food!
Lake Munyanyange Caves Lodge – Rooms
By now, we had gotten used to the tented lodge style rooms on safari and this place was no different. It was pretty decent – we had a room with two queen beds with mosquito nets, full bathroom with shower, etc. It was your average safari lodge room. You’ll also have a big deck right outside your room with plenty of seating if you want to relax outside.
However, after the first night, things took a bit of a turn. When we got back after our first game drive, we had planned on taking a nap before lunch. But when we came into the room, my sister saw a mouse or a rat scurry across the floor, and she found mouse droppings on her bed. We contacted the staff and they sent someone to do a sweep of the room (they found nothing — I never saw the rodent either, but I know my sister wouldn’t lie!), and they changed out the linens on her bed.
Thoughts of the rodent in the room made it difficult to get some sleep. We were happy to leave!
Gotta remember though, you are in the African Bush and stuff like this can happen at any lodge, no matter what you pay!
Lake Munyanyange Caves Lodge – Pros and Cons
Pros:
Typical safari lodge type rooms. Decent enough, had plenty of hot water for our showers.
Nice view
The boxed lunch they sent us with on our last day was really good – it was the only edible boxed lunch we had on our entire trip!
Staff really listened to our meal preferences. While we didn’t have a very good meal our first night here, we actually had very decent food for the rest of our visit.
At the lodge, we saw elephants and a pack of warthogs roaming around, so that was pretty cool!
Cons
Takes about 30 minutes or so to get to the area we would start game drives in Queen Elizabeth National Park.
We were the only ones here
Rodent droppings in the room
Staff likes to party until the breaka-breaka-dawn and can get very loud.
Bottom line – would I stay here again?
Honestly, I don’t think I’ll ever go back to Uganda, but if I did, I would want to check out another lodge. The food here was a bit better than the rest of the places we stayed.
