Name: Khandizwe River Lodge
Address: 17 Visarend Street Malelane 1320,Visarend Street, Malelane, Malelane, Malelane, 1320, South Africa
Rating: 9

Air conditioning

Smoke-free property

Heating

Washing machine

Garden

Terrace

Patio

All Spaces Non-Smoking (public and private)

Outdoor furniture

General

Non-smoking rooms

Room service

Fridge

Cable TV

Minibar

Hairdryer

Shower/Bathtub

Bathtub

Shower

Bathrobe

Linens

Toiletries

Rooms

Ironing

Laundry

Safe-deposit box

Services and amenities

Microwave oven

Coffeemaker

Kettle

Meals

Free Wi-Fi

Internet

German

English

Languages Spoken

Barbecue grill(s)

Recreation

Free parking

Parking

Swimming pool

Outdoor pool

Beach/pool towels

Pool and beach

Pets Not Allowed

Pets

Location

At the hotel

Room amenities

Kruger Mpumalanga International Airport

Komatipoort Airport

Skukuza Airport

Khandizwe River Lodge

Malelane

Our stay at Khandizwe River Lodge was hands-down the most disappointing holiday we have ever had, and our frequency of visits is at least once a year for the past 18 years barring the 2 years of Covid travel bans. Here is why it was a very poor choice:  

Booking:  
The owner will contact you 2 – 3 weeks before your stay (at this point you already know it is too late to find another accommodation so you might be tempted to ignore the warning signs and red flags like we did - regretfully):

1. He will ask you if you can pay from an EU / UK account into his EU account and offer you a ‘better rate’… (he says he is a ‘German citizen’ but somehow this payment step is not included in his booking information…)

2. He will invoice you privately, and you will notice:
the nightly rate has gone up by about 1000 rand a night (the property is not VAT registered and the owner is using the VAT function in booking.com to illegally increase his nightly rate). He will argue that ‘VAT is irrelevant’ and offer no justification for the increase in nightly stay.

3. He makes up his own exchange rate – he charged us 1 pound to 20 rand when the rate was 1 pound to 24. He will argue that the exchange rate changes ‘all the time’ and that he works off the rate it would have been had he debited your card at the time of the booking (he does not have a credit card debiting facility and on the booking confirmation it states clearly that you will be charged at the time of your stay) 

4. He will ask you to cancel your booking on booking.com, stating they owe him a lot of money from the COVID pandemic, and he does not want to pay the 15% commission.

This should already tell you what type of person you are dealing with. Unfortunately, we worried about loosing a viable reservation, as we had booked this well in advance for our wedding, with our family joining us for a week's retreat, and (it seemed to matter at the time) we had already printed the name of the place and the address on our wedding invitations - so regretfully we went ahead in spite of the red flags. 

Accommodation:

5. He forgot we were arriving (on our wedding night) and we spent 45 minutes trying to get a hold of him, as the key was nowhere to be found. Once we got a hold of him it was another 45 minutes before we finally accessed the house, only because we looked for the key EVERYWHERE and finally found it (nowhere near where he said it would be). The house was in utter darkness (loadshedding with no provisions made) and clearly not ready for visitors. He offered to ‘buy us breakfast’ (have some bacon and cereals brought to the house) – this was our wedding night…

6. Loadshedding – up to between 10 and 12 hours a day (as was the case during our stay), South Africa takes electricity from one area to supply another. In this property this will leave you with no electricity. All other properties in this type of price range have facilities for this – generators, gas cooking facilities, etc. This property has a couple of outdated rechargeable light bulbs which might give you about an hour’s worth of weak lighting. You will NOT be able to cook, or even make a cup of coffee, unless you go out and buy yourself a gas cooking appliance (as we did). So, the first night was a disaster, and the next day was running around buying lights, and buying cooking appliances. But we got offered ‘breakfast’ with excuses of:

- Guests steal or break lights. 
- The kitchen will be updated in August (as though that makes it any better)
- He was unable to order a generator as these are out of stock.
- The motto of the property is all about the outdoors (I would agree if we had decided to go camping, at a much cheaper rate)
- He is very ill and unable to attend to the property.
- He has had a very tragic life.
- He has sold the property (and thus really doesn’t care about anything other than making as much off it as he can)

These excuses and justifications will be delivered in 10 – 15 minute long soliloquies via voice note, with a main focus on how bad his life is and how ill he is – really unloading a lot of information on people who are just trying to have the holiday they paid for, with 99% of what he is saying being unrelated to what you are actually experiencing – so it really is not about you and your stay (which you paid for), but about him and how he can hold on to every penny he overcharged.

Health and Safety

7. Fire extinguishers have not been serviced since 2010 / 2011, and some are actually empty (for instance in the braai area where you might arguably need it most)

8. The border fence between the property is irrelevant – broken to the point that it cannot safely be electrified, never mind act as a barrier between yourself and the surrounding WILDLIFE – you are ON the Kruger National Park...

9. Wooden structures including the ‘look out point’ (which incidentally looks into a tree) and the balcony have wood rot to the point that you are taking chances using these, wooden furniture is coming apart, so be careful where you sit and check it is safe to do so. The Thatch roof is in disarray, which is interesting particularly given the lack of serviced and safe fire extinguishers.

10. The room on the outside (and street side) of the property cannot be used by minors (it is the one with twin beds??) as the hallway linking it to the house on the inside is blocked off and full of junk (also a fire hazard). Kids would have to go onto the street side of the property and come in via the main door. So practically, you are paying for 4 rooms but functionally you only get 3.

11. You will not receive any instruction about the alarm system –‘don’t worry about it, we have not had a problem here in 28 years’ – not the point, and I am guessing by the state of everything else it is simply not working…

Excuses here were all of the above, plus:

 - These issues are between him and his insurance company (so no regard whatsoever for you and your safety whilst on his property)
 - None of anything outlined above here will have ‘detracted from the enjoyment of our stay’ – are you kidding!!??
 - If you didn’t like it you could have gone somewhere else (yeah right, again, as stated above, at this point it is well and truly too late to try and find another property of that size for that many people – and we should not have to, if the property had offered what you expected a property at that price to offer and had simply met the descriptions provided on the booking site!!!)
- His email crashed and he is unable to attend to your email

If you are paying more than 4000 rand for a night’s stay for this property you are being ripped off, it is NOT in a condition and with facilities you would expect for the rate it is being charged and advertised at. If you pay in Euro or Pound, you will definitively be ripped off.  You will NOT see any of your money refunded, and you are well advised to bring all the camping gear you have at home to make your stay work.

Not recommended: Completely Overpriced, and not as advertised

A perfect place to escape life's pressures and relax.

The house offered everything we needed and more. 

The location is amazing. It's ideally situated close to an entrance to the Kruger National Park - making it the perfect base for day trips. And the  garden backs onto the Crocodile River ( overlooking the Kruger National Park) where we were able to sit on the veranda and watch hippos play on the opposite bank. 

Peter was the perfect host and couldn't have been more helpful.

We loved our time at Khandizwe. and very much hope to return again in the near future.

Wonderful stay

The Lodge and our stay exceeded our expectation by far. Highly recommended. This is a classy yet rustic villa with excellent accommodation and is the perfect getaway to see the Big 5 from the verandah

Highly recommend!

What can I say? Our family trip to the Lowveld and our stay at this Lodge was more than we could ever have dreamed of! We felt very comfortable in this very large, beautifully furnished villa.

The children had a wonderful time in the pool, viewing elephants and Hippos just meters away.

The views in general across the Crocodile River into Kruger Park are spectacular. We spotted some sneaky hyenas in the tall grass alongside the river and quite a few giraffes made their way to drink from the river. 

We wish that our stay could have been longer and we will most definitely miss being awoken to the cry of the Fish Eagle.

We will be back!



An incredible experience

We definitely  left a part of our hearts at this amazing establishment! One cannot really put into words to describe the excellent accommodation, location and breath taking views from this Paradise. Thank you for a truly wonderful experience!

Paradise on Earth

We spent 5 days, 3 nights in Khandizwe at the end of November, MAGNIFICES!!! The views from the house over the river and Kruger Park are like a giant screen on wildlife. Every day in front of the covered terrace we had before our eyes in the morning the walk of hippopotamuses in the water, on the banks, we were warned by the vaguletts on the water or by their snoring. Then from noon groups of elephants with lots of babies came, swimming, splashing, eating and sprinkling with water and earth and this every day without any spooky note. 16 monkeys and MAGNIF residents soon arrived. Which was to us to see the incredible preparation of these lovely animals, not just as a photo of a hotel, but also a fantastic view of the surrounding area, and we also had a very nice view of the surrounding countryside, a very small glass of wine and wine, and we also had a fantastic view of the surrounding area.

The best Kruger animal life show ever

Our second time in this house and it didn’t disappoint! The location and the view are out of this world, the house is in Safari style (some might say it’s outdated but it is in perfect harmony with the surroundings) which we like very much and the decoration is beautiful. (See the pictures in Pauli’s review) The game comes up to the house and you are right on the crocodile river with a view of Kruger. You never know what’s going to pop out of the bushes. Also the garden ( thanks Armando!) and swimming pool are a big bonus. The owner, Peter, goes out of his way to make sure you’re comfortable and calls you to ask if there are any questions or problems. (He lives 2000km away). Also the house is very clean. Rosie and Nancy are doing a great job. I can’t recommend this house enough. Thanks Peter for another great stay at your place!

Another great stay at Khandizwe!

What a beautiful lodge, near the Crocodile river! We loved our stay there, the breakfast was good from Rose, and diner we made ourselves in the nice kitchen.
The view is amazing all day long, and while splashing  in the pool an elephant walked through.

So nice and quiet, just sit and relax in the garden. 

He calls you on the phone and then sends you an email asking for a bank transfer in Germany and that, as soon as possible this house is in South Africa.. this way of processing the payment is really questionable he reports in his email that he has no means to make a credit card withdrawal and if you cancel, he still owes your bank card

A property owner you can't trust

We stayed at this property from 22nd Aug-2 September 2022. The property is lovely although some updating is required.  However, we woke at 0799 every day to constant noise of power tools from a building project next door, it was so unbearable we couldn't use the garden until 430pm when the workmen went home.  We reported it to the owner on the first day and he said he was unaware however I do not believe this is true.  He promised he was a man of his word and would compensate us when we arrived home- it is now 6weeks and he has ignored all correspondence and continues to rent this property KNOWING there is a building project ongoing next door.  I would advise anyone against booking this property and we feel he has not been honourable.  Out last family holiday was ruined and he did not offer money back at the time so it was difficult for us to move.  We paid £4k in flights to get to this supposedly peaceful spot and it was not.

Khandizwe River Lodge

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