Hotel Review: Protea Hotel - Kruger Gate, Kruger

Strengths: Proximity to Paul Kruger Gate of Kruger National Park
Weakness: Expensive

I visited the Protea Hotel Kruger Gate in mid September 2010. This hotel is located about 90 miles from the Mpumalanga Nelspruit Airport (pronounced as MUM-ALANGA) and it takes about an hour and forty five minutes to cover that distance. It is advisable to rent a car and not take a cab as it is 5 times more economical and saved you ZAR 800 one way.

When you drive through, remember you will pass through Whiteriver and Hazyview and then you will come to Paul Kruger Gate of the Kruger National Park. The Protea Hotel Kruger Gate is about 100 metres before the Paul Kruger Gate of Kruger National Park. There are Protea Hotels in Hazyview and Nelspruit as well, but I strongly suggest that you stay in Protea Hotel Kruger Gate due to the proximity to the Paul Kruger Gate of Kruger National Park.

This hotel is best suited for a 2 night stay if you are going for a safari into the Kruger National Park (obviously you need to be a die-hard wildlife enthusiast, else there is no point coming to Kruger in the first place). There is no other reason for staying here, other than visiting Kruger. The Protea Hotel Kruger Gate (or almost all hotels in and around Kruger) is very expensive priced at approximately INR 13000 per night. This rate is inclusive of breakfast and dinner. The room facilities are as good as any other 4 Star hotels. I would not rate it is as a 5 Star as my experience was a bit below the best as there were some leakages in the bathroom and the Air Conditioning was a problem – and they took a lot of time to fix it. But I am guessing that this was a one off occurrence.

The breakfast is awesome and could be rated as one of the best I have ever had, however the dinner was a bit weird for my traditional Indian Palette. There is a variety of meat which is served (and very little chicken or mutton which significantly reduced my options). It is really great if you eat all types of meat including Pork, Beef, Deer, Kudu and several other varieties which I was scared to even touch. So I did not rate the dinner option very highly, however I realize that this is specific to my taste only and others may find it pretty good, and I think the other tourists who were present found it awesome. The good part during dinner was that they have a tribal group of teenagers performing some traditional African songs and this was quite an experience as I think it was the first time I was listening to traditional tribal African music.

The Protea Hotel Kruger Gate has a Travel & Tours desk which organize day trips to the Kruger National Park. You have several tour companies to select from and I would rate Echo Safaris as one of the best. They have a full day tour from 6:00 AM to 5:00 PM for ZAR 750 per person where they take you out in an open air jeep and it is very cool. Their guides are also very good and know exactly the places where you will be able to spot the wildlife.

The Protea Hotel Kruger Gate has 2 very nice restaurants, one of them with a sit out area overlooking the Kruger National Park and if you are equipped with Binoculars you will be definitely be able to spot some wildlife from the restaurant deck itself. It is an awesome place to unwind with Pizza or wine or whatever it is you like. The swimming pool at the Protea Hotel Kruger Gate is very small and is more of the kiddies pool and the water was freezing cold in mid September – so I did not enter it at all. The Internet is very expensive at ZAR 100 for 1 hour which means you are shelling out INR 700 for 1 hour of Internet. The Protea Hotel Kruger Gate has a store on premises where you can but stuff like souvenirs and batteries for your camera and Kruger National Park memorabilia.

I strongly recommend that when you visit South Africa you need to spend a maximum of 2 nights in the Protea Hotel Kruger Gate. The first day can be a full day Kruger National Park Safari and the second day will be chilling out at the hotel, going for a massage etc. Any more days spent in the Kruger National park area and I am sure you will get bored, unless you are a die-hard wildlife enthusiast.

Attraction Review: Kruger National Park

Let me state right at the outset, than planning a trip to Kruger National park is rather expensive (comes to approx INR 9000 per day per person) and you should do it only if you are a genuine wildlife enthusiast. If you do not care too much for wildlife, then you are better off skipping a visit to Kruger National Park as you will not get your money’s worth and may even find it a bit boring driving around the park for a full day. However if you are a Nature and Wildlife Lover and you have an hi-tech SLR camera and binoculars at hand, then you will have a gala time.

To experience Kruger National Park, it is better to fly down to Nelspruit Airport in Mpumalanga province and drive down to the Paul Kruger Gate of the Kruger National Park. As soon as you enter the Paul Kruger Gate you have the Skukuza Base camp at about 6 miles distance and it is best you make a booking here for your stay at Kruger National Park. I stayed at the Protea Hotel Kruger Gate which would be a more expensive option, but very convenient as the Protea Hotel Kruger Gate is located barely 100 metres from the Paul Kruger Gate of Kruger National Park. I also did not want to let go of the luxuries of a regular hotel.

As we had a car with us we had an option of driving into Kruger National Park or being a part of the Hotel organized Tour (organized via Echo Safaris). I would recommend an organized Open jeep tour with a driver guide due to the following reasons.

(1) The driver guides know which are the specific spots to find the animals in Kruger National Park. Our driver knew exactly in which part of the park we would see elephants and this is something I would not know if I was driving down
(2) The drivers are connected to other drivers via the car intercom / walkie talkie system, hence if one of the drivers spots a rare animal such as a lion or a leopard, he announces the same on the Intercom and other drivers immediately drive to that area. This is another useful feature of the organized safaris which the individual drivers will miss out on
(3) If you need to use the loo at short notice then the drivers know where the tourist stand alone loos are located – you may face a problem with this when you are on your own

However do note that the organized packaged tours are expensive and cost ZAR 750 per person, so you will end up shelling out quite a bit if you are in a big group – but do take it, as it is an experience in itself. You are taken in an open air jeep which is usually a 6 seater and it is very comfortable.

You must always start your drive / tour of the Kruger National Park as early as possible preferably before 6:00 AM so that you can see the sunrise which is magnificent and also it is easier to spot the rare animals such as the Lion and the leopards earlier in the morning when it is very cool. The chances of spotting a lion / leopard reduces drastically after 10:00 AM when it starts becoming very hot. Elephants, Giraffes, imphalas, kudu, deer and hippos are all easy to find while lion, leopards and rhinos are difficult to spot.

The gates of Kruger park close at 6:00 PM so please make sure you come out before that. There are several stops and restaurants at Skukuza Base Camp and you can make that your stop for lunch and tea.

Do have a nice trip.