Hatari Lodge

Really amazing. waking up with giraffes and other ones at breakfast. very friendly and committed staff. In addition, they have a real top chef who makes delicious meals. A beautiful park in a beautiful setting. I can recommend this place to everyone!!!!!!

Breathtakingly beautiful location, giraffes greet you at breakfast! Our suite was spacious and stylishly decorated. Top team: all very polite, kind, capable, skilled and qualified in their role. Especially Watson and Gabriel, who both looked for us, and Emil (Driver). Negative: Wi-Fi in main building always weak, none at all in rooms. Owners (Mrs. Gabriel) present but ignored us several times, which felt quite rude for such an exclusive and expensive place.

We returned to Hatari Lodge this year because of our pleasant stay there in 2021. It is closer to Kilimanjaro Airport than lodges in Arusha, so it is a convenient place for kicking off or ending a visit to Arusha National Park and places further afield in the region. This lodge offers you peace and quiet, being relatively small and intimate, You can indulge in the luscious meals, watch game in the marsh area below the lodge (enjoy sundowners on a small deck), or go on some excursions to Ngurdoto Crater, "Little Serengeti", the slopes of Mount Meru ( fascinating for their different vegetation zones) or to Little Momella Lake and Big Momella Lake fed by springs from Kilimanjaro. Mt. Meru is often clear, in plain view; on clear mornings you can also see Kilimanjaro. You do not have to leave the lodge grounds to see many browsing giraffes; naughty blue monkeys, vervet monkeys and colobus monkeys; mousebirds and other species; antelopes and buffalo. A leopard with a limp frequents the area around the lodge: watch out for her. The lodge specializes in organic and natural foods; the meals are sumptuous. You might be surprised by the offering of baobab juice, hibiscus juice in place of the usual soda drinks. The bar offers a good selection of local beers and South African wines. Try this out-of-the-ordinary retreat, enjoy the friendly and dedicated staff as well.

Hatari Lodge exceeded our expectations. The rooms are beautiful with with a fire place and local artefacts. The lounge, bar and dining area is very comfortable. The bonus is the decking that runs out onto the plains where we watched a large herd of buffalo, giraffes and waterbuck. The food was delicious and very tasty. The staff were very attentive especially Weston and Micah who were fun, helpful and explained about all the different fruit and vegetables that the Lodge uses. They are a great asset to Hatari Lodge.

Me and my husband stayed here for one night on our honeymoon! One of our only regrets is not staying here longer. Hatari lodge was AMAZING!! The staff were so welcoming and the accommodations were beautiful and comfortable. Everyone staying at the lodge eats dinner together and it truly feels like a family atmosphere. The lookout point at the main area was amazing and we loved that a troop of monkeys joined us for breakfast! The only critique we had was that there wasn’t enough warm water to fill the tub. We’d definitely stay here again!!

In years past Hatari was a favorite of mine but it recently changed ownership and new management. It’s no longer the friendly helpful customer service lodge it once was and has gone drastically the wrong direction. It’s sad, the location is an awesome starting point for an African adventure but it’s been ruined. One can only hope management recognizes its errors and changes back to what it once was but I fear that doesn’t seem to be likely. This last visit was my 6th African adventure but will be the last that includes this previously wonderful lodge. 😢 The rules are now demanding and structured more like a military college. Not at all friendly and accommodating. Many of the meals offered few (if any) options, several didn’t even include any kind of protein like (meat, poultry or fish). If you weren’t one of the first to breakfast then you were outta luck. The key items were gone and never replenished. High $$$$ rates, poor food, lousy customer service and a long walks to everything. Not a lot of incentive to return. Goodbye old friend our time together has come to and end. I won’t be back.

Hatari is a good place to stay for day trips into Arusha National Park and a perfect starting point for safari newbies. The setting is colonial style and the resident wildlife is right there. The service good, the food average; the welcome bowl of hearty soup upon our midnight arrival was excellent as was the chicken dinner one evening. The rooms were nice, water hot enough with decent water pressure, however they were stuffy. This was alleviated by opening the windows but there are no screens so the possibility of monkeys or bats or bugs kept me awake. The credit card reader wasn’t working and declined all our cards, so bring cash.

Started our Safari here. Great beginning as the lodge is in the middle of the national park which means you’re able to watch wildlife from the terrace. On the first day a group of giraffes visited the lodge and didn’t bother the guets. Really nice staff and good food, too.

We traveled to Hatari with our 6-month-old infant and had a wonderful stay. The rooms/villas are amazing. There is so much space for us, and they even provided a pack-n-play crib for us! With our infant, we were looking to just relax, and Hatari was the perfect place for that since the animals are right outside our door! We loved the food and the service was exceptional. We could not have had a better stay!