NWR Sossus Dune Lodge — Fat Chicken Meal

In general, the accommodation in Africa is more expensive than I expected. The most expensive of all - mind you, not the best of all - for our honeymoon is our accommodation in Sossusvlei, Namibia.

We'd chosen the NWR Sossus Dune Lodge because it's inside of the gate. The advantage is that we didn't need to wait until the gate is open to enter the park. That gave us the opportunity to join the sunrise tour and arrived at Deadvlei much earlier than other groups (staying in other places).

That was probably the only good thing about it. In fact, I was (and still am if I'm honest) quite upset with the entire experience with this NWR lodge.

When we booked in May, we were told that all the chalets had been taken, except the honeymoon suite. We were quoted a rate of 3,500 Namibian dollars (roughly USD 250). It'd been very difficult to communicate with them. I asked to book certain dates but they responded in one line saying that other dates were available, without mentioning that the dates we wanted were full. The response time was long and so I had to call them. They could check availability on the phone but I wasn't allowed to book on the phone.

Because of the the availability issue, we had to move our itinerary around to fit this in. When we finally received the invoice, it stated 6,600 local currency per night! That's like USD 470 for a night, without breakfast. When I asked about it the rate difference, they simply said they'd quoted a wrong fee. It's higher for the dates we wanted because it's peak season. I asked them to honour the rate they'd committed and they refused.

It was already frustrating enough...Then for payment, the only option was to pay by credit card. The credit card form required us to fill out not just the card number, expiration date and name on the card, but also the cvv. When asked if it's possible to do it on the phone, they said no.

Okay, so I moved on to ask about the sunrise tour. I was told that we need to book in advance. I'd confirmed to go ahead...and chased many times...Finally I received an email confirming it when we were already on our honeymoon trip in Africa.

Fine, so we arrived, checked in, and the staff apparently couldn't find any booking for the sunrise tour. We booked it immediately and there was still space available. We were told that our suite was ready and were given a key. We had to walk all the way until the end to our suite.

Chalets...There are 25 on each side...and ours was at the very end...

The door was open and we went in. There was a staff cleaning the room still and asked us to go outside. I didn't want to do that because the sun was strong and I didn't put on sun screen. Eventually another staff came in and asked us to go to the day bed outside. What kind of treatment is that.

After coming back from dune-seeing, we had dinner at the lodge. The restaurant wasn't even full so I couldn't believe that all the other 48 chalets were completely occupied!

Set dinner. I chose fish with rice. It was quite good.

When we checked out, we had to settle the bill for the dinner. They told us that their credit card machine was broken and asked us to drive 10 mins to the closest ATM to withdraw money. They only accept local currency, not even US dollars or Euro. Then, Mr. B found other credit card payment slips on the counter and it was dated that day! They then changed their mind and said it worked earlier that day but then suddenly didn't work anymore.

Mr. B was upset and asked them to fix it. At first they didn't want to and just asked us to drive and get money. Mr. B started to complain and they got nervous and ran around and looking for another person to come...At the end they fixed it and rhe payment went through successfully.

So far we've travelled to 23 countries together, and stayed at different types of accommodation, but this was the worst experience ever. Plus, it's pricy!

If not for the sunrise tour, I strongly do not recommend anyone to stay there...