Hi!

I've been pretty obsessed with safari lately. I've had an amazing stay at Singita Sweni a few months ago and will be visiting Singita Explore and Faru Faru towards end of August. I am planning a short birthday getaway with my best friends (group of 4) and would like to know if there is anywhere in Kenya that would be recommended as a good middle ground between quality and price. I understand this is not quite the subreddit for 'reasonable pricing' but I do want opinions from people who know what one might be looking for having already been in the top ones.

Thanks!

I feel like this is a safe space to ask the following question. There are a number of subreddits that cater to the top 5% or so of travelers by spend (recognizing that the spend grows logarithmically) and after spending entirely too much time over the past couple/few years reading the content posted, I wonder: who tf has time to write long reviews, including photos, of locations? Even after removing those written by travel advisors, I’m amazed at posts that are like magazine articles. It’s rare to find ones that feel forthright and honest - most give Everything Is Awesome! vibes - and I wonder if all of them should carry a significant discount factor to the information presented. And this leads me to believe that everything is marketing, in a similar way that AI promises are overcooked due to the ocean-sized vomit of money (real and unrealized paper gain) pumped into it. Am I simply stating the obvious?

Maybe I’m getting old, less naive, or more middle aged, but I’m finding myself more focused on the experience than the luxury itself at the moment. Not so much you need to worry about me - trust me, I ain't heading into Mongolia to live with a shepherd. Just yet.

In an ideal world, both adventure and luxury co-exist, and increasingly they do.  Who would’ve thought one of the best lodges in Africa would be in Rwanda for gorilla trekking?  Or that Antarctica would have somewhere to sleep that doesn't require a mild case of amputation in the morning?

But there’s still a point where luxury just isn’t really there yet.  Swimming with orcas.  Climbing Kilimanjaro.  Even things like seeing the wildebeest birthing, over in Mwiba, is not top-tier, even if by most people's definition it is. There's certain expeditions where “comfortable” simply means you probably won’t get hypothermia.

So where are people drawing the line with this stuff?

Do you just accept that some of the best experiences require a degree of suffering?  Or are you still firmly in the luxury-or-nothing camp? No wrong answers.

Booking:

We had initially booked the Miraval Red Sea using points (65k per night) and the Prive Rate (1.4k USD) for a new nights. A week before our stay they reached out via email letting us know the opening was delayed a month. After some push back we were offered a full refund and were moved to the IHG with full board. I'm not sure if being a Prive and IHG One Destined TA helped. I do know someone booked at Miraval for end of May, we'll see.

Transportation to and from the airport was provided and we did earn IHG Points for our stay.

Getting there:

There are a few flights a week to RSI from JED and RUH. Red Sea was part of a larger trip, but we got flights to JED from IST on TK J (Not lie flat) and From JED to LHR on BA J (Very mediocre but lie flat). We spent a few days in JED as part of our Journey to break up our trip. On an aside the Ritz Jeddah, although aging is magnificent on the inside. And we got upgraded to a massive suite due to Marriot Stars. The breakfast looked better than it was though.

Once we were at RSI we accidentally boarded the bus for employees going to the area, but found someone who then arranged our transport in a Lucid to the hotel. We did not have to collect our bags, they collected and sent them to the hotel separately.

The RSI airport was cool to see, it's tiny but brand new. We walked from the terminal straight onto the plane.

It was cool to me seeing the construction and them building more of the hotels and the area around the resorts.

The hotel:

https://preview.redd.it/ju9qohykc7yg1.png?width=900&format=png&auto=webp&s=f97fe4965817458e9f1b9f0ae9dc516ecd9fb6e3

The hotel itself was super nice. The rooms are split into pods where it's 1-3 rooms per pod depending on their sizes. You can tell that it's brand new, and the groundskeeping was very impressive given it just got plopped into what was a dessert months ago. On arrival to the hotel we were actually first greeting by the GM and Night Manger of the Miraval. They were very apologetic about our delay, but told us the IHG team will take good care of us. They upgraded us to a Waterfront Junior Suite. It was a beautiful view and room, I almost can't go back to a hotel like that without a waterfront room.

The service was top tier as well. I would honestly say the service was better than some other ultra luxury hotels I've been to, but the IHG wasn't cheap for an Intercontinental. Staff would know us by name almost everywhere, they had our food preferences down by day 2, and everyone was just so over the top hospitable and welcoming, without it coming off as disingenuous.

The fire alarm went off in our room one night, possibly due to someone in an adjacent room smoking. I'm weird, so I enjoyed seeing them come out and handle it and all that. The alarm was off within minutes but it took 15 minutes to get the AC back on and lights turned off in our room. The hotel GM found us at breakfast the next morning and comped us a couples massage ($700) so overall, so I can't complain lol.

There are 2 restaurants that haven't opened yet, so the variety we had was limited. The lunch and dinner menus were the same as well. Luckily the food was delicious. My wife is vegan and the dining staff was very accommodating in that regard as well.

FS Across the Lagoon

You could see some construction going on. They were building the rosewood far in the distance and some Four Seasons villas right across the lagoon from our room which I swam across to 😄 . The noise wasn't bad, and I was honestly excited watching that going on, but my wife wasn't as amused as you can hear/see it in the distance. She did say it didn't ruin the experience in any way though.

I'll try to add more pictures in the comments, but I've been pretty excited about making my way out to the area, so I'm more than happy to answer any questions.

Miraval:

I reached out to the GM of the Miraval and asked if I could tour the property. They took me over the next day and wow it's going to look great once it's done. I would probably want to leave some time between this trip and going to the Miraval again as there's probably an overlap in the atmosphere, but the activities, dining, and overall vibe at the Miraval still would be completely unique to me. The room design and overall hotel layout is probably a bit similar to the IHG though. I did see they moved their opening to May 15th now. Seeing as the SPA still wasn't built when I toured, I'm shocked they didn't reach out sooner regarding the opening delay.

I'll try to add pictures of both hotels in the comments, but I've been pretty excited about making my way out to the area, so I'm more than happy to answer any questions.