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My wife and I have just had one of the most amazing stays in Kruger. We were caravaning and stayed at Skukuza for 3 nights, Satara for 2 nights and Mareola for 2 nights. We saw lions beginning to hunt, lions hunting, lions mating, lions making a kill and lions on a kill. Not to forget the pride of lions with a cub. Not all in one day. We saw leopards mating as well. We saw the superb sightings of general game as well and all of the other big five as well as wild dogs. We saw a large elephant bull sleeping lying down(we thought he was dead or dying) but as soon as he picked up our scent, he stood up extremely quickly and proceeded to push down a tree, maybe to prove to us that is was not on his way just yet.

I have read the forums and there have been a considerable amount of comments regarding the noise at Skukuza. Ok, it was slightly noisier than the other camps, but not intrusively so, but this could be due to the fact that it is a largest camp and there are hostels near to the camp site as well as all the tour operators with groups. The ground at Skukuza is extremely hard and again I will be going to buy new pegs this week.

One comment that I would like to make is please could the company that operates the shops please send the staff on a courtesy and friendlyness course, like a guest relations as the way that certain shop staff spoke to guests and visitors, would be considered rude in most countries across the world. The staff must understand that there are a large amount of foreign guests visiting Kruger and not all of them understand or speak English, so an extra amount of patience and explaining is needed.

Please could there also be baboon and monkey proof dustbins in the camp sites as there were none at Skukuza, Satata or Maroela and this could be the cause for the monkeys and baboons in the camps.

The staff at Satara's shop need a lesson in friendly and helpfulness as they are not up to standard by a long shot. They are generally slow in serving customers and do not seem to know the products or prices of the merchandise in the shops, or how to operate the equipment, whether the till or the equipment for the digital cameras.

There are quite a few staff that they could learn from. The staff member at Satara campsite that offered to help set up our caravan because he saw my wife winding down the steadys and wanted to know if she was being punished and why I was not doing it instead of her. Or the Orpen shop assistant who was extremely friendly and helpful to all who walked in to the shop.

Just again, we had another great time in Kruger and are already planning our next stay. We only live 30 kilometers from Phabeni gate, but unfortunately work keeps us away for longer than we would like.

Experienced something similar last year. Below an excerpt from my trip report.

Back at camp I decided to print a couple of photos at the Kodak machine just to see what it looks like. As it was the first time I used one of these machines I found the whole process easy and soon had to ask the shop attendant behind the main till for the password. After entering it the machine indicated that the request is being processed and that my photos would be printed in a matter of minutes. I have to add that I only wanted to print 8 photos. As time went by we strolled around the shop and after 20 minutes still no photos! We enquired from the guy at the till (will not mention his name) and his reply "The machine does not print photos as the cartridge is empty" What!! His reply to me asking why he let my wait around 20 minutes without saying anything. "I thought you want to write a CD"

Is it so difficult to inform clients that the machine cannot print photos? Or at least put a sign up at the machine