SANParks.org Forums

We're in the United States so we do all our arranging through emails. Add your Client Name, Reservation Number and something like, please, change my existing reservation from

Arrival 10/1/13 at Olifants, departing 10/3/13.
Change my unit from BD2U to BD2V

I send the email and usually within 24 hours I have a new reservation sent with the change made. If there is an added cost, they will tell you.

As far as getting a certain unit, we don't bother to try because you really have to contact the camp and it is not reasonable to be calling from the US for that. We've never been disappointed with our lodging I can say that. Maybe emails or faxes can work directly with the camps. Good Luck!

Hi ElephantEars,

If you booked your accommodation online it is pretty straightforward to change it online too. In fact I literally just changed mine.

Check first that the accommodation you want is available by going to the left hand panel of the Home Page and finding Travel - Availability - Olifants - "Monthly calender or a particular date".

If it is available go to Travel - Reservations.

Click on "Book and Pay Directly Online".

Click on "Review Existing Reservations"

Click on the Reservation number you want to change.

Find the one that you are changing and click on Cancel

That will take off the accommodation already booked - you have to do that first otherwise it will throw you out at the end.

Then click on "Add Itinerary"

That will take you through to allow you to choose the new accommodation you want.

If the new accommodation is more then there will be no modification fee once you have chosen the new one.

Go to checkout and pay any balance due.

Have a great trip

Hi
done my with email like Cickadee
Always had a answer within a few days and always worked out

Thank you all very much for your replies and all very much appreciated. Mandym, after reading your detailed explanation I worked out how to amend and re-book accommodation, many thanks for that but I was a bit nervous cancelling my existing reseversation just because the system is "live". Currently, they only have one night( 1st night) available of the 2 nights I wanted so I took the other option suggested by others: emailed Sanparks asked if both nights became available i am happy to change!
I will let you know the results in due course. Just wondered, is it really worth the hassle of changing from a BD2U to a BD2V just for 2 nights?
Thank you

No doubt, YES!

Having a view over Kruger is priceless.

Did you read page one of that link? quote

Dear Bushdancer,

The reason for this is not so much the check-in and check-out time differential, but more often a problem of the guest refusing to vacate the one hut and leaving their belongings behind and unit cannot be readied for next booked guests. As long as you accept that you will need to move and adhere to check-out times, then we will allow this practice. Please send me your booking details and we will address.

With kind regards.

JOEP STEVENS (joep.stevens@sanparks.org)


_________________
General Manager: Tourism Operations

Fining someone after an event is all well and good but that event still causes an immense amount of chaos. And it will only stop that one person from doing it again, not everyone else who refuses to move on any given day. So SANParks are trying to prevent the chaos from happening in the first place.

Hi

Two possible solutions to your booking issues

You are allowed to change accommodation if you upgrade to more expensive accommodation, for example you move from your BD3 to a family cottage. You were downgrading to a BG2, strange but true, we have done this many times.

or

Take the BD3 for your first three days as one reservation, then next day make a completely separate booking for the fourth day in a BG2, this is acceptable.

Unfortunately you have to manipulate the rules to get what you want.

Jim

Some good news,

I e-mailed Mr Joep Stevens and informed him in no uncertain terms what I think of this utter redicilous ruling and what inconvenience it caused me and the good news is he informed me via an e-mail today that they are buzy revising the oudtated policy to accommodate moving from one to another unit if need be.

Hope the result will be positive and SOON

Hi,
i have tried to booking online a bungalow for 3 persons, at the Punda Maria Camp, for 22nd to 24th of June. But there is availability of bungalow only for two persons.

How can i booking online, for an additional adult in a bungalow for two persons?

Hi saulo85 - those bungalows can only accommodate two people it seems. Its says two beds only. Max people = 2.

I see there is a 3 person bungalow open for 22nd, why not book that and then you will need to book 2 x 2 bedded bungalows for the other two days.

It is a very busy time of the year, so accommodation is going very fast.

Either that, or email reservations to see what they can do to assist. But they can also allocate only what is available.

Hi saulo85

As a matter of interest, even though we live in Cape Town, I always do all my National Parks bookings by phoning the Reservation House 'satellite booking office' in Jhb (tel: 011-678-8870) and making your reservations then and there over the phone. You never have to wait more than a couple of minutes to get through to a consultant, and I find them unfailingly polite and efficient - the confirmation email comes through almost before I've put the phone down.

Also, if you're unable to find exactly what you want accommodation-wise, but don't want to lose the availability there is, this is a good way to 'hedge your bets', as (unlike online booking), you don't have to pay immediately - depending on how far in advance you're booking, there's about a month's grace period before you have to pay the deposit, during which time more or better accommodation could become available - and you don't end up paying a penalty. Good luck with your bookings!

Whenever I log on to my online account, I am warned that my passport number needs to be added to my profile in order for my booking to be valid. I have emailed reservations 4 times this year, but nobody has replied or rectified this for me. I am slightly surprised by this as the reservations department are incredibly efficient whenever I have rung to book accommodation. As I understand things, I cannot add my passport number to my profile, only SANParks can. At the moment it is blank on my profile and it is not possible to add it, as the box is greyed out?

Graham, most of the Ebiz team are in the KTP for the cricket, I'll try to get someone to have a look at it for you.

Hi all,

Last night at 19:30 we disabled online bookings for an annual process to complete. Bookings was only enabled at around 1am this morning. There was also a warning notice to users prior to the disablement.

You would have got a down message when accessing the page and it was not a technical error.

On a side note, for future, all our scheduled downtime's are done on a tuesday night so if you do see a notice about downtime from 19:30 / 20:00 on a tuesday, you can know it will more than likely be a scheduled downtime.