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Update 7/26/22: I was very disappointed to learn yesterday that the Protea Hotel Kruger Gate is leaving Marriott Bonvoy as of 9/1/22 as reported by Katie Genter on Twitter. Unfortunately, I think this means you’ll only have until then to redeem rewards and stay at this incredibly well-located property. I currently see dates in August available for either 14,500 or 15,000 Marriott points per night. Unfortunately, it looks like the hotel is not accepting reservations for award stays beyond September 1st. I don’t know whether existing points reservations beyond September 1st will be honored. I expect that cash rate reservations should still be honored, though a message on the Marriott website indicates that elite benefits will not apply once the hotel leaves the program on September 1, 2022.
This is a major bummer as I stayed at this hotel in early 2017 and posted this review. While the award price increased since this post was originally written, this has remained a fantastic value using Marriott points for a hotel that is literally just outside of the Paul Kruger gate to Kruger National Park. While few people are probably planning a safari on a month’s notice, I thought it was worth publishing this for anyone who might have missed this gem previously. The original post follows.
Long before discovering points and miles as a method to travel, my wife and I had a shared dream trip: a safari. I think it’s the child within — the chance to see lions and leopards and elephants in their natural habitats rekindles the amazement of seeing them on TV for the first time as kids.
It’s hard to describe the difference between watching Animal Planet and finding those scenes play out in real life in front of your eyes, but suffice it to say that after two trips the magic hasn’t died. Last month, we returned to Kruger National Park in South Africa for the second time and felt like kids in a candy store as we drove ourselves around the park watching for wildlife and snapping photos along the way. I am no J.M. Hoffman, but the diversity in Kruger park is wonderful and makes it hard not to take a few pictures you like. You can see elephants playing in the water:
Or lions…..lying:
Or maybe even stumble on a leopard:
Sightings are abundant. With a few days, some patience, and a good eye, you’re likely to find a little bit of everything.
If you’ve looked at safari packages before, you’ve probably assumed that it would be a major expense. And it can be — luxury safari packages can easily run in the thousands and may be the right choice depending on your budget and desires. On the other end of the spectrum, you can rent a bungalow in one of the many rest camps within Kruger National Park for just about $100 a night (or camp for quite a bit less). Bungalows are simple and typically clean enough, though on our last night this time around we did find a scorpion in our bathroom in the middle of the night:
And that led us to find an opportunity to enjoy everything Kruger park has to offer while sleeping cheap on points: The Protea Hotel Kruger Gate, a Category 1 Marriott Rewards property. Sitting just 100m from the Paul Kruger gate, the location of this hotel can not be beat. All of the photos taken above were within a day’s drive from the hotel.
Cash rates at the Protea Kruger Gate can often easily exceed $200 a night, making 7500 Marriott points (or 2500 Starpoints converted to Marriott) a great deal. (Note that this property increased in category a couple of years ago and as of 2022 award rates are typically around 15,000 points per night, still a great value redemption).
The lobby looked very promising — completely open-air:
As this hotel sits literally 100m from the Paul Kruger entrance gate, it is surrounded by animal life and includes a nice nature walk:
You can get a spa treatment under one of roofs to the left, listening to monkeys swinging in the trees or watching zebra pass by.
There are monkeys playing in the nearby trees/structures:
And sometimes even running across the dinner tables as they set up:
You can’t see any running across the tables here, and when we were eating dinner an hour later, we were happy to be in denial as well.
The room itself looked decent:
But the problem here is that each room opens to the outdoor hallways, and the two rooms we saw both included a gap between the door and frame that can allow something like, say, a 3-inch spider into the room. To be fair, we only found one such spider and the hotel offered to have the room cleaned again. We took them up on it and didn’t see another insect while we were there — but in a Malaria zone with venomous spiders and scorpions, I would expect a $250-a-night hotel to have doors that close a bit better.
Another potential disadvantage to the Protea would be that your access to the park will be about an hour behind those staying within the park (camp gates open earlier than park gates). Still, the ability to self-drive within the park means that you can choose your own path and adventure in search of the wildlife you hope to find. While some say that the crowds at Kruger can detract from the experience in comparison to some lesser-visited safari locations, we didn’t find this to be the case during our two trips. In fact, we drove for hours at a time without seeing anyone — though lion sightings do tend to draw a handful of cars.
In the end, the biggest surprise for me on this trip was having access to the wild world above while staying at a Marriott Rewards property. The Protea Hotel Kruger Gate may not be perfect, but I found it to be perfectly well worth 7500 Marriott points. Better yet, convert Starpoints to stay for just 2500 Starpoints per night. The current signup bonus on the Amex SPG cards would be enough to spend two weeks on safari at this property. While that’s probably not what I’d do with all of those Starpoints, it’s a pretty strong value nonetheless.
One thing the Protea Hotel Kruger gate did reasonably well: dinner. The Protea’s dinner buffet was large, diverse, and pretty tasty even if a bit expensive compared to the restaurants within the park (neither breakfast nor dinner are included when redeeming points):
And the wildlife viewing in Kruger National Park is amazing. We will definitely be back again (this was our second trip to Kruger in 13 months), and when we go back we will likely use Starwood/Marriott points to stay at the Protea Hotel Kruger Gate. If your travels take you to South Africa, check out what Marriott has to offer — Protea may surprise you!
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I have been informed that my points booking for January will be honored, so I’m very happy about that, as using points is really the only way that Kruger National Park is affordable to me.
Hi Nick, I appreciate you sharing a post specifically about this hotel property. I actually booked it several nights ago based on you 3 card 3 continent update concerning aeroplan dream redemptions. Though you were talking about the Protea Livingstone property in that article. Your original article failed to mention that breakfast was not included in the points rate, and of course, I only have marriott gold status. Even worse, EVERY SINGLE cash rate does include breakfast, even booking through third party websites like booking.com only show rates with breakfast. I bought marriott points through storefront to take advantage of what I though was significant savings on the rate. But actually, when you account for the price of breakfast here, $22.50 per person, there is virtually no savings booking with points instead of cash. No rewards earned either on storefront purchases. Especially if you buy the points through the storefront. Their rates are misleading and the community needs to know to double check the rate fineprint. Hyatt never does that, free breakfast if you pay cash but not included with point award redemption.
First and last time I stay at a Marriott property.
Hi Justin! Thanks for the comment. Bummer that you missed the fact that breakfast wasn’t included in points rates.
I’m not sure whether you booked the Protea Livingstone or this one? If this one, if you hit Ctrl+F on your keyboard (or “Find in page” if you’re on a mobile device) and you search for the word breakfast, you’ll see that the first instance of the word on this page / post does indeed include that:
Also, if you scroll down about 6 comments from yours here, you’ll find some more discussion about the cost of breakfast at the time.
In terms of the savings versus cash rate, I guess it depends on the cash rate when you’re going. Dates I checked next month were $225. If you bought Marriott points during the recent sale (less than 0.9c per point), you would have paid about $135 per night for the points (based on the dates I saw being 15K points). If breakfast is $22.50 these days, so you add $45, that’s a total of $180 — a savings of $45 a night. Of course, I don’t know whether you bought the points on sale or whether your points rate was higher or cash rate lower. Hard for me to say.
If you were booking the Protea Livingstone, then I still think the points rate (at something like 10,500 points per night) came out to be a pretty significant savings over the cash rate, but YMMV depending on the cash rate for your dates I guess.
However a couple more thoughts:
That said, if you’re staying at the one in Livingstone, I don’t know anything about what your other options are for breakfast. Again, I’m sorry you missed that breakfast wasn’t included! I didn’t think about that when mentioning the Protea Livingstone, I guess because I long ago knew that Marriott members don’t get free breakfast at Protea and I knew it wasn’t included on this stay, so I expected to have to pay for it.
stayed at this hotel 2 months ago. The standard rooms at the 400 section seem recently renovated (or newly built) and it was super nice.
@ Nick — Awesome photos! I especially love the cats.
Going on safari, at least for me, was a life changing experience. Sounds corny but it truly was. On our trip we stayed at Protea hotels at Kruger, Zambia and Dar Es Salam. They were all inexpensive and very nice properties. It is unfortunate that Kruger will no be a Marriott property but I strongly agree with you re staying in the park. Perhaps more important than the overnight facilities is that people staying in the park have access to extraordinarily inexpensive morning, afternoon and night salary drives ($20‐$40 before Covid]. And everything can be booked online at the Kruger website. There are also early morning Bush walks. One of the most memorable moment of my trip was standing about 300 feet from a black rhino. As you said you can’t compare a safari to Animal Planet. Let me tell you, you can’t compare watching wild animals from a safari vehicle to being at ground level with them with nothing between you and them except some brush and a park ranger with a rifle.
Oh no! We just left there 4 weeks ago. 5 nights, 51K total, Titanium. Room 440 with a huge deck in the newer building, closest to the bar/pool. (No gaps around door). We were definable going to return next year. What a great experience. Nick’s pics are amazing
I recently cancelled a 5-night points booking for May 2023. Even if they honor the reservation (which they probably won’t), not having any elite benefits recognized kills the value proposition for me. I’ve now decided to search for alternative accommodations in Kruger to avoid the hassle of driving in/out everyday.
On points does the stay include breakfast ? At an early hour !
No. This is copied from my question above about that:
Breakfast was 195 — about $15.12. I did not eat breakfast and probably wouldn’t as you’ll want to be in the park and driving at that time. We just stopped at a rest camp for breakfast. At the Mugg & Bean, a Croque Monsieur/Madame was 49.90 rand, a 3-egg design-your-own omelet was 34.90 rand, a pineapple manana and coconut smoothie bowl was 36.90 rand….a bottomless coffee 21.90 rand. I couldn’t have eaten 195 rand worth of food if I wanted to.
Also, there’s the fact that you want to be in there park before breakfast. I think it opened at around 5:30am at the time of year we were there about and you want to go in as early as possible to maximize your chance at seeing the predators as they’re finishing up. You can stop at a rest camp in the park later and get breakfast very cheaply (and it’s good, probably much better than you’re picturing).
We basically drove until like 8am or maybe 9 and then stopped for breakfast and then went back out. Had some trail mix and stuff like that for the car.
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Have been looking at IC Mauritius (although seems very remote) and combining it with some time in Kruger. Despite having gone up one category level to Level 2 now this Marriott property still seems good value (10k Marriott points but 5th night free) however I had thought the points cost would include breakfast 🙁
That is a bit of a let-down. I doubt we’ll be sitting for a sumptuous breakfast feast every morning so the cash price for breakfast won’t be worth it for us. Therefore we’d just grab something at a cafe outside or inside the park.
Do Marriott Gold members (matched from SPG thanks to AMEX Plat) get any benefits here ? On points stays ?? I appreciate that things will be changing with the merger too 🙁
I visited Kruger a couple of years ago and stayed inside the parks at the SANPark accommodations and found them to be decent enough and a good bonus was being able to enter the park earlier each day and from different locations (if you moved between the camps). I am surprised and shocked at the gaps in the doors at a Marriott property !!
I recall my first day entering the park was quite a queue and that would eat into your visiting time too (I could see that being an hour if you were unlucky) not just the one hour addition to the opening times at the outside gates vs internal accommodation gates.
How long did you find it took you to gain entrance each day ?
Thinking this might be quite a good use of some SPG points I have saved up (only 40K = 120K Marriott !).
Being from the UK we don’t get the huge numbers of points you guys do from credit card signups so have top earn them the hard way 🙁
We didn’t get any noticeable benefits from being Marriott Gold.
As for a queue to enter the park, that probably depends on the day and time of year. The Paul Kruger gate is certainly a main entrance and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that there were lines in peak season. On the other hand, in two trips to Kruger, we haven’t run into a line to enter or exit the park. We only stayed 1 night at the Protea, and our other couple of entrances to the park were in the south (Crocodile Bridge entrance). Sorry I can’t be of more help there.
Breakfast wasn’t included in an award stay at this hotel, but we wouldn’t have waited around that long to enter the park anyway, so it wouldn’t have mattered much to us. Food is cheap inside the park, so we’d start when the gates open and get breakfast at a rest camp mid-morning. Dinner could be the larger issue as we didn’t see many other options near the Protea (again, only there 1 night). However, the Skukuza rest camp is right near that gate, so you could conceivably get dinner before exiting.
Reviving this thread with a specific question: Can anyone speak to the internet at the Protea Kruger Gate Marriott? We’re going to be there in May/June 2018 and SO just got an invite to participate in a very prestigious panel. She can do it remotely, but not so much if the internet/wifi stinks.
Any insights from recent guests?? Reliably stayed connected? Speed was acceptable? (not looking to stream Netflix.. just to be able to participate in discussion). Is there cost? (Marriott Gold, if it matters)
Thanks!
HELLO
WE WOULD STAY AT THE PROTEA KRUGER ON AUGUST.
DID YOU TAKE GAME DRIVE / TOUR FROM THE HOTEL OR SELF-DRIVING ONLY ?
DO YOU REMEMBER BREAKFAST / DINNER HOURS ?
THANKS
IRIS
We did self-drive only. You can also do game drives / tours at the camps inside the park (not sure if they have daytime drives for people who aren’t staying at the camps, but it might be worth looking into it at http://www.sanparks.org as everything in the park was pretty cheap. Truth be told, we intended to book some of the game drives/tours the first time we went (this was our second trip t Kruger), but we saw so much on our own that we didn’t feel the need to do so. Rangers were plentiful in the camps to talk to and ask questions throughout the day if we had questions. I’m not saying that you should do the game drives — I’m sure they could be fun. We enjoyed controlling our own pace though.
As for dinner, I know that dinner happens after the park gates close for the night — you could stay in until closing time and not miss dinner. It wasn’t much after that — enough time to come in and shower/change and go to dinner.
As for breakfast, we didn’t eat it there In all honesty, I probably wouldn’t eat breakfast there for this reason: you want to be in the park when the gates open. Your best chance of seeing lions and other cats and hyenas is in early morning after they’ve been hunting for the night. Depending on the time of year, the gates open around 5:30am (the gates in the camps inside the park opened at 4:30am in January). We would be out as soon as the gates opened and driving around for a few hours. Around 8 or 9am, we’d just stop at one of the camps in the park for breakfast. Most of the camps have restaurants (the park maps will mark which ones have restaurants). You could enter the park at the Paul Kruger gate and spend a couple of hours driving toward Lower Sabie and have breakfast at the Mugg & Bean there. Breakfast food was good there and quite cheap — most of the breakfast dishes were $3-$5 and were sizable.
If you need more specific info, you could try either calling the hotel or Tweeting the hotel/Marriott if you don’t want to make an international call.
thanks for the detailed answer 🙂
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