MARA RIVER SAFARI LODGE at Bali Safari & Marine Park

Tough one to explain... It’s overpriced and disappointing yet I’m glad that we went. I have no regrets dropping $700-$800 on our two day stay. First off, the Twiga rooms aren’t as cool as they seem in the pics online. I had visions of closely interacting with wildlife from my balcony and feeding them practically by hand. There’s actually a pretty far distance separating you from the animals. Especially sucks if you’re unathletic like myself and can’t even give a carrot a good throw. Same deal with the pool. There will be no baby tigers or rhinos hanging out poolside. It’s very buggy there. I do a lot of traveling so it’s not that I have unrealistic expectations of a bugless Indonesia. Heck, I’m currently surrounded by mosquitos in northern Bali as I type this review and am totally cool with it. ...but Mara is buggy’er than usual. There were quite a bit more in the room than anywhere else we’ve stayed. The doors and windows are not sealed off well. The staff doesn’t give that Balinese sweet hospitality vibe. They felt more reserved. They didn’t give the same “makes you feel like family” type of vibe that we experience elsewhere in Bali. So, after all of that complaining, why am I saying it’s a “must visit”? Freakin’ Tigers. Being so up close and personal with the tigers on the night safari was a once in a lifetime experience that made it worthwhile. Also, feed the white tigers during the day. Amazing!!!

The staff and the beautiful animals were the stars. The night safari barbecue was a little hot and buggy outside. The fire show was fun. The spa could use a little updating. All and all a fantastic stay!

Once the access is finished will be greate. Now UNDER CONSTRUCTION.

It was an amazing hotel and great staff

Great place to stay found a couple of nights enough

It was amazing. Just too many mosquitos but that’s nature. Service was amazing. All staffs are helpful and courteous

Great room and interesting to overlook the animals and toss carrots to them for pictures; however, the animals were not around in the evening or overnight (presumably ushered to other enclosures). Similar animals to what you will see at the zoo and several exhibits were closed, which left the park a bit underwhelming for us on that side (thus our lower ranking for the Local Area, as there wasn't much else around). Great breakfast buffet with accompanying views of lions, but on-site dinner is expensive; however, this is nicely offset by the hotel offering some free limited shuttle service to nearby restaurants that are much more reasonably priced (I recommend going slightly further down the road to Warong Legong which was both excellent food and very reasonably priced with a great owner and wonderful service; they also offered free shuttle for us from the restaurant). Good discounts offered at the Safari Park, with the basic ticket cost also included in the room cost. Great service from the staff and fun fire dance show in the evening. WiFi available but slow, like most other places. All said, if you are interested in going to the Bali Safari Park, we would definitely recommend staying at the Mara River hotel here as well.

Food was the worst we had in 14 days of travel in Bali. If you have children and a lit of money, this is the place to go. If you’re an adult you’ll probably find it boring. We only saw 6 other people staying there so it was pretty much deserted unless a tour bus showed up. Disappointing.

Amazing experience on elephant riding for breakfast