For our Christmas holiday we chose to stay at the Mbweha Camp. The camp borders against Lake Nakuru National Park, so you are right by the park but not in it (read: park fees only for when you go to the park).

We liked that it was outside of the park because we only wanted to do a game drive one day. We opted to do that on Christmas Eve during the day. We went with one of the drivers from the camp and had a wonderful time. More on that in a later post.

Christmas day we went for a guided bike ride around the Soysambu Conservancy, where the camp is located. The mountain bikes were in pretty good condition and our guide was a professional cyclist. It was a great way to spend Christmas morning. If you want to do things other than a game drive, I really recommend staying at Mwbeha. They can accommodate a ton of activities in or out of the park.

The camp itself is a small camp with handful of cottages so it’s nice and cozy. The grounds are small but nice. There is a pool—not a lap pool, more for relaxing. The lobby/lounge area is open (still covered) and airy with plenty of room for guests. There’s an amazing fire pit in the center.

Our room, the Impala cottage, was really nice. The cottages are all lava stone with thatched roofs. The decor was beautiful. The bathroom was great with a nice shower and hot water at all times.

Our room was a little on the dark side and there wasn’t much in the way of outlets. If you have long hair or thick hair or otherwise need a hairdryer, this will be a problem. I had to use the outlet behind the bed. It was a bit awkward to go dry my hair behind the bed and then run over to the mirror to see what my hair was looking like. I eventually gave up. My hair is medium thick but shorter now so I could get away with just combing it back.

Service was good, maybe hovering a little, but not too much. Food…well…that part is hard to say. It started out amazing.

Our first day there the food was excellent. It was a la carte. Breakfast was made to order. Our Christmas lunch that we took to the park was amazing. Then it changed.

The food shifted to buffet style and wasn’t as good as it was before. Maybe there was a shift in the chef? Maybe it was because more people arrived at the camp? We don’t know what happened.

It wasn’t awful, just no longer amazing. (It’s hard to go from amazing to okay.) The one thing that did really annoy us is that Christmas dinner wound up being a last minute bush dinner. This is the type of thing you should tell guests ahead of time. I, and several other guests, would have dressed quite differently had I known earlier that dinner would be out in the bush.

When were we told? Right before we got shuttled off in the vehicle to go to the site. It really was last minute.

Still, overall, we really loved Mbweha and we would go again. Maybe just not over a holiday.