This was a really amazing experience to see so many animals at such a close distance. The highlight was on the twighlight drive when we came across the family of Lions - Father, 2 daughters and 1 son. They were literaly a couple of metres from the Landrover.

The following morning we again came across many wild animals and thought we had missed the giraffes, which were spotted on the other side of the reserve, but, Nick our "maverick" guide was not put off and travelled the extra distance to take us almost within touching distance of the magnifcant animals.

The accommodation was authentic, comfotrable and clean. The meals in the outdoor "Lapa" were really good with an excellent choice - however I would recommend having a helping of all the food on offer so as not to miss out on the wonderful variety of tastes. The free wine and beer flows quite freely which also adds to the enjoyment.

I went on other more expensive safaris during my holdiay in SA but Schotia was by far the best and such good value for money - we saw much more variety of wild life and at such close proximity.

I would most definately recommend the Schotia 2 day tour as a minimum.

I plan to return to SA and will definately call into Schotia. There are also plans in place to introduce a Horseback Safari which will be an experience hard to forget.

We booked Schotia having researched all the game reserves in the Port Elizabeth area. What sold Schotia to us was the promise of an authentic safari experience as opposed to a 5 star pamper. We were not disappointed - it surpassed our expectations. The real focus in Schotia are the game drives and the opportunity to experience the real Africa.
Our family of 5 were collected at PE airport at no additional cost and transported direct to the reserve (approx 45 mins away). The 3 boys aged 7,5 & 3 were allowed on all the game drives (this is not the case with other reserves as most of them exclude children from the lion drives). There is an abundance of game on the reserve although the Rhino is currently being replaced. There is even a crocodile in residence at the watering hole! We would recommend the Addo tour in conjunction with Schotia as our ranger knew exactly where to locate the elephant herds and buffalo. We stayed in one of the bush lodges and to spend a night without TV, electricity, phones with just tilly lamps and the acompanying sounds of the wildlife is etched on our memories.
If you are interested in the real safari experience - go to Schotia, If you want to be indulged and pampered - head to another 5 star reserve but you'll miss out!!.

I have nothing to compare to, I have never been on a safari before, which made it even more fantastic, when the girl sitting next me in the "Landy" mentioned that she had been on 6-7 safaris so far and actually thought Schotia was great!

It is a different thing to write a review on a game park, as you are not really reviewing the accommodation, (for me it was not the main attraction), but the game and scenary and I must say, what a "wild" time we had!

The basic review of pick up from airport, check in, food, lovely Impala hut (unfortunately we missed out on the spiders !?!) and really nice rangers plus staff can only be described with a huge GREAT!
We were really taken care of and felt at home with the Bean family (son Justin picked us up at the airport, daughter Igna checked us in, son-in-law Niekey was ranger, mum Bean served us food and dad Bean drove us back to the airport).
We totally enjoyed how they shared their history with pride (6th generations of Beans) and how enthousiastic they were about their farm, game reserve and staff.

We had booked the 2 night stay and counting we had 4 day drives in the park, 2 night drives and 1 drive in the Addo Elephant park.
Unfortunately, it was raining so we only saw 11 elephants out of 400 :-(
Nevermind, we did see the 4 lions of the Addo park plus the 5 of Schotia, so what a bonus; 9 lions in 2 days!
I hear that people go to Kruger, stay 4 days and end up with a photo of a dungbeetle...

To wrap up, Schotia is quite possibly guaranteed animals.
It is a "smallish" park, so where ever we went there were zebra, wilderbeast, giraffe and buck én masse. And that's just mentioning a few of the animals in the park.
We saw everything we came for and more!

A final remark on our accommodation; it was clean, comfortable, only parafin lighting and loads of animal sounds in the night. Either you love it our hate it, and we definately loved it!

Can highly recommend Schotia. We had a fab time!

We were recommended to Schotia by a friend and would also have no hesitation recommending it.

Great start to the day as we were picked up from our hotel. We did the Addo tour in the morning and then Schotia in the afternoon. We were very lucky in Addo as we came across massive herds of elephants who seemed quite happy to hang around the waterholes close to the roads. Didn't see any lions or leopards unfortunately.

After lunch in Addo we went to Schotia for the 'real' safari (Addo felt more like an English Safari Park as most of the roads were concrete and there were loads of self drive vehicles around). We got to see loads of animals and the lions were relatively easy to find as they are segregated from the bulk of the reserve (which did feel a little artificial). The ranger was knowledgeable and friendly.

Lovely meal in the evening and then great fun driving back through the reserve with the spotlight picking out glowing eyes all around.

All in all a great day in a reserve that has a 'family run' feel to it. Very personal service and then dropped back at our hotel at 10:00ish.