Victoria Falls River Lodge
Highlights
- Victoria Falls River Lodge is a private game lodge on the Zambezi River inside the 56,000-hectare Zambezi National Park, a few kilometres upstream of Victoria Falls
- Four styles of accommodation — River Lodge Luxury Tented Suites, Malachite Luxury Tented Suites, Island Treehouse Suites and Exclusive Villas — with private plunge pools in the Island Treehouses and Luxury Tented Suites
- Two game activities a day, from game drives through Zambezi National Park to sunrise and sunset cruises on the upper Zambezi
- A guided tour of Victoria Falls included in your stay, plus an optional daily transfer into Victoria Falls town, just 10 minutes away
- Traditional Zambezi flavours and contemporary cooking, wood-fired pizzas and a thatched bar right on the river, with an excellent list of South African and international wines
- The Toa Spa by Africology, a rim-flow infinity pool and a fitness centre for the slow hours between activities
- Helicopter flights over the falls, Batoka Gorge whitewater rafting, bungee from the Victoria Falls Bridge and catch-and-release tigerfish angling, all booked at the lodge's activity desk
Information
- Lodge type: Safari Lodge
- Location: Zambezi National Park, upstream of Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe
- Lodge size: 17 Suites and Villas
- Recommended stay: 3-7 nights
- Malaria risk: Yes — Victoria Falls is a malaria area; take prophylaxis, especially during the rains from November to April
- Getting there: 30 minutes by road from Victoria Falls International Airport (shared transfers included); 10 minutes from Victoria Falls town; 50 minutes from Livingstone airport, Zambia, plus border formalities; 1 hour 15 minutes by road from Kasane, Botswana
Discover Adventure And Tranquility At Vic Falls River Lodge!
Victoria Falls River Lodge is a luxury private game lodge on the Zimbabwean bank of the Zambezi River, set inside Zambezi National Park a few kilometres upstream of Victoria Falls. You get two holidays in one: morning game drives and river cruises through 56,000 hectares of mopane woodland and riverine bush, then the roaring spray of Mosi-oa-Tunya — the Smoke that Thunders — a 10-minute drive from your suite.
Victoria Falls River Lodge is the answer for travellers who want the falls without the town. Elephant, buffalo, lion and leopard range through the park alongside sable, eland, giraffe, kudu and waterbuck, while hippos grunt in the shallows below the decks and fish eagles call across the water at first light. It is one of the finest places anywhere on the Zambezi to sit still with a cold drink and watch the river go by.
Victoria Falls River Lodge backs up that setting with superb, personal hospitality. The guides know the park intimately, the kitchen and bar staff remember how you take your coffee and your gin, and the activity desk handles every falls tour, flight and gorge adventure so your only job is to decide how busy you want to be.
Rooms And Suites
Victoria Falls River Lodge offers four styles of accommodation: River Lodge Luxury Tented Suites, Malachite Luxury Tented Suites, Island Treehouse Suites and Exclusive Villas. Every one of them faces the Zambezi River or the surrounding bush of Zambezi National Park, with expansive windows and private decks that bring the wilderness right to your doorstep.
- River Lodge Luxury Tented Suites — canvas, glass and timber suites with private decks and plunge pools overlooking the Zambezi
- Malachite Luxury Tented Suites — elegantly appointed tented suites with en-suite bathrooms and high-end amenities
- Island Treehouse Suites — the most romantic rooms at the lodge, raised among the trees on a Zambezi island, each with its own private plunge pool
- Exclusive Villas — more space and privacy for families and friends travelling together
Victoria Falls River Lodge furnishes every suite lavishly, with freestanding baths in selected suites, en-suite bathrooms stocked with fine amenities and the thoughtful small touches that make a safari stay feel effortless. After a morning in the gorge or on a game drive, a plunge pool with elephants drinking on the opposite bank is about as good as an African afternoon gets.
Cuisine And Wine
Victoria Falls River Lodge serves a fusion of traditional Zambezi flavours and contemporary international cooking, built on fresh local ingredients. The chefs plate fresh river fish, tender game meats and vibrant seasonal vegetables, lifted with locally grown herbs and spices, and every dish looks as good as it tastes.
Victoria Falls River Lodge pairs its menu with a carefully curated list of South African and international wines. Try a rich South African Merlot with a spicy game curry, or a crisp, elegant Chardonnay alongside a light Zambezi fish dish.
Victoria Falls River Lodge varies the setting as much as the menu: dinner on the riverside deck as the light turns orange over the water, wood-fired pizzas straight from the oven, or a quiet meal inside the lodge when the evening cools. Each meal celebrates the culinary heritage of the Zambezi valley in one of the most magical dining settings in Zimbabwe.
Facilities
Victoria Falls River Lodge centres on a main guest area overlooking the Zambezi River, designed with every modern comfort while keeping an authentic African feel. Facilities include:
- Open-plan dining and lounge areas with river views
- A rim-flow infinity pool that seems to spill straight into the Zambezi bush
- An exclusive thatched bar overlooking the river
- A wood-fired pizza oven
- The Toa Spa by Africology, for massages and treatments after a day of adventure
- A well-equipped fitness centre
- An information and activity booking desk for falls tours, flights and gorge activities
Activities
Victoria Falls River Lodge includes two game activities a day, a guided tour of Victoria Falls and an optional daily transfer into Victoria Falls town in every stay. Entry to the Victoria Falls Rainforest is at your own expense.
Victoria Falls River Lodge game activities take place in Zambezi National Park and on the upper Zambezi River:
- Guided game drives through Zambezi National Park for elephant, buffalo, lion, leopard, sable and eland
- Sunrise and sunset river cruises past hippos, crocodiles and superb birdlife, with drinks and snacks on board
- Wildlife viewing from your own suite or private deck, which is often the best seat in the house
- Excellent birding along the riverine fringe
Victoria Falls River Lodge's activity desk books a wide range of optional extras at additional cost:
- Spa treatments at the Toa Spa
- Guided walking safaris in Zambezi National Park
- Fishing safaris on the upper Zambezi, with catch-and-release tigerfish and more than 75 fish species in the river
- Helicopter flights over Victoria Falls
- Full-moon lunar rainbow tours of the falls
- Whitewater rafting in the Batoka Gorge
- Zipline, bungee jump and bridge swing at the Victoria Falls Bridge
- Arts and crafts shopping and historical tours in Victoria Falls town
Victoria Falls River Lodge FAQs
Where is Victoria Falls River Lodge?
Victoria Falls River Lodge is a private game lodge on the Zambezi River inside Zimbabwe's Zambezi National Park, a few kilometres upstream of Victoria Falls. The lodge is 10 minutes by road from Victoria Falls town and 30 minutes from Victoria Falls International Airport, with shared airport transfers included in the rate. Livingstone airport in Zambia is 50 minutes away, subject to border formalities on both sides.
Is Victoria Falls River Lodge in a malaria area?
Yes. Victoria Falls River Lodge lies in a malaria area, as does the whole Victoria Falls region of Zimbabwe. Guests should consult a travel clinic or doctor about antimalarial prophylaxis before departure, use insect repellent, and cover up with long sleeves and trousers at dusk. The risk is highest during the rainy season, from roughly November to April, and lower in the dry winter months.
What is included in the Victoria Falls River Lodge rate?
Victoria Falls River Lodge rates include accommodation, all meals, local beverages, afternoon tea, two game activities a day, a guided tour of Victoria Falls and shared transfers from Victoria Falls Airport. An optional daily transfer to Victoria Falls town and use of the fitness centre are also included. Park and conservation fees, Rainforest entry, spa treatments, premium drinks, flights and off-site activities cost extra.
What types of suites does Victoria Falls River Lodge have?
Victoria Falls River Lodge offers four styles of accommodation: River Lodge Luxury Tented Suites, Malachite Luxury Tented Suites, Island Treehouse Suites and Exclusive Villas. The Island Treehouse Suites and Luxury Tented Suites have private plunge pools. The suites have en-suite bathrooms and private decks overlooking the Zambezi River or the surrounding bush of Zambezi National Park.
When is the best time to visit Victoria Falls River Lodge?
The best time to visit Victoria Falls River Lodge depends on your priorities. Victoria Falls is in full flood from about February to May, when the spray is enormous and can hide the view. Wildlife viewing in Zambezi National Park peaks in the dry season, roughly July to October, as animals gather along the river. September to January offers the clearest views of the falls themselves.
How many nights should you spend at Victoria Falls River Lodge?
Victoria Falls River Lodge works best for three to seven nights, the stay Uyaphi recommends. Three nights covers a guided tour of the falls, a game drive and river cruise in Zambezi National Park, and one adrenaline activity such as a helicopter flight or Batoka Gorge rafting. Longer stays leave room for fishing and the spa, or pair the lodge with Hwange National Park or Chobe in Botswana.
In Conclusion
Victoria Falls River Lodge is one of the finest ways to see Victoria Falls, because it lets you see far more than the falls. You sleep inside Zambezi National Park with hippos below the deck, eat on the riverbank as the sun drops behind the mopane, and still stand in the spray of Mosi-oa-Tunya within 10 minutes of leaving your suite. Few lodges anywhere on the Zambezi combine a genuine game park, a world-famous waterfall and five-star comfort this seamlessly.
Victoria Falls River Lodge is simple to reach, just 30 minutes by road from Victoria Falls International Airport, with direct flights from Johannesburg and Cape Town. That makes it the natural start or finish to a longer Zimbabwe safari: add Hwange National Park for its famous elephant herds, or cross to Chobe in Botswana for boat-based game viewing.
Victoria Falls River Lodge rewards any season. Come from February to May for the falls at full thunder, from July to October for the best game viewing, or from September to January for the clearest views of the gorge.
Uyaphi has been planning tailor-made African safaris from Cape Town since 1999, and 27 years on we still build every itinerary around the traveller, never the brochure. There are no booking fees and no credit card surcharges. Tell us your dates, your pace and who is travelling, and we'll put together a Victoria Falls River Lodge stay, and the safari around it, that fits you perfectly.
Rates from US$ 1,000.00 Per person per night
Victoria Falls River Lodge Rates
Per person per night sharing
Rates are in US Dollar
*Rates may vary according to season
- Accommodation
- Transfers (shared) from/to the Victoria Falls Airport
- All meals
- Local beverages
- An optional daily transfer from camp to Victoria Falls town
- A Tour of the Falls (the entry fee into the Rainforest is for guest’s own account)
- Transfers to/from National Park Gate / Jetty for 3rd party activities
- Two game activities daily
- Snacks and local beverages are included on the game drives and/or the sunset river cruises
- Afternoon Tea Complimentary
- Access to onsite Fitness Centre
- All flights
- Travel insurance
- All unspecified transfers
- All National Park entrance fees / Conservation fees / Heritage fees
- Customs and Visa fees
- Imported / premium brand beverages
- Shop purchases
- Spa treatments
- Additional activities
- All off-site activities
- Laundry facilities available but at additional cost
- All other / unspecified extras
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Zimbabwe Travel Topics
The Perfect Zimbabwe Honeymoon
Most honeymoons are an exercise in doing very little at considerable expense, and there is a great deal to be said for that. Zimbabwe simply arranges better company for it. Elephants come down to drink below the deck while you are still on your first coffee; the guide turns out to know which lion crossed the airstrip in the night; dinner happens on a Zambezi deck while the light goes orange and then goes altogether. Nobody puts Zimbabwe at the top of the shortlist — Kenya and the Cape get there first — which is precisely why the lodges are quieter and the guiding is better than it needs to be.
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Livingstone named it after a queen who never saw it, and the Tonga had been calling it Mosi-oa-Tunya, the smoke that thunders, for a very long time before he turned up. Theirs is the better name. Five hundred million litres a minute go over the edge in full flood, which is enough to soak you through a hired raincoat before you are halfway along the Zimbabwe footpath, and enough to hide the falls entirely if you have come in the wrong month. There is also a rock pool at the very lip of the drop that people swim in. We will come to that.
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You can see the falls properly in ninety minutes. The rest of the week happens wherever you are sleeping, which makes the choice of lodge matter more here than almost anywhere else in Zimbabwe. Some of them are town hotels with a shuttle and a buffet. Others sit far enough upriver that the loudest thing at breakfast is one hippo disagreeing with another. The gap in price between those two experiences is usually smaller than you would expect, and the gap in the holiday is not. Here are five I would put my own money on.
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The Zambezi begins as a spring in a patch of Zambian woodland you could step across, and ends two and a half thousand kilometres later in the Indian Ocean, having spent much of the journey acting as the border of half of southern Africa. Six countries. One waterfall that needs no introduction, a dam that made an inland sea, and a stretch below that dam at Mana Pools where you are permitted to walk. It is also, at six in the evening with the light going, the single best place in this part of the continent to be sitting still.
Luxury Tented Safari Camps in Zimbabwe
"Tent" is a word working extremely hard in this part of the brochure. It covers canvas on a hardwood deck with a four-poster and plumbing that would pass in Kensington, and it also covers a bucket shower and a zip. What the two share is the actual reason to choose either: canvas does not keep sound out. You hear the elephants arrive at the Hwange waterhole at two in the morning. You hear the hippos settling their differences on the Zambezi. You lie there listening rather than sleeping, which is rather the point of the whole arrangement.
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For most of the last century the Rhodesian authorities preferred to believe that Zimbabweans had not built Great Zimbabwe. Phoenicians were proposed. So were the Queen of Sheba's architects. The stonework is Shona, laid without mortar, eleven metres high in places, and it is the only ruin I can think of that gave its name to the country containing it. That is the sort of country this is. The obvious things — the falls, the Hwange elephants, the rapids below the gorge — are worth every hour of the flight, and underneath them sits a second Zimbabwe that most itineraries never touch.
10 Reasons to Visit Victoria Falls for an Unforgettable Experience
The bridge was cast in Darlington, shipped out in pieces and bolted together over the gorge in 1905, and people now jump off it on an elastic rope. Victoria Falls has been like this ever since: a serious piece of natural history with an adrenaline economy bolted to the side of it. You can run the grade five rapids in the Batoka Gorge in the morning and be on a boat with a gin and tonic by six, watching the same water arrive flat and innocent above the lip. Both are honest ways to spend a day here. So is doing neither.