Masai Mara Sopa Lodge Review - Kenya, Africa - The Brutally Honest Traveler

Are you looking at staying at the Masai Mara Sopa Lodge while on safari in the Masaai Mara in Kenya, Africa? Here is my honest review of this safari lodge and I’ll tell you everything — both good and bad — about the Masai Mara Sopa Lodge review

Honest reviews and East African safaris do not go hand-in-hand. In fact, I have yet to read much of anything “honest” when it comes to safari – and maybe that’s why you’re here. Maybe you’ve done your research like I did and it was glowing review after glowing review on the major websites, with no one ever really saying what it’s really like to stay in these lodges. Hence, why my expectations on safari were so high!

This applied to every single lodge we stayed at on our nearly 2-week safari – whether it was in Kenya, Tanzania or Uganda. And that includes the place we’re reviewing today — the Mara Sopa Lodge.

Honest Review of the Masai Mara Sopa Lodge. Masai Mara Sopa lodge review — The Mara Sopa Lodge is a mid-range property you can stay at while visiting the Maasai Mara | Masai Mara Sopa Lodge Review

Granted, if you look on TripAdvisor, the Mara Sopa lodge does not have all glowing 5 star reviews – in fact, it has an average of 4.0 on TripAdvisor, but you’ll still have to dig deep to find anything honest, as people with 1 review to their name are constantly posting a short, two-sentence review claiming how much they love this place.

And these short, 1-2 sentence 5-star reviews seem to happen with every lodge review where for the places we stayed that I came across. So, so sus!

Anyway, with that long intro out of the way, let’s get into my HONEST review of staying at the Masai Mara Sopa Lodge, within the Maasai Mara Reserve in Kenya, Africa.

Where is the Mara Sopa Lodge?
Is the Mara Sopa Lodge a chain?
How much is it to stay at the Mara Sopa Lodge?
Masai Mara Sopa Lodge Review – What is the food like at the Mara Sopa Lodge?
- Boxed Breakfast and/or Lunches
Amenities at the Mara Sopa Lodge
Rooms at the Mara Sopa Lodge
Final Thoughts – Masai Mara Sopa Lodge review
More East Africa Safari Information

Where is the Mara Sopa Lodge?

The Mara Sopa Lodge is located just outside one of the gates to the Maasai Mara Reserve, in a village that has tons of other lodging options, from full on luxury, to midrange (which includes the Mara Sopa Lodge) to budget tented camps and camp grounds.

I thought this was a very convenient location in terms of going on game drives in the park, as it wasn’t too long of a drive to the gate. However, the road through the small village and to the lodge was terrible! It was extremely bumpy (I’m talking you’re driving over small sand hills with no actual road).

If you go on an East Africa safari, I can’t begin to stress how bumpy and terrible the roads are! There’s no amount of word salad I could write that would explain the pain you’re going to endure!

Honest Review of the Masai Mara Sopa Lodge — The village en route to the Mara Sopa Lodge | Masai Mara Sopa Lodge Review

Once at the Mara Sopa Lodge, you’re transported into an exotic jungle location, with rich vegetation all around, as it is propped up on a hillside. The grounds of this lodge are beautiful.

Is the Mara Sopa Lodge a chain?

Yes! Throughout the safari circuit in Africa, you’ll find a lot of “Sopa Lodges” in the different parks and reserves. In general, the Sopa chain is more on the luxury end, however, THIS place, the Mara Sopa Lodge, gets by far, the worst reviews. So if you’ve stayed at a Sopa Lodge in another area, thinking you will get the luxe treatment, think again before you stay here!

How much is it to stay at the Mara Sopa Lodge?

In general, if you’re doing a safari, your tour operator is going to book your lodging for you; you don’t book these places independently (although it’s not unheard of. I just wouldn’t do it.) You typically would give your tour operator a guideline of your budget – you typically would chose either luxury, mid range, or budget. We always chose mid-range, as we wanted to avoid shared bathrooms, extremely rustic conditions and bucket showers where you phone a staff member to fill your shower tank with water. If mid-range is what you chose, you might find yourself here at the Mara Sopa Lodge. Included with the price is full board – so you get breakfast, lunch and dinner included.

Masai Mara Sopa Lodge Review – What is the food like at the Mara Sopa Lodge?

In short, awful. This was a common theme on my safari. Again, rave reviews all around about the food. I don’t know what these people are used to at home, but there is in no way, shape or form that you could call this food “good.”

Food is served buffet style for breakfast, lunch and dinner, in a large dining room, where you have an assigned table. (In hindsight, the I preferred buffet style much more than the sit down style I had later on during my safari, where they feed you whatever the chef feels like cooking that night…because I could at least find something edible at a buffet).

In general, everything was bland and tasteless – just like everywhere else we stayed on safari. Desserts look incredible but in reality, they’re extremely dry. Easy stuff like rice is not cooked correctly. Food is mislabeled in that they label it “fried rice” and you open up the heated serving container and find that it’s simply white rice with a few peas tossed in. No, Mara Sopa Lodge, that is NOT fried rice. The made-to-order pasta bar is terrible – again, there is no flavor to this food at all.

It doesn’t look bad, but trust me, it was terrible.

Don’t expect to get any free water with your meal. You will need to pay for it. Coffee and tea are free, but it’s a tough ask to drink coffee with your dinner after sweating your ass off on a game drive.

Not only was the food bad, but there are large swarms of moths in the dining room, and they like to land on the food served in the buffet. The moths are the size of small birds and when you see them land in the pasta noodles, well, there goes any appetite you might’ve had!

Boxed Breakfast and/or Lunches

Chances are, you will be on a game drive during one of the three meals served, so the lodge provides guests with boxed meals. Ours mostly went into the trash, they were so bad. The only edible thing in the boxed breakfast was the orange and the apple. Otherwise, we were given weird flavored potato chips (we got ketchup flavored potato chips!), an old sausage that’s been marinating in its own grease for 4 hours to the point where the fat is starting to curdle, a yogurt that’s been sitting out UN-refrigerated in the 90 degree heat, etc. I don’t care how hungry I am, I am not eating that!

Amenities at the Mara Sopa Lodge

There is a very large lobby/seating area that we took advantage of, because this was the only spot where you can get wifi. They also offer afternoon tea, coffee and snacks, all of which were pretty good.

Afternoon snacks were better than the buffet meals

The furniture in the lobby looks like it was fished out of a dumpster | Masai Mara Sopa Lodge Review

The furniture in the common spaces is pretty beat up – lots of stains, rips and tears. There’s also a bar here that seemed to be open all day – if you order any drinks – including soda, you can just charge it to your room.

Looks fine from a distance, but these chairs and couches need to be ripped apart by a pride of lions.

There is a tiny outdoor Maasai Market on the grounds of the lodge, where some local Maasai women sell their goods on a few tables. Even though the women can be a bit pushy in their sales tactics, we ended up purchasing quite a bit here and had fun talking with the women.

To find the market, just follow this sign

The Mara Sopa lodge has a swimming pool but we didn’t use it. The water was ice cold, but it did look nice and inviting.

Pool looked nice, but wasn’t really usable, as the water was far too cold.

Rooms at the Mara Sopa Lodge

Rooms are arranged bungalow-style – they have actual walls, not canvas, and the rooms were very spacious. Never had an issue with hot water for showering. The beds weren’t very comfortable – the mattresses were awfully hard. You will not get a wifi signal in your room, nor will you have any sort of cellular data.

Spacious rooms – the mosquito nets are deployed during turn-down service while you are eating dinner

Bathrooms were fine, too. The shower was easy to adjust the temp (not always the case at these safari lodges!) and we had plenty of hot water.

Power is cut during the afternoon hours (it comes back on at 5pm) and overnight. Having the afternoon power cut off is annoying because when you return from your game drive and have a few hours of free time, you don’t have any power. Additionally, they don’t turn it on in the morning when they say they will. We had to get dressed in the dark one morning because they decided not to turn the power on.

Final Thoughts – Masai Mara Sopa Lodge review

Would I stay at the Mara Sopa Lodge again? No! The rooms were fine, I enjoyed the small Maasai women’s market, and the location was decent, but the food was just so bad that we hardly ate anything during our 2-night stay here. When you stay at these safari lodges, you are subject to whatever it is they feed you. There are no nearby restaurant choices. There are no convenience stores to grab stuff to make sandwiches. You either eat the slop served at the moth-infested buffet, or you go hungry. When booking your safari, remember that it’s not just the rooms you have to account for while you’re on safari, food plays a huge part because you have no choice. And if it’s bad, you’re not going to enjoy staying here.
If you’re still interested, here is the official site of the Masai Mara Sopa Lodge.

Have you stayed at the Mara Sopa Lodge? What did you think?