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User Reviews of Lake Manyara National Park (288 Reviews)

Lake Manyara Safaris Lake Manyara National Park
Sort By: Date Most Helpful 1-10 of 105 Reviews

Average User Rating

3.9722 / 5 4 /5
3.8696 / 5 4.2202 / 5 3.9344 / 5 4.0900 / 5

Rating Breakdown

5 star 105 / 10 105
4 star 91 / 10 91
3 star 73 / 10 73
2 star 17 / 10 17
1 star 2 / 10 2
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Male avatar icon Rick Johnson United States flag US       Visited: November 2008 Reviewed: Mar 21, 2012

35-50 years of age

5 / 5 5 /5
5 / 5 5 / 5 4 / 5 5 / 5

Lake Manyara NP was our first foray into the African wildlife scene and we were not disappointed. Lions, hippos, giraffes, flamingos, baboons, elephants, gazelle, impala, monkeys, and birds, birds, birds.

The best piece of advice I can offer for Lake Manyara or any other safari is to make sure you have a good guide/driver beforehand. You might have to pay a little more for a top guide, but it is well worth the cost. If you can afford a private guide/driver, even better. Ours was exceedingly knowledgeable about the environment and the wildlife. He was able to spot and point out animals that we would have never seen our own. A place like Lake Manyara is quite scenic to drive through, but when someone is able to point out and describe things you would not otherwise notice, it makes the experience truly memorable.

Female avatar icon Jennifer Henderson United States flag US       Visited: June 2018 Reviewed: Jul 5, 2018

Email Jennifer Henderson  |  35-50 years of age  |  Experience level: first safari

5 / 5 5 /5
5 / 5 5 / 5 5 / 5 5 / 5

A great place to start your safari. Great assortment of animals in a beautiful setting.

Female avatar icon Diane United States flag US       Visited: June 2018 Reviewed: Jun 26, 2018

Email Diane  |  50-65 years of age  |  Experience level: first safari

5 / 5 5 /5
5 / 5 5 / 5 5 / 5 5 / 5

Baboons, hippos and leopards.

Male avatar icon Gordon Magee United States flag US       Visited: February 2018 Reviewed: Feb 27, 2018

Email Gordon Magee  |  65+ years of age  |  Experience level: first safari

5 / 5 5 /5
5 / 5 5 / 5 5 / 5 5 / 5

Excellent area with such a diverse ecology

Male avatar icon John C. United States flag US       Visited: December 2017 Reviewed: Feb 13, 2018

Email John C.  |  50-65 years of age  |  Experience level: first safari

5 / 5 5 /5
5 / 5 5 / 5 5 / 5 / 5

Not as good wildlife sighting as the other parks we saw but still very good. Many more monkeys and baboons than other places. We saw some elephants in the dense forest as well

Avatar icon Carolyn Widas Canada flag CA       Visited: October 2017 Reviewed: Nov 6, 2017

Email Carolyn Widas  |  Experience level: first safari

5 / 5 5 /5
5 / 5 5 / 5 5 / 5 4 / 5

Beautiful in all aspects including the history, the sunrise and the game.

Female avatar icon Pole pole United States flag US       Visited: September 2017 Reviewed: Oct 24, 2017

Email Pole pole  |  50-65 years of age  |  Experience level: first safari

5 / 5 5 /5
5 / 5 5 / 5 5 / 5 / 5

Lots of hippos and bands of baboons.

Female avatar icon Jan United Kingdom flag GB       Visited: January 2025 Reviewed: Mar 2, 2025

Email Jan  |  50-65 years of age  |  Experience level: first safari

5 / 5 5 /5
5 / 5 5 / 5 5 / 5 5 / 5

Beautiful ark, less busy than the others, very green with lots of trees

Male avatar icon Joel United States flag US       Visited: February 2025 Reviewed: Mar 1, 2025

Email Joel  |  20-35 years of age  |  Experience level: first safari

Heaven for elephants and baboons

5 / 5 5 /5
5 / 5 5 / 5 5 / 5 3 / 5
This place must be heaven for elephants, because we saw so many. They're so chill here and got incredibly close to our vehicle. I loved that it was a forested park, which was a nice change of scenery from the Serengeti. I also loved watching the huge troops of baboons - apparently this park has the highest concentration of baboons of any park in Africa. We also got lucky and saw 5 lions, including one up in a tree and one eating a baboon in a bush. Though I wouldn't count on this because our guide said many times he's been to Lake Manyara and not seen any lions.

Lake Manyara also gives you the opportunity to go on a walking safari. An armed park ranger took us on an hour and a half hike, which was an excellent experience getting to experience the bush on foot and learn about the plants and animal signs from the ranger. We got lucky and saw a mother and juvenile elephants drinking at a stream. Wow, what a thrill! It was actually pretty intense because the mother
Read more started walking in our direction and could have easily charged over the stream, but the park ranger handled it with aplomb and made some loud noises to turn the elephant around.

Lake Manyara was our last stop on our safari. To me I enjoyed it just as much as the heavy hitters like Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater. Better than Tarangire (though I saw Tarangire in February and it's probably better in the dry season when the wildlife is more concentrated).
Female avatar icon Ana Portugal flag PT       Visited: January 2025 Reviewed: Feb 8, 2025

Email Ana  |  35-50 years of age  |  Experience level: first safari

5 / 5 5 /5
5 / 5 5 / 5 5 / 5 5 / 5

Lake Manyara has such a beautiful vegatation with huge trees - even without the animals, the park itself, the lake and the vegetation would be worthy!
This was also the park with less cars and people, and I felt less stress within the animals.