Review - Makanyi Safari Resort
(This resort has now shut)
A common question I ask on this website, is this:
With Second Life already offering so many free experiences, including travel related sims, how can you get people to spend 2000L+ on a virtual hotel or resort room?
Some places clearly manage, just one example, the Ibiza Adult Nightlife Resort is sold out many on weekends. But the key is being able to offer people something different, that they will pay for.
This was a question on my mind as I reviewed the Makanyi Safari Resort, the latest property from Lifestyle Inc.
The first thing to say is that operating a safari themed resort is challenging. You are up against free places like the latest project from 80 Days (Jambo 2.0).
And you are competing against the well established Kidaka Resort (see my ten favourite SL hotels for July 2021), where prices range from 100-300L a night, and where I have been staying recently.
So how did the Makanyi Safari Resort stack up?
I went to find out, staying for three nights with the lovely Livvy (follow her on Flickr here).
Overall look and feel
The resort consists of a main reception building looking onto a swimming pool, a restaurant and an activity area including 'sip and paint.'
After that there's the main area with the lodges and group villas, and various activities and features such as the hang gliding rock and spa. In among all that you'll find an assortment of animals (lion, tigers, elephants etc).
I personally liked the reception and pool a lot, but some of it felt slightly cramped due to the need to fit in all the lodges and villas among the different animals.
By contrast, the Kidaka Resort has a large plain for the animals to roam in, while the resort accommodation is more hidden.
However, the Mankanyi is newer and so looks more modern and polished. Also, as has been pointed out to me, the animals are less static then at the Kidaka.
Overall - 4/ 5
The rooms
We stayed in a Kambaku Lodge, at 2500 a night. The Lodge had a small private pool with a sitting area, a living room, a bedroom and a bathroom (A PG bath, Loft & Aria).
Overall, it was quite nicely designed and the animations worked well (see later section). I also liked the range of African artwork on the walls.
The resort also has group villas at 6000 a night, and a cheaper treehouse at 1750.
Overall - 4 / 5
Features and facilities
We didn't book any RP activities ourselves, but among other things the resort offers a hot air balloon ride ("Air Africa"), yoga classes, sip and paint and a spa.
Some of these do cost extra. I took a look inside the spa (which they seem to alarm to avoid guests using for free), and it looked pretty good.
Overall, the range of facilities is comparable to other closed resorts I have seen. As mentioned, I did very much like the design of the pool.
Overall - 3.5 / 5
The animations
These were really good, especially on the Mayfair Adult Bed, which was in our lodge. The animations, especially the cuddle and 'build up' anims were excellent.
Otherwise I spotted the usual assortment of Loft & Aria furniture (which you'll find in many resorts), which have decent anims.
Overall - 4.5 / 5
Other considerations
Is the resort adult? Moderate, but there are adult anims in the lodges
Privacy? This is a restricted sim, only guests and staff have access. I liked the fact that the resort didn't block off the other lodges with ban lines, but simply asked us to respect other guests' privacy.
Prices. Start at 1750L a night
Lag. A little. When taking photos, I ran graphics on very high on a 2019 macbook pro and managed around 8 frames a second.
Overall
The design of our lodge was nice, and some of the anims are great.
But, staying here was 10x as much as I have been paying at the Kidaka Resort.
Makanyi offers greater privacy (Kidaka has a lot of day trippers coming through), and the resort pool is a definite plus. As I’ve mentioned, the buildings are also better designed (especially the interiors), and it’s much newer - this shows.
However, Kidaka offers the better experience in terms of recreating a feeling of space. As a result, it really depends what kind of safari themed experience you are going for.