Ritz-Carlton Masai Mara Safari Camp Opening August 2025

While details are limited as of now, it looks like a Ritz-Carlton safari camp will be opening later this year!

Ritz-Carlton’s first safari camp coming to Africa

In April 2023, we saw the opening of the JW Marriott Masai Mara, located in Kenya, which is probably Marriott’s most luxurious safari camp to date. If you search Masai Mara on Marriott’s website, you’ll now see another property listed as well — the Ritz-Carlton Masai Mara Safari Camp (this was flagged on FlyerTalk).

According to Marriott’s website, the camp will open in August 2025, though I wouldn’t count on that timeline sticking. Not only are reservations not yet available, but the hotel’s specific webpage isn’t even up. It looks like this will be the URL, but for now, it still returns an error.

The Masai Mara National Reserve is located near the border of Kenya and Tanzania. While the JW Marriott is squarely in Kenya, it looks like the Ritz-Carlton will be right near the border. I can’t quite tell whether it’ll be in Tanzania or Kenya. In August 2024, media in Tanzania reported that a Ritz-Carlton would be coming to Tanzania, so maybe it’s there?

Below are the photos that appear when you click the property on the main page. They’re super low resolution, but better than nothing, I suppose.

If I recall correctly, this property was rumored some time back, and I believe the developers are the same people behind the JW Marriott. Only time will tell how many keys this property has, whether it’ll be all-inclusive, etc. I’ll be sure to provide more details as they become available.

Let’s see how high quality this safari lodge is

Based on the Ritz-Carlton branding, you’d certainly expect this property to be even higher quality than the JW Marriott. Then again, the JW Marriott branding for the other property never made sense to me. JW Marriott is a brand known for its big convention hotels, so it’s not how you’d expect a 20-key safari lodge to be branded. You’d think that something like Luxury Collection would’ve made more sense.

I haven’t stayed at the JW Marriott Masai Mara, though based on what I’ve heard, it’s a great use of points, but it’s also a bit of a “points farm,” as I like to call them. That’s to say that the cash rates being charged just don’t reflect the quality of the experience.

If you can redeem points for an all-inclusive safari at a decent rate, that’s awesome, and an experience worth pursuing, as safaris are incredible experiences. But if you’re going to be paying the going rates of $3,000+ per night all-in, there are almost certainly better value options out there.

The truth is that the major hotel groups just don’t do safari lodges that well. Heck, I’ve heard that even the Four Seasons Serengeti isn’t that great. Ultimately if you’re just looking for the best experience, you can’t beat one of the specialized companies that exclusively operate safari camps, like Singita.

Bottom line

While details are extremely limited as of now, a Ritz-Carlton safari camp is expected to open in Masai Mara, not too far from the existing JW Marriott. It’s great to see more points safari options, and at least based on the branding, this one should be even nicer. I’ll be sure to report back when we learn more…

What are you expecting from the upcoming Ritz-Carlton Masai Mara Safari Camp?