JW Marriott Masai Mara Lodge Opening in March/April 2023
UPDATE: Points pricing seemed to be “live” just for a moment where it’d only cost ~20k points/night which is tremendous value for points redemption! Reports also suggested that there’s an Extra Person Fee that are in thousands of dollars when booking for 3 guests.
I urge caution to those who were fast enough to book on points to make backup plans or have refundable flights before flying to Kenya.
A highly interesting luxury safari resort in Kenya will open by next month under the JW Marriott brand in Masai Mara, a famous wildlife reserve in the country. The hotel is now accepting reservation from April 1st, and the cash rates are pretty steep. Points reservations aren’t accepted yet as of this moment, but this post will be updated should they be available. Note that hotel opening dates tend to not be on the mark, but they tend to be good estimates. Date can change at any time.
JW Marriott Masai Mara Lodge Details
The JW Marriott Masai Mara Lodge will be the first luxury safari resort in the brand. There will be 20 tent suites in total with private decks overlooking the nature. It will be an all-inclusive experience with food, drinks, and activities included. There will be a communal area with lounge bar, spa, gym, pool, photo studio, garden, and an outdoor cultural deck with a fire pit. Airport shuttle service is available for $250 (assuming one-way).
Here are some renderings of the property (all photos credit of Marriott):
JW Marriott Masai Mara Lodge Pricing & Marriott Bonvoy Points Requirements
The price point are very expensive in the $1400+ range per night. Prices will be affected by seasons and I even see it go up towards $2400 a night! Why is it that expensive? I recommend watching the video below by Wendover Productions to get more insights on African safaris. I won’t go into the morals of it as there are too many nuances, but it’s an interesting video regardless that I think people should watch before deciding to go to one of these luxurious safari experience.
Points wise, I’d predict that it’d cost 120k points max per night to book this safari experience since the cash price are in line with other popular resorts within the Marriott Bonvoy program like most of the hotels in Maldives and the Al Maha Desert Resort in Dubai. Indeed, it’d be an excellent value for your Marriott Bonvoy points redemption.
Since there are only 20 tents available in the whole property, standard room redemption would be competitive. It’s yet to be seen how competitive it’d be since getting to this safari resort seems to be more difficult logistically than the Al Maha, possibly a fair comparison, property wise. Even then, it’s not too difficult to find award space for Al Maha, so maybe we can expect the same for the JW Marriott Masai Mara Lodge.
Conclusion
The JW Marriott Masai Mara Lodge will open very soon, but it won’t be accessible for everyone with the ludicrous price point, and possibly the logistics of going there. Even though I think the property looks very beautiful, I’m not sure when or if I’d go. A safari sounds cool and it would definitely bring an extraordinary experience, but it’s not on my priority at the moment. Maybe I can save this type of experience when I’m much older?
Hi there, for those of us who made points reservations, it’s not really cool to have a published article calling the rates “insane” – ie, giving Marriott a reason to cancel them. Lots of hotels run promos when they first open, and this wasn’t a matter of a decimal error like the $3 Times Square AC the other year. Please reconsider your characterization!
Hi,
I have serious doubts that my post will give Marriott/property GM a reason to cancel your reservation since they already have lots of reasons to do so. Award spaces are gone just few hours after they went live. I really hope your reservation will be honored, but please have some backups planned. Many who have reserved are tempering their expectations with this anomaly.
I appreciate your response. Unfortunately, I won’t be visiting your blog going forward because it uses language that companies can cite to avoid giving loyal, points-driven customers the awards they have earned. If I’m the future your focus is more pro-consumer and not pro-corporate, I’ll be happy to return.
I appreciate your feedback. My intent is to give a balanced perspective of this whole situation. I am PRO everyone who were able to book on points get their reservations honored, but caution is warranted in this very unusual situation when making plans to fly to Kenya. It would suck to fly all the way there and not have backup plans should Marriott decide to not honor it. What I don’t like Marriott is doing is being silent on this situation and making us wonder if they’d cancel some time in the future or not rather than just doing it now before people make plans to fly.
Regarding to the language, I see your point now and have revised it, and hopefully it’s an improvement from before. English is my second language so I have lots to learn about tones and I will be more careful from now on. Thank you for reading and I hope you stick around!