Rann Riders Safari Resorts

What People are saying

Lovely cottages, great food, great safaris!

SESNoVA on 20/11/2017 23:46

If you want to see the Little Rann of Kutchh -- whether to see the birds, the wild equines, and other wildlife, or to explore some of the local villages and their textile crafts -- staying at this lodge is a great choice. Individual extremely comfortable cottages are perfectly decorated with regional artwork. Twice daily safaris to see the wildlife, or the local villages are well run, with great naturalist guides. Wonderful Indian food is on offer for lunch and dinner, and light breakfasts as well (and who wants more that early in the morning?).

Wilderness retreat

patrick_cgw on 16/11/2017 06:48

If you are near Ahmedabad, or especially Patan, and perhaps visiting the wildlife sanctuary of the Little Rain of Kutch, this is an excellent place to stay. The cabins (lodges) are comfortable and very well decorated and the food exceptional. Hot water was a bit intermittent. The whole area is wild and fairly empty but a good guide will find lots of wildlife and village interest for you to see. A firm recommendation if here

Week end in RqnnRiders. Gujarat

calinett9 on 12/11/2017 14:54

We spent a week end in RannRiders in family with our ·3 daughters. a very good time and a very good experience when you want to go out of the city and come back to more natural environment. Friendly dogs and cats. Horses and gooses. Really nice bedroom and huge bathroom. Good food and all the staff really nice and taking care of their hosts. Just one regret: we could not use the pool as it was not so clean.However, the Spa is under construction and shall coñe realy son. Then, all together a great experience we will for sure do again.

Lovely place to relax and enjoy the countryside

Steve G on 09/11/2017 13:20

We spent 2 nights here and went on the wildlife and village safari trips. We enjoyed both very much, the guide was very knowledgeable about the many birds.

The resort staff were very friendly and helpful.

The deluxe cottage included a rather splendid ouside shower as well as an inside one. The village people were charming but its is rural India so beware of the cows.

Well Organised Safari Lodge with Expertise in Bird Spotting and Riding

Lokamitra on 29/10/2017 11:36

In Brief:

Good -
Rooms - simple but comfortable. Very nice bathrooms. NO TV Hurray!
Ambiance - Very green campus with green shade, lily ponds, dogs, cats, and geese.
Expertise - Knowledgeable and competent guides and horsemen.
Facilities - Nice small swimming pool. Amazing horses, good jeeps.
Wifi - Free
Value - good if you are using the safari and other facilities included in the price.
Service - Very good staff. Friendly, knowledgeable and courteous.

Bad -
Rooms - A/C inadequate power. No Ceiling fan that would help. Outside bathroom not clean.
Accessibility - Poor. Only one entrance ramp but rooms and other areas could easily and cheaply adapted.
Food - Heavy oily and salty food. No healthy options. Tinned jams and tinned juices
Value - if you are using the rooms for accommodation only then they are pricey.
Equipment - The binoculars we were given to use were in very poor condition.

WARNING: If you are traveling with people who need constant entertainment and TV.
There are no TVs on the property. Yes, NO TV! Get over it. This is the ideal place to get know yourself, others and nature and so on without the "idiot box" entertainment.

We booked on the fly while driving back from West Kutch and on our way home further East. The management was very helpful by being flexible for our special accommodations. As we travel with a helper for my wife who is a wheelchair user we need certain facilities for bathing and sleeping which are above the normal needs of guests.

Our first impression was good. The place is easy to find on GoogleMaps but for those going by the traditional method, they might miss the gate which has no signboard. As we entered I was filled with positive expectations. You could see immediately see that the place has been well maintained and well planned.

Check-in
The reception area is two small buildings facing each area with a small lily pond in a small paved courtyard. The check-in was easy and quick and we went to look at the rooms which are all detached huts. Each room has its own covered veranda and some of them have a private outside shower additional to the standard inside the shower. My son preferred the square-shaped room with two swing seats outside on the veranda.

Rooms
The rooms are airy and cool compared to outside but in the late afternoon, the AC was struggling to keep it at a reasonable 25 deg.C. Strangely they haven't gone for ceiling fans which would have been quite adequate. Instead, they have a stand fan that is too low and only cools the person next to it. Having said that, in this season, it was not too bad. We felt cool at night and slept well. The beds are quite basic but clean and comfortable enough.

There is no sitting room but the rooms themselves are big enough to be comfortable. There is a good area for luggage and changing in a space between the room and the shower(s).

We asked for a plastic armchair for the bathroom as my wife cannot stand at all and this is the only way she can use the shower. They didn't have such a chair but managed to find a heavy metal chair which had arms. Not ideal but it was helpful in the absence of any seating arrangement in the shower.

Restaurant
Very, very nice ambiance. A large open-sided building with large alcoves of seating and a tabled area. Very simple food is served. What is missing is the local touch and healthier options. Kutchis type jewara (millet) rotis, gore (raw sugar), fresh juice, fresh jams would be an improvement. The fruit served was very basic papaya, pineapple, and watermelon. The salad was a little quirky. Whole tomatoes, peeled onions, large chunks of peeled carrot etc. Next to the serving bowl was a knife. So you could select your salad and cut it yourself. It is a good idea to reduce wastage and prevent drying out during the meal period. Other more local seasonal fruits would be a good idea to create a more eco-aware and immersive experience.

Gardens and Pathways
These are well cared for. Basic trees and flowering plants well selected for giving lots of shade and colour. The pathways are a mixture of unpaved dust and paved. The paved paths are even enough but there are annoying and unnecessary small level change steps which could easily have been avoided.

Safari
In the evening we used our own Scorpio which has 4WD for the comfort of my wife who needs to be securely held by a seatbelt and propped up with cushions. However, they have many very good Mahindra Thar "jeeps" which have good seating arrangements. The guide who came with us was very knowledgeable and helpful. We enjoyed going into the Little Rann of Kutch and saw many Equus hemionus khur
(I was using the common name which is "Wild A s s" - remove the spaces and chuckle. Tripadvisors ignorant AI doesn't know the difference between the human kind of wild western lasses and the animal bread which is a species of donkey/horse. Also, we saw Merlins very close up.

In the morning we went to a lake area where we saw a lot of ducks and some wading birds. We also saw Sarus Cranes. This was not such a great "wild" experience because the whole area was full of encroachment by farmers who were busy extracting the water with noisy motorised water pumps.

I was disappointed with the binoculars lent to us. They were in very bad condition and one of them was so bad it was effectively monocular! I think they could easily get these serviced at a good camera repair shop in Ahmedabad.

Horse Riding
Wow! What can I say? Although our experience was not what we wanted or asked for, a trek into the countryside, the horses themselves were in very, very good condition. They had shiny coats and were full of good spirits and amiable. So we had to just enjoy the horses in the small paddock which is about 60m x 30m but we enjoyed the horse's attitude and spirit. They are very well behaved and have excellent posture, step, and pace. The tack (saddles, reins, and stirrups) were in fine condition, comfortable and of adequate quality. The helmets we were provided were good quality, clean and good condition.

Cats, Dogs, and Geese
They have several dogs notably a very sleepy Rottweiler, something that looked like an Afghan and a beagle. They were all in fine condition and well behaved. They also have five Persian cats. These too were well fed and typically lazy. Very amiable and enjoyable. The little group of six geese were amiably wobbling about making typical honking sounds.

Tribals and their Crafts
Some local tribal girls came to sell their handmade beaded bangles and other trinkets.
This is more geared towards the tourists but it was nice to see them and they weren't too pushy. The items are overpriced for what they are but with a bit of bargaining, they can be sold for only double what you would buy them from in the city markets. We were ready to buy some nice bead-work bangles because the money was obviously going directly to their families.

Tribal dance performance can be arranged in advance. We didn't see this but I expect it will be fairly "genuine" compared to some more touristic places.

The whole feel of the place is amiable (I have used this word too often but it is the right word). I would like to see the place more accessible for the disabled but that is a personal preference. It would be very simple to make everything accessible as it is all on ground level.