Staying with the Lions at Big Cat Bungalow at The Haven of the Wild

 

My husband knows I am fascinated by wildlife, so for my birthday this year, he took me to the Big Cat Bungalows at the Haven of the Wild.

 

The Big Cat Bungalows are at the Haven Resort. You have your choice of a lion bungalow or a tiger bungalow. At the time of this post there are four of each type of bungalow. If you choose the lion bungalow, you will only have access to view the lions ( not tigers). If you book a tiger bungalow, you will only have access to view the tigers, (not lions). The lions and tigers obviously do not interact with each other.  You can of course split your stay and do a night or 2 in each room type.

I'll share a secret at the end on how you can see both lions and tigers during your stay.

We had booked a stay in the lion bungalow.   Each bungalow has a patio, patio chairs, and fire pit. We did not utilize this space because we were more entertained with the lions we saw from the back windows!

                                                         Come on in to our lion bungalow!

This was our first view of the inside of the bungalow and our eyes immediately went to the large windows to see if we could see the lions. At first glance we were a bit disappointed because we didn't see any animals in the yard. But then.....

Instead of lookin out into the yard, we looked down under the window and saw this! It actually startled us at first!

 

This is Amara and she is one of the four lions we had the pleasure of "staying with".

                                                              Now back to our room tour.

The room holds up to four adults. There is a king size bed and then a pull out futon. 

There is a kitchenette.  It has a small fridge with small freezer box. If you are going to bring food with you that needs refrigerated, I would suggested packing it in Square containers, not bowls. Flat or square containers would fit better.  The kitchenette also has dishes, plates, bowls, wine glasses, coffee cups, and silverware.  We had a Keurig coffee maker, a cutting board and can opener.  There is also dish soap and towels to wash your dishes. It is all outfitted so you can prepare meals in your room. 

We brought take out food with us for dinner later that evening, and then we even brought stuff with us for breakfast. We didn't want to have to leave the room for any extended period of time. 

The fire place was a nice touch.  We had it on just for the ambiance ( even though we had the air conditioner on in the room). I suppose it is a functioning fire place as well. 

We had a pretty large bathroom. 

Check this out, there is even a window in the shower so you don't miss any of the action outside. 

Okay, now let's get back to all the lions outside.

The room has 3 large floor to ceiling windows so you are able to view the lions wherever they are in the yard. Sometime they will lay up against a wall near another bungalow, so in that case they may be difficult to see. They do move around a lot though, so chances are, they will be laying in front of your bungalow at some point too!

Let's meet the pride!

This is Apollo. He is a white lion and the only male lion in the pride. He liked to play, but also seemed very gentle.

Apollo is only 2 years old.

He spent a lot of time in front of our window! 

My favorite of the group was Amara. Amara is also a white African lion. She is the white female in the group.

 She is pretty large compared to the other females here, but surprisingly she is the youngest. She was the first lion we saw when we first arrived.

                                                          She really enjoyed playing on this log! 

I think she is best buddies with Apollo. She spent a lot of time playing with him and laying near him.

These two lions were also buddies and stuck together most of the time.  There names were Anika and Nia. I could not tell which one was which.  

In our bungalow there was an informational packet with a paper that had each of their photos and had a little bio about each lion. 

The bio was more about their personalities. I wanted to know more things about their actual age, where they came from and how the resort acquired them. 

This is a fairly new resort and there is still construction going on. There are more buildings being built so hopefully there will be a visitors center where guests can learn more about the lions and tigers that are living here at the resort.

In the informational packet in our bungalow it stated that "quiet hours" where from 11pm to 7 am. I wasn't quite sure what that meant. Did that mean we had to be quiet in our rooms so we didn't disturb the lions? Did it mean that we couldn't be out on our patio past that time? 

Between 9 pm and 10 pm, the outside lights came on and I thought maybe the lions were going to stay out there all night.  I got ready for bed and enjoyed the view. 

Later that night I noticed that the lions started to hang out more on the right hand side of the property near this wall. One of the lions started pacing back and forth and even jumping up on that gate. I had made the comment that their seems to be something she wants back there.

Turns out that at 11:00pm on the dot, a small door ( like a doggie door) opened up and one by one each of the lions took their turn going into a den.  It was then that I realized that the lions would be in their own den ( out of sight from the guests) until 7 am the next morning. That must be what quiet hours meant, no lions!  I have to say, I was sort of relieved that the lions went into their den at night  cus had they been in the yard all night, I probably wouldn't have got much sleep. I would have been wanting to be watching them! 

At 7 am on the dot, the lions came out of the same "doggie door" and greeted us to a good morning! 

They were all really active, running and playing with each other first thing in the morning, and then they rested for a while.

 This reminded me of Simba and Nala playing! 

Now here is my tip for seeing tigers. Just be friendly to all the other guests!  When we first got to the resort we met a couple in the court yard that were in a tiger room but they want to see the lions. They invited us in their room to see the tigers and we invited them in our room to see the lions.  

Unfortunately at that time neither the tigers nor the lions were being active so neither of us got a good view of anything happening.

However, the next day a lady in a tiger room invited us in to see the tigers and they were both very active!

There were two tigers here. This orange and black Bangle tiger is named Kane.

This white Siberian Tiger is named Raja! Aren't they beautiful? They were both very active at this time.  I was so thankful this lady invited us in to see them. We asked her if she wanted to come see the lions, but she said she had already seen them. 

In addition to the four lion bungalows and the four tiger bungalows, several yurts have also been built on the property. 

There are about a dozen of these being built and in the future they will overlook a Savanah that has zebras, Giraffes, and other wildlife. I was really hoping this part of the property would have been completed by the time of our stay, but I guess that gives us an excuse to go back. 

The property is also building a wedding venue, and concert and event spaces.  A few miles down the road is a wild animal park and a drive through safari.

We really enjoyed our time here at the Big Cat Bungalows at the Haven of the Wild. Watching these majestic animals made me "almost" want to get a house cat!  I don't know how Sybie and Willow would feel about that!