Introduction My wife and I spent 4 nights at Silvan Safari in the Sabi Sands Game Reserve with both of our mothers. This was our first time to visit Silvan, but our second time in the Sabi Sands and our stay certainly did not disappoint. It was a pleasure to introduce our moms to the safari experience at Silvan. The humble and gracious staff combined with the spacious, tastefully decorated accommodations, high quality dining, and incredible wildlife sightings we experienced made this an unforgettable stay for the 4 of us. Check in/Arrival We arrived at the Arathusa airstrip via a shared charter flight from JNB on Federal Airlines and were greeted by our guide Elias and our tracker Caswell. We could tell right away that we would have great camaraderie with these two and genuinely enjoyed our time with them. We completed some brief paperwork in the lobby and then got a quick walk around of the main area of the lodge. The view from the Silvan deck and pool is completely unobstructed and offered the viewing of plenty of animal sightings over our 4 nights spent there.A unique welcome to the lodge took place when we were informed that a leopard (Tiyani) had given birth to two cubs just days before we arrived and she had been keeping them underneath the deck. She herself had been born around the Silvan lodge area as well. So as to not disturb them, we got a quick look at her and her cubs through an iPhone that had been placed just above the slats in the wood deck. The cubs were tiny next to her body. A very cool thing to experience truly upon arrival at the lodge. The section of the deck that she was under was blocked off for the rest of our stay, although she moved her cubs to a new location and we never actually laid eyes on her the whole time we were there. Her tracks were found on the pathway to our room and staff members mentioned seeing her in camp multiple times while we were out on our game drives. After this, the daily schedule was given to us, consisting of a 5:30am wake up, followed by 5:45am coffee and tea available in the main area of the lodge, and 6-6:10am departure for our game drive, breakfast upon returning around 9:30am, lunch between 12:30pm and 2:30pm, high tea at 3pm, followed by a 3:30pm departure for our afternoon game drive, dinner was around 7pm, depending on our exact return. We were accompanied by a total of 1 guest during our entire stay, so we had a private vehicle for the majority of our drives and we were the only Silvan car going out for drives. What a special experience! Room We were assigned room 2, which was known as the Cassia Suite. The suite was massive, with more than enough space for my wife and I to thoroughly relax and enjoy the space. The room is laid out with a handful of stairs leading up to a deck area with 2 sets of 2 lounge chairs, a plunge pool, and a spectacular view of a dried up riverbed. The suite’s main entrance is a sliding glass door (which we were encourage to leave locked due to baboons potentially being able to get in. Upon entering the suite, there is a living room area with a couch and coffee table. The hallway to the bathroom served as a closet area with plenty of space for storing our things. The bathroom was extremely large too, including a sitting tub, dual head shower setup that spanned the entire length of a wall, and dual vanities. The king sized bed had modern plugs at each bedside and was covered with a canopy just in case of any insects entering the room. I was very impressed and happy with the rooms at Silvan, couldn’t ask for much more. Service For this section, I will focus on our interaction with staff members that did not join us out on our game drives. Kedris was assigned as our butler upon arrival and she was excellent looking after us. Any request we made was humbly obliged and she always went above to look after us. We were grateful for her help and making our time at Silvan as relaxing as possible. She mainly served as our waitress during meals, but also assisted with other miscellaneous requests. Franky, X, Charity, Simi, among others whose names I may not have caught were also very helpful and always made sure we were looked after. The service was helpful, intuitive, and humble, there was nothing pretentious about Silvan and our style of traveling is laid back and easy going, they provided prompt service that matched this. One thing to note that made our stay particular special was that during our 4 nights, there was only 1 other guest at the lodge. She was there for 2 nights and then for the final 2 nights of our stay we had the entire lodge to ourselves. This was extremely special for us. Game Drives Having already been on safari once, we are well aware of the randomness and luck of the sightings during game drives, but during our 4 night stay, we were privy to excellent game viewing, including 4 different adult leopards and 6 different leopard cubs, 2 prides of lions, a jackal, wild dogs, countless elephants, rhino, impala, dyker, kudu, nyala, steenbok, water buck, zebra, wildebeest, warthog, white mongoose, giraffe, scrub hare, Cape buffalo, hyena, hippo, and countless bird species. You never know how the bush will behave and we certainly were lucky enough to have action packed drives on just about every time we went out. Our highlights were: spending time with a female leopard named Langa and her two cubs on multiple occasions (once in a thick drainage line where we got a brief look at one cub, once where she nursed both cubs in an open area, her cubs fed on the scraps of her kill, resulting in a dramatic cub on cub fight, and then once in the morning where she had a dyker kill stolen out of a tree by a larger male leopard, prompting the hyenas to appear and her cubs to sprint up different trees and hold on until the hyenas disappeared), the Tortoise Pan male leopard and a female leopard mating, the Tortoise Pan male leopard patrolling his territory and spending 45 minutes with him, a group of 3 female and 2 large male lions on the move at night getting ready to hunt, a group of 3 large male lions at night, with one concealed on top of a termite mound, a brief jackal sighting, as well as a sighting of an elephant herd from the main area of the lounge.Our game drives were not just about the animals though, Elias and Caswell were an excellent guide and tracker team. We noticed Elias’ passion for nature and animals immediately upon the start of the first game drive. We peppered him with questions and he always knew how to deliver information in a succinct and clear manner. What we really liked about his style was he made things very personal. It felt like we were making our way through the bush with a friend we had known for years. I love to ask questions about rare and unusual animals and he was game to provide information and suggestions on where these animals can be found. He found some civet tracks on the last day as we were getting ready to leave, and made sure to share them with me because he knew that was an animal I was interested in seeing. We thoroughly enjoyed having Elias as our guide and thought he stood out in his role because of his knowledge, passion, and friendliness. Caswell was always spotting animals that none of us could see and he did an excellent job of working with Elias to provide us the best animal viewing experience he could. The coffee breaks and sundowners on each drive were a fun part of these drives, as it allowed us to socialize with Elias and Caswell a bit while also enjoying the beautiful landscapes and sunsets. We felt immense gratitude each time we stopped the car and hopped off for a break. Dining The dining experience at Silvan was a strong one, with a lot of ability to customize how we wanted to experience it. Breakfasts were served on the deck upon returning to the lodge from the morning game drive. These included cold breakfast items such as croissants, granola, and fruit as well as a hot menu to order off of. I enjoyed the mushroom toast with poached eggs and Parmesan cheese and the eggs Benedict (I ordered 2 portions, 1 with bacon, 1 with smoked salmon). One morning they prepared a special breakfast in the bush for us at a clearing where they set up tables and chairs, as well as a cooking station. At this meal I ordered both the mushroom toast and the shakshukah served with poached eggs. This was a fun experience to dine out in nature. Breakfast was strong and we always enjoyed it after a long morning out on a drive.Between the morning and afternoon game drives, Silvan offered both lunch and high tea. I promise you will not go hungry here! We customized this part of our dining experience, some days having a proper lunch (the burger and fish and chips were standouts) in addition to high tea (carrot cake, chicken empanadas, Mac and cheese balls, arancini, and the green goddess salad were the standouts for this. There were 2 days where we chose to combine these two meals, resulting in “substantial high tea”, just allowing us more time to relax before our game drive, especially if we were already full from breakfast.Dinners were served in either the main dining room or at a large table near the bar area. I found dinner to be the weakest of the 3 meals, but nonetheless, every meal was at a minimum of solid. The soups were excellent, the goat cheese cheesecake was a really unique dish that we enjoyed, and the kingklip fish preparation with cauliflower and potatoes was strong too. Our favorite dinner was on our guide Elias’ birthday when we invited him to join us for our meal and they prepared a traditional South African braii. It felt like we were sitting down to dinner with an old friend, despite having just met him 3 days earlier. This was really a treat, as was the chocolate cake that was prepared for his birthday celebration as well. Location/Facilities Silvan is located in the Sabi Sands Game Reserve. They drive on a plot of land that borders Londolozi and Mala Mala at different points. The area they drive on is shared with: Arathusa, Elephant Plains, Simbambili, Cheetah Plains, Chitwa Chitwa, as well as possibly one other lodge. The game drives never felt crowded and you could tell the guides used communication with one another to coordinate high quality sightings for all guests. Elias and Caswell wore earpieces so that the guests couldn’t hear any radio chatter which I thought was a great addition to our drives.In terms of facilities the lodge has a swimming pool in the main area that was far too cool to use during our visit, a small spa with a few treatment rooms in which my wife and I had an excellent couples massage, and a very small gym with quite a bit of equipment packed inside, perfect for getting a great workout in. The boutique also has a lot of great items available for purchase. Overall My wife and I gave Silvan a strong consideration for our honeymoon but chose to visit Londolozi instead in 2022. When we decided to revisit South Africa, we knew we wanted to give Silvan a try and we are truly grateful we did. It was an awesome place to introduce our moms to safari and to spend 4 outstanding nights. I highly recommend Silvan for anyone interested in a high end safari experience in the Sabi Sands. I think Silvan is an excellent property and would strong recommend it for travelers who both have and have not visited the Sabi Sands. We are grateful we chose to stay here.