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Originally we were going to Minneriya National Park,but was told it was closed? When we first got in the jeep and started off it felt like everyone was in a race, jostling for a spot to see the elephants. At our first sighting of elephants there ended up being sooo many jeeps it was just ridiculous and really spoiled the whole experience. However after this first sighting the jeeps seemed to spread out and our next few sightings were much more enjoyable with only a couple of other jeeps or no one else. We ended up seeing lots of elephants and it was very enjoyable watching them in their natural environment.…
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Date of experience: March 2020
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SevenoaksSinjun wrote a review Apr. 2020
Sevenoaks, United Kingdom1,531 contributions550 helpful votes
This is a great national park with lots of wildlife. You'll tour the park in traditional open sided safari vehicles on dirt tracks, through scrub, open plains and water holes (watch out for spiky branches on the narrow tracks). There are a lot of elephants here so you're guaranteed to see them, and quite up close at times. There are a lot a lot of exotic birds too, which your guide will almost certainly spot and point out for you. You may also see other creature, such as land monitors, water buffalo and wild boar. It feels a lot like an African game drive without the predators. Near the end of the drive, there's a lookout platform at the top of a small hill that you can walk up to if you wish. Altogether absolutely great fun. When we visited at the start of March, it was relatively quiet in the park, but this may have been due to the impending pandemic.…
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Date of experience: March 2020
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+1
What at first resembled an LA freeway at knock off time and after hanging on for grim life & being bounced from pillar to post , it became worth while ! You need to remember to duck as the open topped & sided Jeeps go thru the scrub & under trees & low branches ad nauseam !!! After what seemed forever on dusty & hot tracks we sighted our first pachyderm and the flood gates opened. We watched single males & mothers & calves & family groups wander & feed in the wild. Very exciting and in some cases came nearly nose to trunk with each other ! I actually felt sorry for the Elephants at some stages as a sighting ended with up to 10 jeeps surrounding the prey ! Got to see many birds, peacocks & water buffaloes and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. The bruises on my backside proof of a rough ride but worth it !!…
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Date of experience: March 2020
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+1
Took a Jeep safari here and was not disappointed, came in the afternoon and saw lots of wildlife. Really recommend this park
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Date of experience: March 2020
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+1
We wanted to visit Minneriya National Park to watch the wild elephant. Our guide/ driver told us that Minneriya National Park was flooded due to heavy rain. We then followed his recommendation to have our safari trip at Eco Park. Actually, we had a wonderful time at this park and managed to see quite a number of wild elephants in small herd including the elephant calves. There is a huge rock in the park where we climbed up (and can be done easily) to enjoy the greenery in the park where we could see some elephants from far too. We also saw a peacock and water buffaloes. Be prepared to get dusty due to the driving on the dirt road. There was a jeep which encroached to the young elephants that aggravated the mother elephant which turned aggressive as protective instinct for her loved ones. The respective jeep driver and guide were screaming and shouting trying to chase the mother elephant away which worsen the situation. Eventually, the particular jeep and tourist managed to escape from the mother elephant’s aggression, but the jeep was damaged by the elephant trunk and luckily there was no casualties in this incident. This gave a discounted experience as the elephants were kind of intruded which caused the ruckus. Additionally, there were conflicting information shared in TripAdvisor in term of the pricing for the entrance fee and jeep service. Hence, we are now confused if we had overpaid the service with LKR12,000 for 2 of us including jeep and entrance fee. Secondly, there was one sharing that the flood at the Minneriya National Park was a scam to bring tourists here instead. But there is no way to verify these information in the website and whatsoever. Our conclusion is that since we indeed had a good time, the rating should be 4-star minus the 1-star due to the confusing/ unclear pricing and information about the scam to detour the tourist from Minneriya National Park. Hopefully, the management should step in to clarify the confusion for all. …
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Date of experience: February 2020
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