Jungle Camp Guests Report Meagre Catering And Unusual Tasting Trials

A remote jungle resort marketing itself on its all-inclusive package and its celebrity clientele is facing a wave of poor reviews, after a party of guests reported that catering across their stay amounted to little more than rice and beans, served in rationed quantities and supplemented chiefly by an optional dining experience most of them would not recommend.

The property, which is accessible only by a lengthy transfer and offers no road out once a guest has checked in, places its visitors in an open-air clearing with basic timber sleeping platforms and no walls. Guests are issued a small allowance of dried staples and a communal cooking pot, and are expected to prepare their own meals over a fire.

Management describes the arrangement as an immersive wilderness retreat. Several guests have described it as being persistently hungry in an attractive setting.

The headline grievance is the food. Multiple reviewers report that the standard daily provision is a fixed measure of rice and a fixed measure of beans, with no upgrade available through ordinary means. Additional ingredients, guests were told, could only be earned, and only by volunteering for the resort's signature tasting menu.

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A Guest Reviews The Stay

Posted to a travel forum under "Honest All-Inclusive Review — Would Not Return"

I am a frequent traveller and I like to leave a fair, balanced review, so I will start with the positives. The location is genuinely beautiful. The wildlife is abundant. You are very close to nature. You are, in fact, sleeping in it.

I booked the all-inclusive package because I did not want to think about food on holiday. I want to be honest that this expectation was not met.

The "all-inclusive" element, as far as I could establish, is rice and beans. That is the inclusive part. You receive a portion, you cook it yourself over a fire you also maintain yourself, and then you are hungry again in a way that structures the rest of your day. I lost a notable amount of weight over the stay, which the resort seemed to regard as a feature.

To obtain anything beyond rice and beans, a guest is invited to take part in the tasting menu. I want to be balanced here, so I will note that the tasting menu does deliver additional food to the camp. I will also note that it was the worst dining experience of my life.

The tasting menu is not a menu in the sense a normal traveller would understand. You are taken to a separate area, placed in an enclosed space, and presented with items that I would not describe as food and that the resort describes as courses. I was asked to eat several things that were, in my assessment, still in possession of their own opinions on the matter. I completed some courses. I declined others. The quantity of beans the camp received that evening was calculated against my performance, which I felt placed an unusual amount of social pressure on a dinner.

I also want to flag the accommodation. There are no walls. There is weather. At night there are noises, and the noises have legs.

Two stars, and one of those is for the scenery.

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Hospitality Assessment

DT

From a loss-adjusting standpoint this is a fascinating package, because the resort has effectively transferred the entire catering risk onto the guest. The base provision — a measured ration of rice and beans — is the only guaranteed deliverable. Everything above subsistence is contingent on the guest voluntarily entering a controlled enclosure and ingesting items of, let us say, uncertain provenance. I have assessed many catering shortfalls. This is the first one where the guests were asked to underwrite the menu with their own gag reflex.

DP

What stands out to me is how quickly the guests normalise the arrangement. By the second or third day the language shifts. They stop describing the tasting menu as something being done to them and start describing it as a job they are doing for the group — securing the beans, providing for the camp. That reframing is precisely how you persuade reasonable people to repeatedly volunteer for an unpleasant experience: you make declining feel like letting everyone down. The resort has not improved the catering. It has improved the guilt.

T

I have stayed at a lot of places. I have never been to one where the path to a hot meal runs through a sealed box of insects, and I have been to some places. The thing that gets me is the enthusiasm. They send the same guests back. The guests go. Everybody at home, I am told, watches them go and finds it tremendously enjoyable. I do not have a follow-up. That is simply the situation.

The resort maintains that guest hunger levels are within expected parameters and that the tasting menu remains entirely optional, in the sense that a guest may always choose rice and beans instead.

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Visitor Forum

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Community Poll

Community Poll

Latest reader breakdown

Would you book this all-inclusive resort?

Yes, the location is stunning8%

No, the catering alone rules it out61%

Only if exempt from the tasting menu31%