Maasai Mara National Reserve with Kids

Maasai Mara National Reserve is one of the most famous game parks in Kenya, and perhaps all of Africa. Sharing a border with the Serengeti National Park, Maasai Mara is renowned for its incredible amount and diversity of African wildlife. When we planned our family trip to Kenya, we just knew we had to visit Maasai Mara with kids.

The most famous natural phenomenon in all of Africa is the annual wildebeest migration. We visited Maasai Mara with kids in early August, when the wildebeest migration was in full swing. Sharing this incredible African animal migration with our kids is something we’ll never forget.

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2 Days in Maasai Mara with Kids

Here’s how we spent our two days in Maasai Mara with kids:

Day 1 in Maasai Mara National Reserve

Safari Game Drive #1

Prior to visiting Maasai Mara, we had spent two amazing days at the Maji Moto Cultural Camp. We arrived at the national reserve too early to check into our camp, so our driver took us on an unscheduled morning game drive.

Maasai Mara National Reserve reserve is world-renowned for its abundant African wildlife, and it was in full display during our morning family game drive.

We began our Maasai Mara game drive with a bang, with a herd of impalas, and then a few funny warthogs crossing the road made us laugh.

Then we saw our first herd of wildebeest – it was massive. We had heard about the incredible number of wildebeest in Maasai Mara, and they were on full display almost immediately.

Our family game drive in Maasai Mara continued with a topi sighting (our first topi sighting in our family trip to Kenya so far). We also saw some water buffalo, warthogs, a couple of silver-backed jackals (we love these charismatic animals) and yet another massive herd of wildebeest.

We then had our first big ticket animal sighting of the day, some Maasai giraffes. We love giraffes and will always stop to watch these majestic creatures.

We then saw some interesting African birds. First was the incredibly beautiful lilac-breasted roller, the national bird of Kenya. We’ve seen this colorful bird in Africa before and it never fails to take our breath away. Significantly less beautiful, but just as interesting, was the Southern ground hornbill.

As we were admiring the beautiful African Savannah landscape, we came across an elephant and a male lion, just 20 feet from each other – amazing! The elephant stayed and slowly wandered around, but the lion quickly hid behind a shrub and out of sight. It was a quick sighting, but what a thrill!

Other highlights of our morning game drive at Maasai Mara with kids included a hyena, a big herd of elephants, a baby impala (just days old) and a line of nine giraffes walking in the distance (including another baby!)

Maasai Mara National Reserve Game Drive #2

After lunch and some downtime at our bush camp, we set out for our second family game drive of the day at Maasai Mara game reserve.

It started out amazing, with an up-close encounter with 10 Maasai giraffes, including several that were less than 4 months old. One giraffe was so young, it still had its umbilical cord attached.

As we drove through the beautiful African savannah we saw several hooved animals including elans, zebras and impalas. An ostrich was a fun sighting, as were two more Southern ground hornbill birds and some warthogs.

We stopped for a while to watch a herd of zebras mingle around 3 giraffes. When you are lucky enough to see several African animals at once, it feels like a scene straight out of a postcard!

As a storm threatened overhead, we were thrilled to spot a hyena. We then stopped to watch a flock of vultures in a nearby treetop.

Maasai Mara is famous for the wildebeest river crossing on the Mara River during the annual migration. Given we were in Maasai Mara during the migration, we asked our driver to take us there.

Seeing the natural spectacle of seeing the wildebeest cross the Mara River takes a bit of luck, and sadly it was not entirely on our side today. We saw the spot where the wildebeest cross the river, but there were none to be seen at the moment.

That was a bit disappointing, but the animals that were there helped make up for it. There was a bloat of 30 hippos in the river, including two that were fully on land (a rare sight!). We were there a long time and got to see three of them open their mouths in a big yawn. Our son wanted to see a hippo mouth so badly, so he was thrilled!

There were plenty of massive Marabou storks flying up and down the Mara River. They were feasting on the carcasses of the buffalo and wildebeest who unsuccessfully tried to cross the river. A very African scene indeed!

We were lucky enough to be visiting Maasai Mara in early August, and the famous wildebeest migration was in full swing. We were incredibly lucky that a truly massive wildebeest herd was just downwind of our launching point.

To see tens of thousands of wildebeest across the savannah in the golden morning light was a sight I’ll never forget. Like a school of fish, there was a fluidity to their movements, and it was mesmerizing to watch. Unlike a safari truck, there are no brakes on a balloon, so we had to soak it all in as we slowly floated overhead.

Speaking of incredibly lucky, our very next African animal sighting on our hot air balloon ride was lions! Our balloon floated over four lionesses who were actively eating a kill. Wow.. I was literally dumbfounded… speechless… I just couldn’t believe our luck! It was fun to see some vultures sitting patiently nearby waiting for their turn at the carcass.

The highlights just kept coming. First we saw a topi running across the plains, but then we saw a hyena doing the same, which was very exciting!

Then we saw some hippos floating in a river, with their trademark noses sticking out of the water. This was followed by yet another massive wildebeest herd – this one every bit as awe inspiring as the first.

The next highlight was watching a pack of three hyenas lurking around the edges of the wildebeest herd. Then another two hyenas, followed by a solitary hyena. The wildebeest migration really brings out the predators!!

Our family hot air balloon ride over Maasai Mara ended with sightings of another couple of hippos, a water buffalo herd, zebras, warthogs and a topi herd.

Through the course of our Maasai Mara hot air balloon ride with kids, we got a real appreciation for the raw nature of Kenya and the full circle of life. We also got to appreciate the magnitude of this land and how vast it is. We certainly appreciated the excellent work that our driver has done on all our family Kenya game drives.

We met many people on our family vacation to Kenya who didn’t book the Maasai Mara hot air balloon ride due to the cost. And I get it, it’s pretty expensive, but to me it was worth every penny and more.

Note: The basket for our hot air balloon was separated into four compartments, each holding four people, so our family got our own private corner of the hot air balloon. The basket was tall enough to come to my chest level, but the kids could see over as there was a bench inside the basket they could stand on. This was a very kid-friendly hot air balloon ride set-up.

Hot Air Balloon Ride Champagne Breakfast

The hot air balloon ride over Maasai Mara was just the first half of the fun. After we landed, we got back in our transfer truck and he drove us to our outdoor champagne breakfast on the African savannah.

On our way, Celine spotted a serval cat in the grass. We pulled up closer to watch two of these tiny cats frolicking in the grass. I’m not sure if they were kittens or not, but they sure acted like it. Apparently, serval cats are super rare to see in Maasai Mara National Reserve!

The champagne breakfast was really impressive. When we arrived, we were given our glasses of champagne and juice for the kids. There were white linen tables set up across the savannah, with a table for four just for us.

There was a large breakfast buffet table set up with a wide variety of breakfast favorites. There was even a station with eggs made to order, pancakes and French toast.

We stopped for a while at a kill site, where Marabou storks and vultures were fighting over the remains of a carcass. This was wild Africa on full display.

Another top wildlife sighting of the day was watching a pack of four hyenas eating a carcass. We stayed and watched a while and it was fascinating to see the hierarchy of which hyenas got to eat, and which had to wait. It was also fun to watch the mean old hyenas chase away the carrion birds that tried to sneak in for a quick meal.

The leopard is the most elusive of the African Big 5 animals. Most visitors to Kenya come and go without ever seeing one. So, we were beyond excited when our guide heard there was a sighting nearby.

The traffic jam of safari trucks at the leopard site was a bit ridiculous, but to be fair, literally everyone wants to see a leopard. The leopards (a mama and her cubs) were a fair distance away, but our driver managed to get a spot with a good vantage point.

Foolishly, we didn’t bring binoculars for the kids, but we were all able to enjoy looking at the leopard through Celine’s 600mm DSLR camera lens. Most people drove up, stayed a while, and left without seeing it. We had been on our family trip to Kenya for nearly two weeks already (without a single leopard sighting), so we wanted to invest some time in seeing it clearly.

We were at the leopard site for nearly an hour when the cubs came out. Then mama leopard came out to collect her cubs and bring them back to the bush. It was a long time to wait for a single sighting, but it was worth it. We had finally seen all of the Big 5 on our family trip to Kenya!

When we finally ripped ourselves away from the leopard site, we saw two male ostriches doing mating displays for a nearby female. We were hoping to see a winner emerge, but the female was fickle and made them work for it, so we left before anything happened.

Then, we stopped and admired three cheetahs resting in the shade of a small bush. Then the mama cheetah walked up and started calling for her cubs (a chirping sound, kind of like a bird). These were our first cheetahs of our Kenya family vacation, so we were really filling out our animal scavenger hunt checklist on this game drive!!

We had another amazing cat encounter, this time with a family of lions resting in the bushes. There was a large male with a full, healthy mane, along with lionesses and four very cute lion cubs.

As usual, there was a massive jam of safari trucks to see the lions, but we had patience and eventually got into an excellent spot. The lions had two wildebeest carcasses lying on the ground nearby for a feast later in the day.

Then we had our second outdoor meal of the day, when our driver surprised us with a picnic lunch. He had pulled up under a tall, shady tree near a wildebeest herd, and set out a tasty lunch for us. How very exciting! Having a picnic lunch (instead of returning to the game camp), allowed us to venture much further into the Maasai Mara National Reserve than we otherwise would have been able to.

After lunch, our driver set out to find us some elephants. Funny enough, the elephants hate the noise and commotion of the wildebeest migration, so they head to a much quieter corner of Maasai Mara. It took a while to get there, but it was worth it. We had several excellent elephant sightings, including a herd of 7 adults and 3 tiny babies.