How to book Corbett forest lodges?

Corbett Forest Lodges are high in demand because of their pristine beauty. This is Lalit here, again I am with another super informative article on how to book Corbett forest lodges which are also known as Corbett’s forest rest house or FRH. This post is revealing the secrets of making a reservation on the official website for Corbett’s forest lodges located inside the Corbett.

It’s a really difficult task because of the high demand for these accommodations by tourists. I appreciate their love for flora, and wildlife but all of them don’t get a chance to stay inside the Corbett’s forest lodges. That’s why I am writing this article to give you the best of my knowledge. Though I can not guarantee your stay inside the Corbett, but it will maximize the chance of getting your night stay booking done for Corbett forest lodges.

Earlier the reservation was done on a first come first basis at the Director’s office located in Ramnagar. Later on, with the expansion of technology all the bookings, are shifted to a website. Now there are no manual bookings that can be made for Corbett besides current situations and other higher sources.

You may know that a night stay for Corbett’s forest lodges can be booked 45 days in advance in case of Indian nationals and 90 days in advance for foreign nationals. Every day at 10 AM an online window opens at a distance of 45 days which allows visitors to make reservations for forest lodges. But due to high traffic, it gets sold out within a couple of minutes every day.

 

My relation with the jungles of Corbett

I came to know about Corbett in 2010 when I started my career in a resort in Corbett. Though I grew up in the jungles of Corbett but I never realize the tourism benefits of the area. We used to graze our cattle and take firewoods from the jungle and we explored it through the heart. I saw many animals during our daily visits to the jungle including tigers and sometimes hunting our goats and taking them away in his mouth.

We tie a bell in the neck of some elder goats because whenever they go away we can listen to the bell and find them. Once a tiger attached at the bunch of goats and took one with him. We were kids and with the fear of the anger of the parents of our irresponsibility, we around 3-4 boys followed that tiger with the help of the sound of the bell.

We were really kids because we had fear of irresponsibility instead of being killed by an angry tiger, and fortunately, we took the goat back from him. You know, it is the worst thing that you chase a Tiger especially his hunt. Now, when I think about these incidents, I shake.

 

Timeline of the official website of Corbett

Coming to the point, when I entered into hospitality I explored the tourism sector of it. Sooner I switched from resort to travel agency and that time online bookings were just started. I was good at computers and the internet so we made many bookings for night stays as well as day visits but the craze for the Corbett forest lodges was the same. In the starting, night stay bookings were opening at 12 AM, at the midnight, and many times we had to sleep in the office to make the reservations.

Later, it changed to 10 AM and we got relaxing nights. Due to high traffic and less time I manipulated the lengthy night stay reservation forms through autofill software like Roboform. In the early days, the night stay/day visit booking forms were simple, static, and easy to manipulate. With the help of Roboform technology, we could fill the entire form of around 15-20 entries with a single click, then we had a need to enter captcha code to prove ourselves as human and proceed to the payment. Who makes the successful payment first gets the reservation so I was faster at making bookings.

NIC made many changes on the official website from time to time when they came to know about these manipulations with the bookings. With the expansion of technology now there are many restrictions and calculations for these types of manipulations. Previously the night stay/day visit reservation forms on the official website had static entry fields that could be filled without refreshing the page but now there are dynamic entry fields that are mandatory to select and the system detects the entiries filled by you so it is not possible to fill it by an autofill software.

 

Beware of guarantee of reservation

I heard my travel agents especially from Delhi taking guarantee of the reservation of Corbett forest lodges but they will say 99% confirmed, and the left 1% really matters. Maybe they will give you a reservation but no one can guarantee because there is no other way rather than making manual entries on the site. In a previous update, every reservation was going through an OTP process for every visitor means you will need 6 working phone numbers to book a jeep safari permit for 6 adults. Later, at the request of visitors and locals, this OTP step was removed. This OTP authentication was really bullshit.

There are also some agents saying they use their own scripts/software to manipulate the website and get the reservation but literally they are falsifiers. And you know it’s not a child’s play to doing anything with the official website of Corbett because it’s hosted on the Uttarakhand state government’s national portal uk.gov.in which is a subdomain of gov.in and that is the national portal of the Government of India.

 

How many tourist zones are there in Corbett?

Before knowing about the Corbett forest lodges you should know about the zones. There are a total number of 09 tourist zones in Corbett offering day visits in Corbett but not all of them offering night stays inside the Corbett. Please find below the list of tourist zones in Corbett National Park.

• Dhikala
• Bijrani
• Garjiya (New)
• Jhirna
• Dhela
• Durgadevi
• Pakhro (Entry from Kotdwar)
• Sonanadi (Entry from Kotdwar)
• Corbett Landscape

How many forest lodges are there in Corbett?

Only Dhikala, Bijrani, Dhela, Jhirna, Pakhro, and Sonanadi zones have a night stay facility as well as allowed number of day visit where as other zones only offers day visits inside them. In addition, a particular zone has various forest lodges located at different coordinates within it’s boundry. The list of Corbett forest lodges with their respective zones are listed below.

Name of the forest lodge	Located in zone	No of rooms
Dhikala forest lodge	Dhikala	22
Gairal forest lodge	Dhikala	04
Sarapduli forest lodge	Dhikala	02
Sultan forest lodge	Dhikala	02
Bijrani forest lodge	Bijrani	06
Mailani forest lodge	Bijrani	02
Jhirna forest lodge	Jhirna	02
Dhela forest lodge	Jhirna	02
Halduparao forest lodge	Sonanadi	02
Mudiapani forest lodge	Sonanadi	02
Rathuwadhab forest lodge	Sonanadi	02

 

How to book Corbett forest lodges?

To book a corbett forest lodge you will need to register yourself with the website of Corbett. After the registration you will be able to make a reservation for Corbett forest lodge. If you don’t know how to register at the official website of Corbett please visit my article how to book a jeep safari in corbett? Post registration navigate to the night stay bookings and follow the the instructions. Please keep in mind the following points while making the reservation.

• Use a fast internet connection.
• Keep ready your ID cards.
• Use HDFC payment gateway for smooth transactions.
• Do not change the internet conncetion while making the reservation.

Once you booking is confirmed, you will also need to book a jeep for entering inside the park. Since private vehicles are strictly not allowed inside the park so you can book a jeep with us, call us at +91 7252 808 808 for instant gypsy reservations.

Thanks for reading, best of luck!