Month by month
Queen Elizabeth in April
April is the wettest month of the year in this park by a clear margin, at 339 mm over eighteen rain days. It is also the cheapest, the quietest and the hardest to drive.
If you only want the answer
April averages 339 mm over eighteen rain days, a hundred millimetres more than October's second peak and nearly nineteen times June's 18 mm. The southern murram to Ishasha is at its worst, Aerolink is down to one flight each way per day, and the lodges that publish a low season are in it. Anyone who needs to reach the tree-climbing lions on a fixed date should choose a different month.
Queen Elizabeth weather in April: the wettest month on the record
Three hundred and thirty-nine millimetres over eighteen rain days is the top of this park's year. October, the second peak, reaches 241 mm over thirteen days. To put the spread in one line: April carries more rain than June, July, January, February, August and December combined, which together come to 233 mm.
Afternoons cool to 26.8 degrees, two and a half below February, and the cloud takes the edge off the middle of the day. Eighteen rain days out of thirty does not mean eighteen washed-out days. It means rain falls on most days, usually in heavy bursts, and the light between those bursts over the Kazinga flats is the best of the year for photographs.
Ishasha in April
This is the month where the road decides the itinerary. Mweya to the Ishasha sector is about 109 km, a figure that comes from routing over OpenStreetMap because UWA has never published one; from the Katunguru bridge alone it is 104 km. Long sections are murram, and within the sector the circuits along the Ishasha and Ntungwe rivers are unsealed and hilly. In the rains, parts of them are impassable without four-wheel drive.
Two conclusions follow. A 4x4 is not optional in the south in April. And Ishasha cannot be treated as a day trip from Mweya in any month, least of all this one: there and back is eight to ten hours of driving in a park where the lions move early and late. Either sleep at or near Ishasha, or take it as a stop on the route to or from Bwindi, where Buhoma sits roughly 26 km from the sector and one and a half to two hours away in practice.
The lowest rates of the year, and what they buy
April is low season almost everywhere that publishes one. Elephant Plains drops from $600 per person full board in high season to $350. Pumba Safari Cottages and Topi Lodge both run April, May and November as their low season. The River Station calls April, May, October and November its green season, at $990 per person against $1,760 in high season, and Honey Bear Bush Camp does the same at $700 against $925. Kyambura Gorge Lodge charges $950 per person in low season 2026 against $1,570 in high.
What does not move is anything UWA charges. Entry is $40 per person per 24 hours in April exactly as in August, the Kazinga Channel launch is $30, a self-drive game drive is $10 per vehicle per day, and the Kyambura chimpanzee permit is $100 with park entry charged separately. No seasonal park discount is published. The saving in April comes from the beds, not from the gate.