Best Leading Adventures in Tanzania
Focus in Africa
- Located In:
- Size:
- 20-50 employees (Founded in 2004)
- Member Of:
- IATA & TATO
- Tour Types:
- Customizable private tours and fixed group tours
- Destinations:
- Price Range:
- $130 to $350 per person per day (USD, excl. int'l flights)
Reviews
TR
Email Ahmet Babal | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Perfect
I had a very enjoyable 4 days. I will never forget. Thank you ✌
NL
Email Laila | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
A woman was screamed at by the chef and wouldn't let her leave because he wanted money
We went on a 5 day safari with Focus on africa. The tour guide, Wilson, was amazing. He really went out of his way to make our trip unforgettable. I am very sad to give a one star because he is worth 5!
During the trip I noticed a couple of things which could have been done differently but I considered not to be worth writing a review but I will state them now anyway; we were leaving quite late a couple of times and when spotting animals you have to be there at first light! We were with 6 people in the car including luggage and camping equipment, making so that for a few drives the people in the back seats were uncomfortable. The one star I give for something that happend to a travel companion and makes me feel the need to write; the chef that was with us for 3 days(who cooked nicely but was only acting nice on the last night, all of the group immediately felt it was because he expected a tip) became angry because they gave too little tip. And with angry I mean yelling in their faces for over 15 minutes and not letting them leave the last campsite. They were so scared (2 woman alone) and not one of the 15 local men surrounding the vehicle said anything and let it happen (they work on the campsite and thus are also reprectatives of focus in africa). They felt attacked and it ruined their trip. This was a super scary situation and I would advise you to make sure who your guide will be as this will definitely make or brake it(their last day was spend with another "guide" who didn't know any English).
Moreover, the owner wanted to pay the woman to remove the reviews and out of his messages it appears that he actually agrees the tip is too little and so was accepting towards the behaviour of the chef. Look elsewhere for your safari trip!
DE
Email Meg | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Attention! Unprofessional safari company, The boss begged my daughter to delete her negative review!
I know it's a very long review. I hope you will read until the end. The purpose is I just want to tell people the truth about this company. My personal opinion is completely different than all positive reviews here.
Since there’re many positive reviews here, we decided to go for Focus. At the beginning, the communication between me and Nelson (the owner I guess) was smooth. He wanted us to pay 25% deposit to confirm the booking. We insisted to pay only 10%. He agreed. The entire fee was $1700 for two persons 5D4N budget safari with jeep.
On arrival, their driver picked us up at the airport and dropped us to their assigned hostel “Arusha Safari Hostel”. Since we booked budget tour, so we didn’t expect that much. Although google reviews show that the hostel has 4.1 stars, from our point of view, I would only rate 1. The staff who opened the gate at midnight (we had night flight) was kind of piss off that we somehow woke him up. Our private room with bathroom is very small. The toilet light is ridiculously dim. The worst is we needed 2 sim cards and we didn’t have time to go downtown to get. So we asked the hostel staff what time do the telecom shops open? He said he could send a staff from vodacom to the hostel. This person was wearing vodacome T-Shirt, he had also machine for registration. So we believed that he works for vodacome. At the end, we paid $60 for two cards which is a lot but we had no choice. After that, I checked on internet, two SIM cards should cost less. We paid too much and I texted that vodacom guy, he ignored my messages. So we are pretty sure that we were ripped off.
On our first safari day, we met Nelson personally. I was going to pay him the balance of the tour fee which is $1600. I kept $1700 aside including $100 for the tip. So I counted only $1500 after taking the $100 out in front of Nelson, I asked him to count to make sure, he counted and confirmed it was just $1500. But I was pretty sure I kept $1700 aside. There must have $1600 in total. I counted again, thank god it was $1600.
We were supposed to go with Brideson. He picked us up and he seemed to be very kind. He told us that he would be our jeep driver. At last minute, another driver Dickson has been swapped.
We proceeded to Tarangire National Park, one the way, there was smoke coming from the cockpit area. Of course we had to stop. We drove to a garage and luckily we could still proceed.
Dickson didn't give us briefing at all before we started the safari. So we all didn't really know elephants are very aggressive and we should never try to touch or make any noise in front of them. (We knew it because we just learned from our other safari tour. One of our group members who is from Ethiopia hit one elephant and made noise, I said it loud "don't touch!" We are in danger if the elephant get mad. Dickson has heard this but didn't say anything. We were speechless. We arrived our first camp, Dickson told us (we are 7 people in the tour, but 1 guy stayed at the lodge)
At dinner, Dickson was supposed to give us briefing but he has never shown up. One of our group members tried to find him by the help of the camp staff as we have no idea what time should we wake up, breakfast and start time.
On the first day in Serengeti, we all hope to see big five. My daughter and me had safari experience in Kenya, so we know that the drivers use walkie talkie to communicate each other. Once an animal has been seen, all drivers drive there. Dickson didn't use the walkie talkie although there is one in his seat. I asked him why didn't you use? He answered „he doesn't need because he has experience".
We were skeptical about it and we still have hope. We saw many animals but no leopard. At night in the camp, people talked to each other and we figured it out many groups have seen leopard but we didn't. We were very angry because Dickson refused to use walkie talkie and of course disappointed.
The rest of our safari was just nightmare. As I mentioned there is one guy from Ethiopia. He is the only one on our group to stay in the lodge. So we have pretty much different wake up and pick up times. On the 2nd day game drive in Serengeti we all wanted to wake up earlier in order to catch the sunrise and hope to see leopard. Dickson told him already his pick up time, since we know other groups have seen the leopard on the first day so we all agree to leave to the game drive half to one hour earlier. So we suggested Dickson to phone the Ethiopian guy at the lodge. Next day when he got into the jeep, he asked Dickson, "who came the idea to wake up so early? My daughter said “all of us” After that he said to Dickson, “next time I will beat you up “. Dickson didn’t respond. At the end we left Serengeti with disappointment without seeing leopard.
Next day our whole group wanted to wake up earlier but the Ethiopian guy insisted to wake up after 7am. We the whole group including Dickson (I empathize he is the representative of Focus of Africa" and the Ethiopian guy were standing in the camp among many other tourists. He started to argue with us because he didn’t agree to wake up before 7am as his lodge is 1.5 hours away from where we stayed. He insulting us like leave “my” country although he isn’t from Tanzania few bad words. He shouted at all of us “you fxxking white people go back to your countries and stuff like that. At the end we all told Dickson we don't want to travel with this guy anymore and asked if he could talk to the boss. Next day as planned we left our camp with a compromised meeting time and pick up point (someone will pick up the Ethiopian guy and bring him to an intersection.
At the meeting time he didn't show up, we proceeded to our game drive without him and we were all very happy. Unfortunately some hours later he joined us again. I understand that a travel agency could not choose who is joining the group. What I wanted to say is, Dickson as the representative of the tour, he should have done better with communication with the company and express our concerns. He told us he did but the company cannot do anything. Our group has spilt today as most of them finished their tour and we proceeded to our final game drive.
On our last day me and my daughter knew that one Japanese guy at the same camp is going to join us. One more person is missing, we don't know who is going to join. We asked Dickson, who is going to join us? He surprisingly responded us “don’t worry, she is WHITE”. We were speechless, we never say any bad things about any color, we respect all human and we’re shocked to hear his response.
Finally our tour came to an end. My daughter and me will fly to our next stop, she will hike later in kilimanjaro. She needs altitude pill from pharmacy. Dickson brought us to the meeting point to meet the driver to the airport. Someone from Focus took my daughter to the pharmacy, the pills costed $22 for one single pack. After that we were in Zansibar, we went to two pharmacies, both charge the pill only $1-1.5 for the same amount of pills. Was it another scam?
Go back to the story at the beginning, here is my conclusion::
The cooperated hostel is taking advantage of their guests for instance providing extremely expensive sim card service. Was it a coincidence?
Money counting could be a coincidence but also could be on purpose, we will never know
They don't care how the whole group feel, they just ignore our demands. Instead of separating the whole group and one individual person, they insisted to put us together for the rest of our tour which is unacceptable. At the end nobody could enjoy our last day. Nelson has blamed me about not telling him before. In fact, Dickson should have communicated with the company.
Was it a coincidence that their staff ripped my daughter off due to the 20 times more expensive pills?
My daughter has written a negative review here, I didn't know it and Nelson wrote me one day via WhatsApp and asked why am I doing this? I told him I still haven't gotten the time to write. He beg me to convince my daughter to delete her review and offered me a partial refund. I forwarded the message to my daughter, we both agreed that we could only accept full refund. Money is for us important but unfortunately money cannot buy us the time back. Nelson trying to persuade me for the partial refund by making me uncomfortable, saying that the negative reviews will lead to a bankruptcy of his company, unemployment and family financial difficulties.
Their jeep has broken down for at least 5 to 6 times for our entire trip. On the last day, we got flat tire and Dickson said it’s safe to proceed.
Dickson didn’t really care about the group, we were taking photos, he didn’t ask if we are done and just started driving
Sometimes we saw animals and wanted to take pictures, he didn’t stop and keep driving until we said please stop.
At all briefing times Dickson was always disappeared.
Dickson didn’t deserve to receive so much tips from the whole group, he then gave us hard time about this.
NL
Email Echo | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Amazing！the schedule is really good and the food that our chef made was incredibly tasty！
Love the schedule and the food！our chef Fillip is amazing and our guide is really reliable and nice. The view of campsite is amazing！Simba campsite might be the most beautiful in the world！
Email Stella na Sam | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Perfect experience! Lifetime memories for a great deal!
Wow! We are up to this day so amazed by the quality of service we received from Nelson's team including Brison our personal and joyful driver and Prosper our best cook in town!
We were warmly welcomed from the airport, brought to take a drink at Nelson'a favorite cafe in town and greatly accomodated at a homefelt hostal where we ate the best local food in town prepared with heart by mama.
The 3 day safari into the serengeti and Ngorongoro was stunning, let the pictures talk for themselves.
This company provided us with top quality service and friendliness for the least price.
Asanteni Nelson na familia, success to your company kaka
FR
Email Raphael | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Wonderful experience
It was an amazing experience, everything went well according to the itinerary. Even with the sanitary circumstances, Nelson was really professional and succeeded to manage my 5 days/4 nights budget Safari.
The Drive guide was surprising as he always found the best spots to see wildlife.
The food was nice and the accommodations in accordance to the plan.
Beautiful experience without any issues, go without doubt !!
RU
Email Mikhail | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Tarangire & Ngorongoro
First of it all I wanna to say Thanks a lot to Focus In Africa!
It was my second time to do safari and it was better then first time.
I found the companies in internet, texted them and Focus in Africa was one of first to answer me and offer to me free trasfer from Kilimanjaro airport , disribe details ahead trip give some options and give a good price.
Nelson is director of the company nice person to do deal with him is pleasant.
When we arrived to airport his driver pic up us and bring to his office. Nelson explained everything and answered for our questons. We made a deposit equel 1/4 of all prcice another part pay we did befor 20min our trip started.
Safari
It was two days group safari we visited Tarangire and NgoroNgoro Crater.
First day was Tarangire. We waked up at 6^00 am driver of company picked up us at 6:30 and bring to gathering place.
Driving to Tarangire spent about two hours anyway we were one first of tourists cars there only one car was erlier then we was.
Our Guide was imazing he knows a lot of the park and animals , he is capability to discover and find out animals every where - we saw a cheetah at Tarangire it was far from us but we used a binoculars to see it.
Also we saw how lions eatiing - look at pthoto it was amazining!
There was nigth at tent camp with fanastic wiev to Maniara Lake. There we comfortable beds in tent , shower with warm water and good dinner.
Second day we were waked up at 5:40 took a breakfast and start our trip to Ngorongoro. Just look at photos ^) I tired to write a reviwe :-)
What can be better
- No one told us about binocilars there was only one for a car , we could rented
- We gave tip for our guide and he said that he sloud share it with his boss and need more (not Nelson one more boss at tent camp)
FR
Email Henrik | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Very good value for money !
Perfect, great food and nice driver. Observation of many animals and perfect camping nights. I recommend Nelson and Focus in Africa!
3-day safari from Serengeti to Ngorongoro crater. Everything went very well, the driver is kind and helpful and is happy to comment on our stops and observations. The cook spoiled us with generous and typical dishes, morning, noon and evening! The two nights camping under the tents were incredible. We saw many animals and breathtaking landscapes. If you are an adventurer and have a tighter budget, you can go to Nelson with your eyes closed!
(automatic translation from French)
AE
Email Jamie | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Best option for a budget safari
Excellent safari. I was able to communicate with Nelson before the trip through WhatApp.
We did 3 days 2 nights in the Serengeti and ngorongoro crater. The driver was great and got always found perfect places for us to stuff to see the animals.
The cook made for very tasty meals and made sure that we always had enough food.
Camp sites where basic but included everything we needed.
CL
Email Esteban | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Vizuri sana (very good)
Everything was great. Had booked a safari for April but had to move it to March, and Nelson was always there answering emails and whatsapps.
Did a 3 day safari through Serengeti and Ngorongoro and everything run smoothly, the driver knew a lot and had good eye for animals and the food at the camps was also very nice. This was the cheapest safari I could find but it couldn't have been better.
