Family Weaver - Tailor Made Safaris absolutely delivered!
This was our first trip to Africa and importantly it was an opportunity to see our son Ollie for the first time in 8 months. He is studying in KwaZulu-Natal to be a field guide so we were keen to have a well organised, exciting and interesting vacation where we could learn new things, see and experience the sights and culture of the country that Ollie has fallen in love with and that would stretched and add to his knowledge through our guide.
Tailor Made Safaris absolutely delivered!
Despite having a hiccup at the start of the holiday when we missed our connecting flight to Richards Bay (through no fault of ours or Tailor Made Safaris!), Nick and Freya kept in touch, dealt with our frustrations, offered solutions and worked round the problem while assisting us with communication our son who was patiently waiting to be collected.
When we did eventually arrive, Freya our guide slipped into our family unit with ease while retaining the necessary professionalism and excellent hosting skills. Being British, I confess that the prospect of sharing much of every waking hour with a stranger in a strange country was daunting…I should not have worried. Freya put our mind at rest saying that if we wanted time to ourselves to just say and arrangements would be made.
The attention to detail regarding our interest, our needs, our food preferences was first rate and it did not go un-noticed that Freya altered plans without even a blink when we changed our minds, no fuss, no drama, it just got done.
It is very hard to come up with a favourite part of the holiday, there were so many but here are some…
Tembe allowed me to cross of my bucket list “To see a leopard in the wild” which I was absolutely thrilled about.
Seeing Ollie’s face when he came back from a diving trip while we were at Thonga Beach Lodge where he saw turtle, white shark, whale, dolphins and heard whale song. He was totally buzzing!
Seeing Isilo, the elephant with 2.7 m long tusks, at night in the camp at Tembe.
Stepping out of our chalets at Mkhuze and iMfolozi and having game just 10 feet away.
Seeing a bull Elephant walking down the road at Mkhuze without a care in the world and being given insights into these magnificent creatures by Freya while she drove backwards down the road to allow our tusked friend to go where ever he wished…which was to follow us for ¼ mile down the road!
Seeing how much Ollie has learnt about the wildlife in Africa in such a short space of time and to have an expert on hand to further test his skills and fill in any gaps.
The first sight of the Indian Ocean and the beach at Thonga as we crowned the last dune before our decent to the resort was breath taking.
All were fantastic but these are just some of the experiences!
Tailor Made Safaris created a diverse, interesting trip with plenty to see and do, good quality accommodation and importantly fantastic game viewing.
The mix of basic “in park”, luxury safari tent, lodge and hotel accommodation was a great introduction to vacationing in South Africa.
With any holiday of this type there are two important questions
1) Would we pay good money to go again?
2) Would we recommend the guide company to friends and family?
Our answer in both cases is a resounding yes!
Thanks Freya for being a fantastic guide and for putting up with us and thanks to Nick for drawing up and proposing such a great vacation (and for entrusting your wife to us Brits for two weeks).
To further emphasise our commitment to this level of adulation, we have recently booked to return to South Africa and to again use Tailor Made Safaris. I should also add that this time we return with my mother and father, my daughter and her partner!
The Weaver family
Worcestershire, United Kingdom
Netherlands
