Mega guide, mega safari, mega adventure!
We (3 people from Europe) booked a 3-day safari in April 2015 through Lake Manyara, Ngorongoro Crater and Tarangire. I can say for sure that we are quite sensible and critical, but this trip was a pure sensation in mostly all points. We booked the budget package with sleeping in (stable) tents nearby Lake Manyara. Although we came in the "low season", we experienced three great days we will never forget.
One of the most important reasons for our enthusiasm was Mubarak, our guide and one of the directors of the company. I don't even know where to start the list of his benefits: He was very professional and friendly, was always in a good mood and never got bored by our many questions about animals, nature and general Tanzanian/African things. Since he is a experienced guide with a lot of knowledge, mostly all of our questions were answered and if there was something even he was unsure of, he promised to look it up in the evening because he also was interested in learning new stuff. Because we had rain seasons, we had several critical situations with muddy roads, but he handled the (huge!) car very professionally and was able to show us interesting spots even when other popular viewpoints were blocked. Every morning, the car was cleaned again from mud and trash. And - which is some kind of rare in Tanzania - he spoke English fluently which made it easy to follow his detailed explanations and answers.
Not only Mubarak was one of the reasons we totally recommend this company but also Mohammed, the company's CEO. Even although we only booked a few days before the safari, he made us a very good offer and provided us with all transparency we needed: prices, accomondation, pick-up from our apartment in Moshi, free water bottles, lunch boxes, a meeting before the safari and so on. In the end, we had to care about almost nothing and were able to enjoy the 3 days without any hassle or complications.
Criticism? Well, we booked the walking safari in Tarangire on the last day (2-3 hours walking in the plain nature). Unfortunately Mubarak wasn't allowed by the park management to come with us so we had another guide and armed ranger. He wasn't the best guide, his English was hard to understand and he wasn't well equipped (no binoculars) and able to answer several of our (I think quite basic) questions. The nature of Tarangire and the atmosphere of walking around freely was absolutely worth it, but maybe MegaAdventures finds a way to improve that. Having Mubarak with us during the walk would have been much more better! But even after long thinking about negative points, this is the only one we honestly can think of.
Oh, and about the animals: I think except a Leopard we've seen the most "important" ones. But if herde of 20 elephants crosses your way 2 meters in front of you with no other tourist cars around you, you don't think any longer about Big Fives or such trivial categories. You're just happy to have a professional guide able to lead you to these locations. We'll definitely looking forward to book Mega Adventures for other trips during our long stay in Tanzania.
