Our Team
Swahili Paradise Tours & Safaris
- Office In:
- Size:
- 10-20 employees (Founded in 2001)
- Member Of:
- TTB & ATTO
- Tour Types:
- Customizable private tours and fixed group tours
- Destinations:
- Price Range:
- $50 to $350 per person per day (USD, excl. int'l flights)
for a custom tour
Your request will be sent directly to the operator
If preferred, you can contact the operator directly
Reviews
AE
Email Loks | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Change in itinerary, no communication maintained, overall a bad time
Communicated that pick up will be 07:45 am but the driver appeared at 6:30 and was insisting to join immediately as some other people are waiting. On the way after asking the driver I came to know the itinerary is completely changed and Jimmy didn't inform anything. Picked up from my hotel dropped at another hotel. Picked up by another driver and dropped to a camp in Manyara where I had no itinerary to go. After waiting for 2 hours picked up by the actual safari vehicle at 11 am and drove to Serengeti while the original itinerary was Tarangire for the first day and next day early morning start for Serengeti. The whole day gone driving to Serengeti and reached at 7 pm. No game drive on the first day and lost the whole day in travelling.
They didn't inform that the tents to be pitched by ourselves. Had to do that in the rain at night!
After Serengeti & Ngorongoro, no information received who will pick up and which camp as this group had the last day on Safari.
Finally was dropped to a camp near Manyara. The camp was fantastic, the first time in 3 days was feeling well in Tanzania.
Last day the driver was supposed to pick up at 7:30 am and the driver arrived at 9:30. As I had the flight scheduled at 19:40 from Kilimanjaro airport, one driver was supposed to pick up at the park gate so that others in the group can continue with the safari. No driver arrived. The safari had to end early for others also and drove on the way to Arusha. On the way petrol ran out and the driver was complaining that the safari company didn't pay full amount to fill petrol. Somehow he arranged petrol on a highway garage.
After a drive I meet the driver who is supposed to drop me to Arusha. The driver was driving the car as if its a bullock cart and he was so scared of driving in traffic.
I insisted that I am dropped in the taxi stand for taking a taxi negotiated with good rate for Kilimanjaro airport. I was informed one driver is waiting at Arusha to drop me to the airport and I was in an impression that the drop off could be complementary for making my life so bad for last 4 days! :) The driver dropped me and asked the full amount 40 USD. I could have easily take a taxi from the taxi stand with less fare if I was dropped there and in time!
Overall what is experienced is they are very bad at communication and tour management and do not care about client satisfaction. Although most of the people are good at heart and very simple. They need to improve communication & management.
Reply from Swahili Paradise Tours & Safaris
Posted on Dec 30, 2019By the way Lok the sharing safari can start with any destination but all destination or parks listed on the confirmed list of itinerary MUST BE VISITED, so the group you join was already departed in a day before and it was already in Manyara thsu why we transferred you to Manyara to the meeting point where the group was located at the time being. But you visited all 4 parks and no park was scaped...hope you can confirm this.
Email Lizzie | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
The ‘guide’ Philemon really let it down
Communication with Jimmy before the trip was good. We paid a 50% deposit, and the rest the morning of the trip. The best thing about the trip is the price as it was much cheaper than almost all others. I suppose in this case, we got what we paid for. Pick up was well on time and journey was smooth. However, when we arrived, we were put with another group (which we expected) but with another guide called Philemon, which we had not been told about beforehand. We believed we would have Jimmy as our guide as that’s who we’d done our research on, but he didn’t even tell us he wouldn’t be the one taking us. This was really disappointing. It would have been ok if Philemon was a better guide. From the start he told us how much to tip him and the chef, which is a big no and far far too much. He was disinterested in us for the rest of the trip, and was purely a driver, telling us nothing about the animals as we went around. The bottom line is - if you go on safari to the Serengeti/Ngorongoro crater, you will have an amazing time. There are so many animals, and we saw everything up close including lions elephants zebras giraffes gazelles a leopard, birds, hippos wilder beast cheetahs and warthogs. we didn’t see a rhino up close but did as a tiny spot from the viewpoint at the end. However, if you want a guided and attentive tour, this is not the tour for you. Philemon would stop when necessary for most of the trip to let you view the animals, and particularly when other jeeps stopped, but as the trip went on, he got impatient and drove far too fast to see things and wouldn’t stop for animals. This was particularly on the last day, when I was actually shouting at him to stop so we could see what I believed to be elephants in the jungle part of the Ngorongoro crater on our last drive, and he heard me and refused to stop and dangerously went even faster right out of the crater til the end. This was so disappointing to miss the final animals and completely unacceptable as a safari guide. We were all so shocked. One of them might’ve even been a rhino but we’ll never know as he didn’t give us a chance to find out which felt a bit like we’d been robbed of an opportunity. An elephant walking around our campsite right up close when we got back made up for this, but I felt very let down. To top it off, we had asked jimmy to arrange us a lift back to the airport from Arusha, and the driver knew nothing about it so we had to get another. The chef didn’t even say goodbye after he left and we’d tipped him. The animals were amazing, food was pretty good and we saw incredible things, therefore we still had an amazing time. However, this was definitely not down to the ‘guide’ Philemon. The car had also lost suspension on one side which my boyfriend noticed and the driver admitted and had to keep checking which is really quite dangerous. The highlight was being able to get out at a hippo lake and see amazing hippos right up close. Because it was so cheap and the animals were amazing , this deserves 3 stars.
AE
Email Fiona | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Poor communication but ended up with an amazing experience.
Communication started off good early into the planning of the safari but ended up poor. After a while the responses i was getting were vague. What really annoyed me was when i was told that once i got to my hotel in arusha the night before safari someone would be waiting at the hotel to collect the remainder of money that needed to be paid and an intinerary of the next day would be given. Arrived at the hotel with no one from the tour operators to give any information. Spent half an hour trying to get through to them to get some information with no answer. Eventually they called the hotel back to give us our pick up time and no apology or explanation of why they were not there when they said they would be. If your gonna say your going to do this then i would expect this to be done. Other then that we had exceptional service due to our tour guide Oscar. Great guy who provided us with a great knowledge of the all the animals and history of the serengetti. Overall i was happy with service that was provided but the lack of communication was rather annoying.
BY
Email viachaslau | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
But the animals was not many
Over 4 days our group (6 people) visited 3 national parks of Tanzania: Serengeti, Ngorongoro, Tarangire. I spent the night at the Lodge, and others in tents. I recommend to spend the night at the Lodge is slightly more expensive, but very convenient. More just like Ngorongoro. Tarangire is between Ngorongoro and the Serengeti. In Tarangire a lot of elephants. In the Serengeti the animals were not much. 4 day Safari for me was worth 900$. It is expensive. The driver was not very good: the road was driving not very confident, Not always stayed near the animals, he said himself the amount that I should give tips for him. Couldn't care less about tourists. The food was good. The accommodation was good. But a whole tour like 4. But the animals was not many.
Email tony | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
money hungry
when i booked this trip the owner insisted i paid upfront so i did i paid all the money through a bank transfer but somewhere along the line one bank took a $40 dollar fee which when i went into my bank said it was not them but he insisted i had to pay it so i would suggest you use another company
Reply from Swahili Paradise Tours & Safaris
Posted on May 27, 2016But Tony remember when you arrived you refused to pay that $ 40 and we charged you only $ 20 , because it was a fault of intermediary bank which charged that as bank transfer fee, we were not the one who deducted that .
BE
Email Aline Demeulenaere | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Bad organisation
Sorry but I wasn’t that happy with how the safari went .. Everyday another jeep with another driver and other peoples, the planning changed totally from day 1 without any communication or plan. I slept on other campsites then my planning said, every morning I had to search by myself to my driver and nobody knew anything. Everyday we left very late (also not on the planning). And my driver forgot to pick me up at lake manyara to Serengeti so I’m not that happy
Email Nathalie | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
untrustworthy
I booked this 3 day tour, clearly stating that because I was alone I wanted to join a group. I received my itinerary in advance, 1 day: drive to the National park followed by a driving safari from afternoon to the evening. Day 2 driving all day, day 3 return.
2 days before the start of the safari, I got a message saying that the plan had changed, the people I was supposed to be with had changed their mind, and therefore I would go on a walking safari on the first day as "it would be great and I would be closer to the animals".
On arrival, the ranger laughed at me as I was in trainers. What I did not know was that due to the rain season the terrain was muddy and I would need boots, which I did not have. I managed to borrow a pair that were 2 sizes too small and we went off anyway. Again due to the rain season the grass was very high and almost impossible to walk, suffice to say I saw absolutely nothing.
Jimmy the organiser knew this and when I told him this was not ok, the reaction was that as I was alone I was costing him too much and what I had paid for did not cover his expenses. This should not have been my concern. Thankfully day 2 was very good but only due to a great guide Amir. Also any local will tell you that safari is either early morning or evening, not all day. Jimmy is not honest and you should chose another tour.
HU
Email Edua | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
A good start with a terrible end game...
In the beginning everything was good with this company. I have spoken with Jimmy and he was so nice. I paid half part of the money in the summer. Then he told me my reservation is guaranteed. A few months later in September I got an other message and he wanted the other half of the price because my reservation was not guaranteed anymore. I didn’t want to pay everything in advance but finally I just accepted his argument and we wanted to go there.
After everything was ok. In the first few days our safari was amazing with our guide (Christopher). But after when we were going to back Arusha our experience has become terrible. John (Christopher’s boss) called us because something was wrong with the money and fees on the border of Ngorongoro. So we had to pay more 430 dollar. It was the only one way to go back Arusha. Finally John promised us we will meet in Arusha and he will give back our money in cash. Of course it wasn’t true. John just disappeared and when we arrived to Arusha Christopher got out of the car and ran away.
After this experience we realized these guys weren’t from Swahili directly. It was a no and company and Swahili just gave us for them. So I can’t understand what happened exactly that day. But we have a really bad experience with this safari so be careful and don’t pay in advance!!!
OM
Email James | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Desperate customer service
Again I am waiting on a refund promised by the managing director to pay at the end of Feb, Jan and also December. So far having committed to payment and having submitted account details at their request I have not received anything. The airline refunded in 1 weeks, hotels within 2 weeks, and even the government refunded the visa fee due to us not being able to travel on account of an international travel ban. I feel like I have been robbed, with repeated requests to honour their word being ignored.
RU
Email Alex_D | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
I highly discourage contact with this company
We took 2 of the same safari Tarangire NgoroNgoro. We talked with Jimmy to agree on the dates and times of arrival, as well as all the details of our safari. On the first day I paid, everything was great. On the second day we were asked to pay an additional $ 300 for Ngoro-Ngoro because they did not find a suitable group for us. Jimmy did not get in touch, an Inno answered the phone. They refused to fulfill their obligations. As a result, in order not to lose the day, I had to go to Lake Manyara. The overall impression is ruined. The money is lost. I highly recommend not contacting this group.
Мы брали 2 же сафари Тарангире + НгороНгоро. Общались с Jimmy согласовали даты и время прилёта, а также все детали нашего сафари. В первый день я внёс оплату, все было замечательно. На второй день нас попросили доплатить 300$ за Нгоро-Нгоро т.к они не нашли подходящую группу для нас. Jimmy не выходил на связь, по телефону отвечал некий Inno. ВыполнТь свои обязательства отказались. В итоге чтобы не потерять день пришлось ехать на озёро Маньяра. Общее впечатление испорчено. Деньги потеряны. Крайне не рекомендую связываться с этой группировкой.