Kingfisher Safaris

Very mixed experience with a lot of downsides

It took me very long to write this review, but I think it´s just fair not to write only positive reviews which is of course much nicer. But we would like to let others know what we have experienced. We have been many times to Africa on all kind of safaris from budget to high-end luxury, but never left with this unhappy feeling. So lets start...
I found kingfisher safaris on this website announcing a "private" mobile camping safari operating in Botsuana. Meanwhile they changed the announcement in "shared", thats what we ended up but expecting a private safari . I still have got a screen shot of the original advertisement to proof it.
But already the beginning was difficult. We were picked up late, Pilot arrived than eventually in a hurry, the car packed up with food, equipment up to the roof etc. There was no excuse. Instead he told us, that due to a late arrival of the trip the day before he had to pack new. At this time we were still fine. But as he stopped a little later at the main road offloading us with two chairs and a cooler box, he drove quickly away. My bag with everything like passports, money was still at the backseat and could have fallen off easily from the safari vehicle. We had no idea how long it would take and where he drove to. This was the first time I felt very unhappy. The rest I will write in keywords.
First the positive aspects:
- The staff was extremely nice and welcoming. Pauline the chef did a wonderful job. Elena the host, was such a warmly and attentive person and Collin did everything that the campsite was in a perfect condition.
-The locations of the campsites were magical.
-All the equipment was good.
- Our unexpected co-travelers turned out to be very lovely persons and we appreciated their company a lot.
Now the negative aspects:
- Guiding was less than mediocre. (here I have to be more detailed) I'm pretty sure that Pilot knows his stuff, but didn't show it to us. At Khwai Privat Concession he was only at the radio and driving us from sighting to sighting which others told him. He never was reading any animal tracks, always the windows closed never listening to alarm calls etc. At Moremi as there were just a few vehicles he had to work a bit harder. We wished he would have explained us more about the unique ecosystem of the Okavango Delta and all the connections between fauna and flora. Pilot almost never stoped for birds, mangooses etc. We felt racing from lion sighting to lion sighting, but none of us four was so extremely interested in them. Once I asked Pilot to stop at the zebras which have been in a wonderful light (we are photographers) but instead he was driving to the next lions. He never really attended to our requests. Maybe the worst was, that he was teasing animals , which is an absolutely unethical behavior. For example he provoked a male hippo to attack the car several times. Another example was playing hyena calls from the mobile to a lion family with tiny cubs.
- Logistic is not the strong side of Pilot. We tried to help and let him know before what kind of beverages we like to avoid buying useless drinks. Didn't work. The first evening we were offered an already open bottle of Merlot and I did write before that the only the wine we don't like is Merlot. After half of the time he run out of gin, and to mention we are not heavy drinkers. In the end no tonic water, no Coca Cola, no white wine, no red wine..... and no excuse.
- Driving style of Pilot was fast, sometimes reckless. We had to use the seatbelts first time on a safari. Pilot general did not respond well to criticism or suggestions. In this case when we asked to drive more carefully, he reacted grumpy and kept driving almost the whole afternoon without stopping and talking to us.
Summarising this was unfortunately our worst safari experience so far even though the magical nature of Botsuana and the wonderful staff of Pilot were hard to beat.