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Apodiformes Adventures
- Located In:
- Size:
- 10-20 employees (Founded in 2017)
- Member Of:
- Kenya Tourism Regulatory Authority, AFRICA TOURISM ASSOCIATION & FRIENDS OF NAIROBI NATIONAL WILDILIFE CONSERVATION
- Tour Types:
- Customizable private tours and fixed group tours
- Destinations:
- Price Range:
- $75 to $250 per person per day (USD, excl. int'l flights)
Reviews
SG
Email Boon | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Good at first but turning bad at the end
We have our tour at the end of July 2024. We have been in contact with Silas all this while for the arrangement. His response is very fast and even like midnight hour for him, he still can give you a response. At first before we settle and confirm the tour package, he always able to give fast response and show his enthusiasm. We have made good discussion, to settle down with our itinerary based on our flight schedule.
At one point in time, our flight got canceled, Silas also tried to accommodate our requirement, where he awaited us to give him confirmation of our next booking of flight. He also quickly responded and re-arranged our booked accommodation as well after our flight was confirmed. Although our request and questions were too lengthy and troublesome, he was still able to make time to explain. But somehow, when nearer to the date, his responses were getting shorter.
On the day Silas and the driver Ken were already there on time to pick us up from the airport. They also took us to get a sim card and buy packs of water for us on the trip. Ken was our driver and guide for all the game drive. We went to Nakuru then go to Maasai Mara, and last go to Naivasha. Overall, during the drive, from one place to another, and also during the game drive, Ken been on his phone always, only on and off will put it down. Even during the game drive, he was on the phone, and we thought that this might be his way to get information on the game drive. We didn't interfere much on this, as long as he driving safely.
Ken is a good driver, an experienced driver, but not a good guide. The problem is Ken shares only the bare minimum information with us. I am not requesting too much on this, but we felt that we were only briefed on the basic information. Most of the time we needed to prompt him with questions before we can get the answers, if we didn't ask or say anything, most likely we might not have given more information. There is a point where another vehicle broke down, and Ken offered to help fetch them together as we were staying at the same place. During this short trip, Ken was also on and off on his phone, where one of the passengers tried to do a video recording on the animals, he had to tell Ken to quiet down so that he could do his video recording on the animal. At which, we had been tolerating him on this, while we also did video recording, but we didn't so harsh on this point to make him stay silence at all.
When we visited the Maasai Mara village, we were asked to pay for the entrance fee, even though the itinerary plan stated it was included. 2 adults ws 60, and 2 kids were 30, so a total 90, where we only had USD100. At that point in time, we just paid first and without getting any change. It is later after communicating with Silas, and then he returned the 100 back to us. This shows the poor communication between him and the driver Ken.
On the journey, I had to find the topic for our communication with Ken, but every time it just went silence after a while. During the end of the trip, we were told that another freelance driver will pick us up, at which this driver Jidraf was able to talk more and introduced us to more information about Kenya this country, even sharing with us the lifestyle, the language, the towns, all those details that seem to be not important, he was able to share with us and tell us the background of that. This gave us a big comparison and noticed how little we got to know on our first 6 days of the trips. We were basically brought from lodge to lodge, and animals to the next animals only by Ken on our initial 6 days drive.
The problem with Ken also less communication with us, first incident is from Lake Nakuru to Maasai Mara. We were never told that we would be going to a souvenir shop and have lunch there. He just drove there and told us on the spot, he could have told us beforehand, we also understand that visiting a souvenir shop is part of a guided trip like this, but don't give us a surprise since it is all planned out.
2nd incident is about visit a Maasai Mara village, Ken could have briefed us on how it is going to be the routine on visit a village, or introduced some background, but nothing was said. Whether to put it before or after the Maasai Mara game drive, it was also not told until we asked.
3rd incident is when visiting the Hell's gate, where we needed to get a bicycle, we are family with young kids, and the young ones still don't know how to ride a bicycle. As an experienced guide, isn't it your responsibility to pre-alert us on what going to happen in Hell's Gate, and what is the plan for that. As a guide, you could have told us how much the price would be and told us to arrange for a bicycle with a children's seat, or a kid's bike with 4 wheels etc. But none was told, only until we reached the bicycle rental some distance before the entrance to Hell's gate, which is USD30 per bicycle. But what we have googled on the website the rental of bicycle only needs less than USD10. If we had not been careful and done our research before, we would have been scammed by the locals there. When we asked why the price hike, then we were told that it was peak season. But, when we reach the entrance of the Hell's gate, and we confront to Silas, only get to know, it is actually can get less than USD10, then we only offered to get the bike at this rate. At that point of time, we really don't know who to trust, neither Ken nor Silas. For those that are going to Hell's gate, please take note there is a guidance fee as well, if you don't pay for that, you don't have a guide inside, and you going to roam by yourself in which you might not know where to go, nobody gives you direction, and nobody brief to you the background of that.
4th incident was after Hell's gate, we were told Ken could no longer fetch us to airport on the next day, also our last day plan was to go to elephant orphanage and giraffe center. (Ken told us his car was faulty and needed immediate repair, but no one knew the truth). They arranged a freelance driver, who knew nothing about our next-day itinerary. The driver was only responsible for fetching us from Naivasha to the airport. Again, all of these was not well arranged and we were not told in advance. I thought the driver going to pick up the rest of the day up until drop us at airport, but after picked up then only knew he only responsible to bring us go to Nairobi and change another driver and vehicle. The elephant orphanage was supposed to be pre-booked one week in advance, and lucky enough my wife mentioned this, only they amended their mistake and booked it like 3 days before. Else I think it will be screwed up and end up we only left with giraffe center to go for.
5th incident is about the departure time from Naivasha to Elephant orphanage, we are foreigners and know nothing about operating hours. We thought visiting can be any time. But in fact, it is only 11am to 12pm. A day before, Ken suggested picking us up at 8am, but we told Ken to pick us up at 9.30am, since we did not have much plan for the rest on the last day. Ken did not tell us about the operating timing when I suggested 9.30am, but after that only he message and told me it will be close at 11am that's why needed to depart at 8am (also this information provided by him is wrong). Then he was like it's not his responsibility anymore, because he was not going to pick us tomorrow. Only then my wife double confirmed the time with Silas, only mentioned we must depart at 8am. Still the driver due to traffic came at 8.35am.
Luckily enough we managed to reach in time for the elephant orphanage. We do understand some hiccups on the itinerary happen, not everything goes to plan well, we only hoped it could be well communicated with us in advance about all the arrangements made. As a tour and guide expert, you should provide sufficient information about those entrance fees, travel duration needed, etc. I surely can google myself for all this information and do my own arrangements, but I trusted you to bring me the best experience. I do have a few persons who enquired me about this trip, but now I hesitate to give them your contact, as I don't know how trustworthy you are after this experience.
Still, I do recognize the effort from Silas, his fast response to requests, only it turned bad at the end of our trip. For Ken, he really a good driver, where he can drive out of the muddy place in a very bad situation, and he helped a few fellows to get out of those terrible situations where their vehicles were stuck. He is helpful whenever someone needs help.
US
Email bill k | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
I Would Not Use This Company Again
I reached out to Apodiformes Adventures to book a private three day tour that included two nights in Amboseli National Park including 4 game drives over three days, transportation from Diani Beach to Mombasa train station, train tickets to Emali station (near Ambolseli), and finally transportation to Nairobi. Peter quickly responded and I started communicating with him to work out the details. After a few days of emails and what's app texts back and forth we agreed upon the details. One of the conditions was that we could pay with a credit card which we did for the initial deposit. Later however, he said he wanted to balance to be paid in cash in USD on arrival. I told him that wasn't possible because we were going to be in Africa for several weeks prior to this tour and didn't want to carry that much cash with us. Eventually he agreed to let us pay in credit card but insisted on an additional fee that wasn't previously agreed upon. This wasn't a deal breaker but in was the first in several instances where things weren't quite as initially stated.
Getting to the Mombasa train station and onto the train was an absolute fiasco. Our driver was supposed to pick us up at our hotel in Diani beach at 5am on Saturday in order to catch the 8am train. At 5am the driver was not there. This is where it gets tricky because at 5am (in the pitch black of night) there was a driver waiting at the hotel apparently arranged by the hotel. We got into his car and started driving. About :30min into the trip I asked him about the train tickets. He was confused because he thought he was taking us to the airport. At this point, I wasn't able to get a strong enough cell signal to call or text Peter, but the driver was able to finally get him on the phone. There was a lot of back and forth (and yelling) in Swahili over several calls that I didn't understand.
Once we did get to the train station, the plan was to wait for the other driver who we were told was an hour late getting to the hotel in Diani and he would come and give us the train tickets. This was not a good solution. First off security at the train station did not want us hanging around the parking lot. They said we had to either go thru the initial security check or leave. The train station was extremely chaotic. There were hundreds of people pushing and yelling and trying to get thru and we couldn't find any workers who spoke English to help us and I still wasn't able to use my phone. Peter and the other driver were trying to call me but none of the calls or texts were coming thru.
Eventually we did find a security guard who spoke enough English and was willing to help us. He took us thru security despite us not having tickets or a confirmation, and got Peter on the phone using his own phone. Peter then sent him copies of the ticket confirmation. He then whisked us into the lobby and told us to wait while he went and printed the tickets. Great! He came back gave us the tickets and pointed us to get in line. We waited in the line but when we got up front we were denied because Peter sent the guard the wrong ticket confirmation! The guard was gone and we were back to square one without tickets.
Keep in mind that the station is complete mayhem. At this point we tried to buy new tickets but the train was sold out. I was able to convince a ticket agent however to look up our names and reprint the tickets. This was much harder then it sounds but eventually they were able to do this but we had to pay an additional re-printing fee.
The original agreement included the transportation to the station and the train tickets, but we ended up having to pay the driver and the ticket re-print fee which was 30% of the price. When I asked Peter to reimburse us for these expenses he refused to do so basically blaming me saying it was my fault even though his drive wasn't on time.
We were met in Emali by David who would be our guide in Amboseli. David was wonderful. We thoroughly enjoyed ever minute with him especially the game drives.
We spent 2 nights at the Kibo Safari Camp and were supposed to do 4 game drives. One on the Saturday of arrival, two on Sunday, and one on Monday morning before heading to Nairobi by auto. However on Monday morning we were picked up in a vehicle (with a different driver) not suited for safari, so we headed to Nairobi without doing that fourth game drive. This wasn't a huge deal, but it was part of the agreement and payment. I never heard anything from Peter about this. In fact I never heard from Peter again after we arrived in Emali on the train. No follow up. I even waited three weeks to write this review to see if he or anyone from Apodiformes would contact me. Nothing.
This was not my first trip to Africa so I understand that stuff happens and things can go sideways. You have to be flexible. I get that, but the reason for this negative review is the lack of communication and follow up. The bottom line for me is that they over promised and under delivered which ended up costing us extra money out of pocket. I would not recommend Apodiformes Adventures.
NL
Email Herman | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Good accommodation, unmotivated guide
We did Masai Mara, Lake Naivasha, Amboseli and Tsavo.
Contact with Silas was good before the trip. Accommodation was good and we had a wonderful Christmas at Lake Naivasha. I would give 4 stars for this, but we went to Kenya for the safaris.
On arrival in Masai Mara we would have a late afternoon safari. However, because of too many and ong stops, a lot of traffic and bad road conditions we arrived too late. We were disappointed we missed our first safari. Our guide/driver Isaiah promised we would get a long game drive the next day in Masai Mara till closing time 6.30pm. However, after a good day game driving we arrived at the gate at 5pm. I said Isaiah this is not what he promised us and then he got mad. He first did not want to go back into the park, but when I asked it again he turned around, clearly demotivated and driving very slowly. He also spoke ill over us against other drivers.
After this, all safaris were very disappointing. Isaiah did not even try to look for wildlife anymore. He kept on driving very slowly, did not communicate wit us at all and followed roads in the park were no other driver went.
In tsavo we really had it and I contacted Silas through Whatsapp. He said sorry to hear and he would talk to Isaiah soon. Our last day was a little better, although we did not see much game.
I did not get any response from Silas after this. We really feel it was a very poor trip thanks to isaiah. I did 22 trips in Africa before, but I never experienced such a terrible guide.
Our trip could have been much better
ES
Email Jaime F | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Can't trust Silas
Sadly I have to agree with some of the reviews about Apodiformes Adventures.
During the hiring process, Silas, the owner of Apodiformes replied to my messages right away, adapting to our needs and promising an exceptional quality of service.
Being our honeymoon, we hired a safari considered luxury (over 4000 EUR for 5 nights), requesting booking at very specific accommodations.
Until we formalized the reservation (transfer of 40% of the total) evething was fine. Once the payment was done the problems started to show up. The most wanted accomodation, Enkewa in Masai Mara, did not accept the reservation for not complying with their conditions (minimum 3 nights stay and take care of safaris in Masai Mara). Silas lied that they knew the accommodation and had previously worked.
The alternative was Olengoti Eco Camp, this accommodation has two types of room, tent and bungalow. The bungalow was requested (and paid for). Upon arrival at the Camp, the staff informed that our booking was at the inferior category and that they had no availability to manage the changeo of room. Silas lied again saying that the fault came from the camp (they showed me the booking made from Apodiformes) and that all rooms had the same price.
The third day of safari we had an incident with the car, we were standing 6h waiting for the repair. The guide asked us to take it easy and ask us to eat/drink in the cafeteria that the agency would cover. This never happened, not only that, Silas knowing the issue never got in touch with us in the whole week to check how things were going. We lost one day of safari and he didn't even care.
In the agreed itinerary, later that day we had a stop at Tompson Falls for lunch. We had to argue with the guide because Silas had not informed him and did not want to stop or pay the tickets.
With all the above being said, the overall experience was very good, thanks to John (our great guide) and the staff of the camps/lodges, but I would never hire them again for the lack of honesty and service provided by Silas.
It may be slightly cheaper than other companies but the price difference does not justify having to be constantly alert, feeling cheated and with the sensation that if there had been any problem the agency would not have helped or solved anything.
Reply from Apodiformes Adventures
Posted on Oct 2, 2023Halo Jaime,
We feel sorry and remorseful about the unfortunate experience . We value all our clients and always do our best to ensure they have Wonderful Holidays with us. Your case regarding the few incidents during the trip is an indication that there was miscommunication from both Parties. We promise to IMPROVE and work on the points noted above.
APODIFORMES TEAM