The review below is the personal opinion of Caine and not that of SafariBookings.
It was a largely positive experience, until we were informed that Kojuu mishandled our payment.
This is a difficult review to write because we generally enjoyed our day-to-day experience with Kojuu. Near the end of our 13-day trip, however, we were made aware that Kojuu appeared to have mishandled thousands of dollars of our payment, and they have entirely failed to take prompt steps to remedy the situation. To date (now three weeks after our trip ended), Kojuu has still not returned our money (more details below). It's only fair to address the pros and cons of our experience.
Pros: (1) our driver Noel was phenomenal--he was accommodating, personable, and knowledgeable, (2) the majority of the accommodations chosen by Kojuu were exceptional, (3) the company added extra touches to help us celebrate our honeymoon--they informed the safari lodges, brought flowers, etc.
Cons: In short, Kojuu appears to have misappropriated thousands of dollars. Unsurprisingly, we were required to submit full payment in advance of our trip so that Kojuu could pay for our accommodations, excursions, etc. Our first issue arose when it was revealed that Kojuu did not secure a date for the hot air balloon excursion that we paid extra for. The company initially indicated that we would be going on the excursion on a particular date. It turned out, however, that Kojuu never secured that date (despite us paying for it months in advance). We were not informed of the situation until we affirmatively reached out to Kojuu asking for a status update the night before the initially scheduled excursion date. Had we not reached out on our own initiative, we would've woken up at 04:00 for an excursion that was never booked.
Our primary issue with Kojuu arose on our final day in Tanzania. Our hotel informed us that Kojuu never paid for our last hotel in Zanzibar (again, despite the fact that we paid Kojuu months in advance so they could handle this process). When I contacted our tour consultant, Losim, he indicated that Kojuu would be making prompt payment to the hotel on our behalf to remedy the situation. This was a lie. Kojuu never made any payment to the hotel. Instead, we were required to directly pay the hotel over $1,500 out of pocket before we were permitted to check out and leave for the airport. Despite dozens of emails and Whatsapp messages between Losim and Kojuu Owner, Judith, I still have not been reimbursed for the money I was forced to pay because Kojuu pocketed my money instead of forwarding it to our hotel. As of the date of this review, it has been over three weeks since I was required to pay the hotel. Given the immense delays and Kojuu's inconsistent messaging and refund timeline, I'm left to believe that I won't be getting the refund that they've been promising for nearly a month now. To the extent that I ever receive a refund, I'll update this portion of my review.
