Afrimount Tours and Travel

Would have benefitted from better planning and communication

I'll start off by saying the trip was a lot of fun and we had a great time! However, there were just too many issues along the way for me to give this better than a 3 star review. I had to do a lot of advocating for myself for us to get what we paid for on the itinerary.

1. Boat Ride -- Our itinerary had included a boat ride on the first day of the safari. When we met our guide, he had no idea about this. We then agreed to push this to the final day as there wasn't enough time on day 1.
2. Night Safari Payment -- On night 1, we had a night safari scheduled. Our driver kept asking us if we paid for it and we were confused. We said that we paid Joseph. This was fine, we went on the safari. I note it because it shows that Joseph didn't communicate well with our guide.
3. Wrong Game Drive Park -- Our Itinerary stated that we would do an afternoon game drive in Masai Mara National Reserve. When we got there, our driver told us we would be going to Nashulai Conservancy instead (WAY fewer animals). I got on the phone with the owner, Joseph, and after a bit of arguing, he agreed to let us go to the National Reserve, as our itinerary stated and as we had paid for. It worked out in the end, but not without a bit of trouble and time.
4. Masai Village Visit Fees -- Our itinerary stated all entrance fees were included on the tour. The Masai Village charged us $30 per person to enter. When I asked our driver, he said that Joseph didn't give him any money for this. We didn't bring any money ourselves because we didn't expect to pay for anything, we just had some small change for tips. We weren't able to visit the village and headed back to camp. When brought up to Joseph, he offered for us to go later, but at this point we were tired from the long day. He reduced the fees of our safari for this mistake.
5. Bush Breakfast -- We had paid for a Bush breakfast in our itinerary. I had to double check with the hotel and make sure Joseph was going to go through with this, as he had given us no indication that this was already planned. He said he remembered this, which I doubted given the previously mentioned issues, and that he would take care of it. Later that night, he suggested that instead of doing the bush breakfast at the hotel, we could go to another location and set up some breakfast, but we pushed back for a proper bush breakfast as had been described in our itinerary. We got the bush breakfast in the end, but not without lots of advocacy.
6. Early Morning departure -- Due to the boat ride not being planned well on day 1 and lack of planning for the bush breakfast, Joseph wanted to rush us out early and have us have breakfast at 6am so we could leave camp by 7, do a boat ride and get back to Nairobi by 12. We argued that the boat ride timing was not our doing, that it was poor planning on his part and that we shouldn't suffer that consequence. He agreed and allowed us to have breakfast at 8.
7. No Lunch on last day -- Our itinerary explicitly stated that lunch was included on the last day. On the drive home we stopped for lunch, the bill came and our guides told us Joseph had not included money to cover lunch. We ended up paying for us and our guides. Joseph later apologized and reduced our fee by the lunch price.

So, yea, everything worked out in the end and we really enjoyed our safari experience. However, it wasn't smooth. Joseph didn't communicate our itinerary to our guides or camp at all. He blamed the issues on software that messed up the itinerary, but we had chosen to work with him because of said itinerary. Joseph was accommodating to all of our issues, but there seemed to be an issue with just about every activity. Not the worst experience, but not the best.