Sun Safaris
- Located In:
- Size:
- 1-5 employees (Founded in 2002)
- Tour Types:
- Custom mid-range & luxury tours that can start every day
- Destinations:
- Price Range:
- $350 to $1,800 per person per day (USD, excl. int'l flights)
Reviews
US
Email Karen | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Uncommunicative, was very good, no longer will I use them
I have used this company 5 times, the first 3 times were wonderful. Liselle Ratth was our agent and she was fabulous. During and after covid, our booked trip for 2021 was handled by Brett Thomson. He did not communicate in a timely manner, which made us very nervous. However, the trip in September 2021 went very well. We had another trip planned for June/July of 2022 and it did NOT go well. Email questions took days, if not weeks for an answer. Sometimes we never did get an answer. The first lodge on our trip went very well, during our stay there we received an email from the next lodge in Zimbabwe telling us that our stay was cancelled due to none payment by Brett. Needless to say we were in shock. Luckily the owner and manager of Nottens Bush Camp (Sabi Sands) took us under their wing and helped us. The catch was that we had to wire the payment directly to the camp, as they would not deal with Brett. This put us out another $7600 US dollars, which we had already paid. Brett assured me that he would be refunded this amount via our credit card. This did NOT go as planned and took over 8 weeks to receive refunds, which were not the same amount as we wired to the camp due to exchange rates. This is so unacceptable, he did not pay and we were out extra money. I can only image if the guests did not have an extra $7600 cash to pay the camp...would we have been out of luck? I do not recommend using this company...
US
Email Jose | 65+ years of age | Experience level: first safari
Beware of Sun Safaris – they did not pay local vendors
We recently went on a safari to Kenya through Sun Safaris. We worked with Natasha, who was very professional and responsive. HOWEVER, when we were on our trip, we received a very concerning phone call from one of their local vendors. They informed us that we owed $21,994 even though we made final payments to Sun Safaris months before. We were also told that after repeated phone calls and emails, they couldn’t reach the owner, Brett, and that we needed to pay the amount the following day. Apparently, they were never paid. While we were able to reach Natasha, who said things would be sorted out, we were very worried that arrangements (hotels/services) might be cancelled. We never heard back from Sun Safaris until we returned home from our trip.
Based on another review I saw after our trip, I learned that this is not the first time the owner hasn’t been responsive or paid vendors in a timely manner. While the safari overall was great, the incident was very concerning. Based on this experience, I would not recommend Sun Safaris.