Absolute Holiday Safaris
- Located In:
- Size:
- 10-20 employees (Founded in 2006)
- Member Of:
- Ministry of Tourism Kenya & Kenya Tourism Federation.
- Tour Types:
- Custom mid-range tours that can start every day
- Destinations:
- Price Range:
- $100 to $600 per person per day (USD, excl. int'l flights)
Reviews
IN
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Out of the world
It was the best vacation of my life. Right from landing at the airport, where we were received by David and briefed, to the journey to Lake Nokuru with our driver Zak. The beautiful safari in the park the next morning with the magnificent flamingoes. The journey to Masaimara camp was a bit tiresome but once there we were enthralled by the ambiance of the camp. We had a lot of fun the next two days and we managed to spot every member of the big five including the elusive leopard. Thanks for everything.
IN
Email Sunandan Bhatta | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
A 'get away from the routine' was a wonderful experience
The trip was well planned out and co-ordination was good. However, the camping facilities at the park were quite basic; for instance electricity for only 4 hrs in the evening and no charging points in the room.
The itinerary, though packed, was fun filled - with lots of time spent inside the park.
Worth recommending to friends.
IN
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Great, life time experience - words will fall short
Mr David the tour coordinator (Big Time Safaris) was of real help and was involved right from the planning, coordination and execution of the programme. The tour was a one time in a life experience for our group, we had an excellent guide and driver, never felt insecure. A warm reception at the Airport, comfortable drive, good accommodation for over night stay and to top it all we were guided personally by Mr David to the right place to buy the artifacts which we wanted as souvenirs. Great Trip. Trip to Masaimara was out of the world. Thanks to Big Time Safaris
IN
Email pallab gohain | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
dream come true
It was my childhood dream to go to Masai Mara and see the wildlife, specially the big five. Absolute holiday safari made it possible. They have an excellent team and the customer service was too good. In this I specially want to make mention of David, our contact person in Nairobi and for the whole trip. Excellent man and a brother. He was like always available when needed. I would also like to make mention of Kennedy , our guide and Joseph , the manager of the camp in Masai Mara where we stayed. Both the person were very very friendly and went out of their way to make our trip a memorable one. Overall an awesome experience and I'm definetly coming back again. Thanks David, Kennedy, Joseph and absolute safari.
Email Rajeev Kumar | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
overall experience was very good
we are a family of four ( 2 adults and 2 children)and first thought of going to Kenya in June 2016 when, after searching online, I came across this company and contacted them first via email and subsequently via whatsapp. David, company owner, is extremely helpful and was always very quick to reply to any emails/whats app messages that I sent. I called him via what app several times asking for advice and guidance and he was always very polite and professional and gave me all the necessary information.
We took 5 days tours (Masai Mara, Lake Nakuru and Lake Naivasha) in August 2016 (started on 8th Aug) and as planned David sent a driver to pick us up direct from Nairobi airport at 8 am. The tour was all good although the lunch on day 1 on the way to Masai Mara was in Narok in a restaurant called Dream something (I cant remember the full name but the first world was Dream) and the food here was not good at all with rather poor hygiene and we hardy ate anything as we did not want to risk our health on first day of our trip.
The tent accommodation in Masai Mara was excellent and food was freshly cooked with good choices (we are all vegetarian). The accommodation in Lake Nakuru and Lake Naivasha was of reasonably good quality and they offered us good vegetarian food.
One problem we had was that in Masai Mara they merged us with another group of tourists in the same van who were going to take ballon safari on the last day which meant that we had to wait an extra 3 hours for them in Masai Mara on the last day of our Masai mara tour which would have meant a very late arrival to Lake Nakuru as travel time from Masai Mara to Lake Nakuru is good 7-8 hours. However after we made some noises and after some arguments they finally made arrangements for us to depart from Masai Mara at 9 am (otherwise we would have had to wait until 12 noon for other group to arrive from their ballon safari).
Driver Ben was very quite and did not give us much of the information other than telling us few things when asked directly.
Other than this small hitch, everything else was excellent. I will certainly recommend taking Lake Nakuru and Lake Naivasha. Although you see many of the same animals in Lake Nakuru but the ambience is very good. Its a proper national park and well looked after. There were no flamingoes there when we visited. The gorge in Hell National Park is definitely worth seeing and boat ride in Lake Naivasha should certainly be done (we negotiated a price of $50 for the boat).
We were picked up and dropped back at the Nairobi airport which was very convenient and meant that we did not need to go to Nairobi town. We flew from Nairobi to Mombasa and David even arranged a taxi for us at the Mombasa airport to take us to diani beach at a reasonable price ($40).
Overall, I will highly recommend Absolute Safari. David is very reliable and highly professional. I will give them a 5 star rating for making our tour so memorable.
IN
Email Kapil Thapliyal | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Great Safari. Saw the Big 5
We had an overall wonderful experience. The guide was active and spotted well. The camp is basic but good for a short stay. They can work a little on service quality. The whole package is very good value for money.
Request David for having Stanley as your driver/guide
First of all, the price they offer is unbelievably cheap!!!! Though the accommodations & food are very basic, but we never mind on those little things. We were there to cherish the biodiversity of Kenya and Absolute Holiday Safaris enriched us with lots of lifetime memories.
We had an 8 days' package in Kenya including Masai Mara,Lake Nakuru, Lake Naivasa & Amboseli. Though they usually offer a 7 days' package in this circuit, but we requested for an extra full day in Masai Mara & David arranged accordingly. We were clubbed with different co-travelers on different national parks, but everything was on time & we had not to wait a long time for anybody in anywhere. David is a very kind & really helpful guy. 'Now our office is not you tour operator's office. It is your home in Nairobi.'- He said on the last day. And it was really that! Our trip with them was ended on 8th August and our return flight was on 9th evening. On 9th morning, we checked out from our hotel, kept our luggage in David's office & went to visit Nairobi National Museum. Though it was not included in our package, but David arranged a car for us to the museum & later dropped us on airport. And this entire arrangement was 'absolute'ly free of cost!!!
From the 3rd day of our trip, we got Stanley as our driver cum guide. He has immense knowledge & insight about animals & birds. He has good spotting capability and knows exactly when & where to stop the car to capture great wildlife photographs. Our one & only one complain about Absolute Holiday Safaris is all other drivers are not as sincere & efficient as Stanley. Having a good driver/guide in any game drive matters a lot. If any fellow-traveler is planning to book Kenya trip with Absolute Holiday Safaris, I will suggest him/her to request David for Stanley as your driver/guide.
IN
Email Tepa | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Absolute Holiday Safaris do know their territory, and their birds and animals.
It was a pleasure to do the safari with Asolute Holiday Safaris.
The booking of the hotels took some back and forth-ing and while responses were very prompt it did require constant input from us. We were fortunate to know friends who had been on a safari before and could guide us.
The vehicle was slight disappointing. We expected much better for the price considering the fact that we had booked the high end luxury tour. The guide was loud but good natured, and once we understood each other the holiday was good.
The biggest negative however, was being told how much to tip (which was exorbitant, by every standard), and not on the basis of the overall experience. We gave what we felt was very fair, even generous, but the guide's annoyance at this was not at all pleasant. Sadly it was not a happy end to a good safari.
Reply from Absolute Holiday Safaris
Posted on May 4, 2016Hello Tepa
Great to know the experience you had with us and really appreciate,we are concerning on what spoiled the good trip,i as the contact person am shocked to know that you were told how much to tip. Kindly we does not work like this as the clients experience determines how much to tip.
We are also shocked that the driver was annoyed..... Kindly you came for the Holiday while i was too on holiday and on behalf of the entire office i really apologize for that.
Kindly we will make a follow up and make sure this does not happen to our future clients.
with kind apology
david
FI
Email Mikko | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Very good safari experience
The safari was arranged in a group of about 8 people. Everything important worked fine. The driver/host was adequately on top of things and knew the masai mara area and wildlife well. There were smaller issues like we had to do some negotiations to get our waters and some hassle around they drives (expected in africa, though). I would really recommend this operator taken, of course, that this is a budget safari.
Recommendations:
- Surprise, surprise 1 litre of water is not enough per day -> buy some of your own
- The food is provided but sometimes the gaps between are quite long -> if you get hungry easily take for example protein bars with you.
- If you do participate the visit to masai village, prepare for an interesting evening but also some quite manipulative selling situations.
CZ
Email Javier | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Great safari
Our safari was great. I was emailing David and organazing it, he helped me a lot and answered me with everything I needed, and after our arrival to Nairobi and discover prices in local agencies were not cheaper we decided to make the safari with this company. We had a 4 days safari (3 days massai mara, 1 day Lake Nakuru) and everything was good. Specially thanks to our driver-guide John who was attending to all of our questions and trying to make his best for finding all animals possible.