50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Review about Serengeti National Park by Francois de Bruin
Nice time - we spent 3/7 there and it was magical
50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Review about Ngorongoro Crater by Francois de Bruin
Nice experience and saw the most blue crowned cranes together ever
50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Review about Lake Manyara National Park by Francois de Bruin
Good variety
Trip of a Lifetime
My wife and I had visited the Welgevonden Game Reserve in South Africa in December 2015 for wildlife viewing. Apart from some wildebeests, some antelopes and some giraffes, we didn’t see much. We didn’t see one lion, we didn’t see one leopard, we didn’t see one cheetah. When asked why we hadn’t seen one of the big cats, both the lodge ranger and the manageress told us that hyenas and jackals had introduced a “mysterious disease” that would kill all big cats. In the whole Welgevonden Game Reserve there was only one lion left.
According to http://www.welgevonden.org/news/2016-news-archives/197-canine-distemper-virus-on-welgevonden-and-the-last-lioness.html, Welgevonden’s last Lioness had died in July 2016:
“On December 10 2015 the carcasses of 3 lions, a large male, adult female and a sub-adult male were observed just outside one of the lodges on the reserve. ... During an afternoon game drive on December 18 2015, one of the western pride females was observed having a seizure and Canine-Distemper Virus (CDV) was suspected. … However, December 26 2015 brought about the next chapter of the nightmare: the first seizures observed in one of the southern pride’s lionesses…”
We had spent a fortune flying from Australia to Jo’burg, pay for a hire car to get to Welgevonden and a stay in an upmarket lodge.
After this huge disappointment, we flew 16 months later to Tanzania. We did a 10 day private tour with Earthlife Expeditions. We had told Deo where we wanted to go and to see the wildebeest migration, when they were crossing the Mara River. We wanted to see Lake Manyara National Park, the central and the north Serengeti and the Mara River, Ngorongoro Crater, Tarangire National Park and Arusha National Park.
Deo worked everything out for us and it went like clockwork. In the north Serengeti we watched from a hot air balloon hundreds of thousands of wildebeests migrating north towards the Mara River they needed to cross to get to greener pastures. Agri, our driver/guide was spot-on, when he told us, that the wildebeest would cross the Mara River in 5 minutes. And it did! In total, we have seen 5 or 6 crossings. We even watched a crocodile attacking a wildebeest.
We saw everything, we hadn’t seen in disappointing South Africa, everything we had desired to see, including lots of prides of lions, leopards and cheetahs. We saw herds of elephant mothers and their babies. We had seen hundreds of Hippopotamuses. Agri has a keen eye. He sees everything. In Arusha National Park, Agri spotted even “Colobus monkeys”, we hadn’t seen and wouldn’t have noticed had we been on our own.
Compared with South Africa, we would give Earthlife Expeditions 100 out of 100. We should have got into contact with Deo 16 months ago and gone to Tanzania in the first place!
50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Nice destination with lots of wildlife and variety of parks
We had a fantastic trip in Tanzania and will remember it for a life time. Travel is all about the "stories" that are created...and we have wonderful stories to tell our family and friends. We structured this trip in as if we would never be back - we wanted to see a variety of things in the time we had and not just zeroing in on one type of experience. That has now changed...we definitely want to go back to Tanzania for another adventure. The three very distinct stages of our trip (safari, beach and Stone Town) all offered unique views into Tanzanian culture, land and wildlife. The safari offered wildlife viewing that was beyond anything we expected. We saw loads of lion! Wonderful accommodation and the weather was very pleasant for that time of year and no where close to the temperatures recorded on the internet
US
Excellent safari experience
The wildlife (especially the primates) is amazing and surprisingly accessible. The wilderness is very enjoyable. We've been to other parts of Africa (mostly southern Africa) and Uganda is refreshingly very unique and varied. The drives along the countryside is also a lot of fun. The people are very friendly and almost everyone speaks English, which made it convenient for us. We went in July and the weather was spectacular. We went mostly to the Western parts (Bwindi and QE NPs) and also stayed near Lake Victoria.
ES
We have seen a lot of animals and spectacular scenery
We have booked two different tours:7 days Etosha Explorer Tour (Wild Wind Safaris) and 4 day Swakopmund and Sossusvlei Adventure with Chamelon safaris.Weather was very good,dry and a lot of sun, no clouds.Our guides (Leslie Joseph and Griffith) were excellent.We have seen a lot of different animals, the accommodations have been very confortable and the food delicious.We will recommend these safaris to our friends and family.
CH
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
beautiful landscape, lovely people, great beaches
Our trip was great. We have seen so many animals like giraffe, hippo, elephant, many beautiful birds, black mamba and other snakes, kudu, impala, buffalo, baboons, crocodile and big groups of lions on both days. One group was already at the place we have expected to have lunch...
We could tell the driver whenever we would like to stop to take pictures or to enjoy the landscape.
Also the food was delicious and the accomodation was very quiet, except the bush babys we could hear at night...
When we arrived after 6hours drive from dar es salam we could relax on the boat and see first animals like hippos, lizard, crocodiles and birds. Sunset on rufiji river was great.
The walking safari was very interesting and we could learn a lot about animals and plants.
We can really recommend doing this 4 days selous safari.
US
65+ years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Great people great places great prices, a wonderful experience.
The entire experience was outstanding and exceeded our expectations by a significant margin. We will be back.
IT
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Wonderful Safari-Best driver-be careful with pricing
We were supposed to be a group of 4 Italian friends; we ended up being only 3 as one of us could not travel at last minute because he got sick. We had a 10 days tour touching Tarangire, Manyara, Lake Eyasi, Ngorongoro, Serengeti and Lake Natron. We were extremely happy about the places, animals and tribes we have visited. All very authentic except for the Masai tribe in Ngorngoro that was quite touristic (paid 20 dollars each for 15 minutes very touristic tour); they were asking for money every now and then. Lake Eyasi and Lake Natron are out of the touristic places and so worth visiting. Other tour operators refused to offer Lake Natron as the road to get there was adventurous, and it was indeed. The best part of our trip was Chediel, our fantastic driver! He has never been tired of showing us things, telling us stories about animals (African tales and scientific things as well); he was able to spot the farthest ceetah and taking us close enough to count all the spots on the fur! He was joyful and nice all the time. He also very quickly solved the only problem we got while driving. The jeep sank into the sands and he worked hard to take it out. If you ever choose this tour operator please ask to have Chediel as your guide!!
Unfortunately we could not say exactly the same about Joseph, the tour operator leader, as he was paying more attention on money than on services. He did not provide us with a detailed program and he did not provide us with useful information for what is surely a difficult trip. For example, he did not send us general information on what to wear, what to bring, how a day/meal/dinner was supposed to be (I had contacted 25 tour operators for a quotation and most of them sent these on quotation without even waiting for us to book the tour). For example we were not told to wear a bathing suit when visiting the waterfalls in Natron; we were said we would have had wifi in every lodges while this was not the case for two out of seven lodges (and in other two the wifi was not really working although apparently available). At the end of our trip he helped us to arrange our connection from Dar es Salaam Airport to the ferry harbor (tricky! please allow you lots of time in advance as the traffic is horrible). We thanked him for this, but listen to my consideration: he charged us 50 dollars for the ride (which was absolutely fine) plus 7 dollars each on top of the price for the ferry ticket (that we had booked in advance) because apparently he had to change shelling in dollars to buy the tickets and the commission was to be payed by us (which I absolutely agree), BUT I disagree on EACH of us. Do you really think he paid three commissions and not one? do you ever change money in three different rounds for three friends or would you change money all together to avoid three commissions? Also, as said, one of us could not travel last minute. He gave us back less than 1/10 of the money paid by him saying it was just because of my kindness otherwise he would have not given the money back because apparently he had already used that amount to book the places and even payed the ticket to the parks (which were not). I understand this was last minute and high season, but let's try to be reasonable and honest. I do not believe he could not save money from all the amount my friend had paid and I explain you why: we had paid in advance only 1/3 of the whole trip, but we had not signed any type of contract. What if the all of us had not shown up at all? would he have risked to loose all of those money?? i don't believe so. And by the way when asked to provide a receipt he only issued one for the money we paid there and not for the ones we had send by bank transfer... One last thing... (and ok maybe this was a genuine mistake but when you have more things to complain about it's better to say)...he took me to the counter to change money I needed to give him... he gave me back 8 dollars less than due...
Having said all of this, I am not "Not suggesting" to book with Tomodachi, I am only suggesting to make sure your driver is Chediel and you make clear everything with Joseph before agreeing.