US
50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Great Communication and a Tour with Hours of Delay
Reuban the company rep or owner, has great and fast communication. He promises an awesome tour endlessly but on two days of tours we did, there was hours of delays and most promised sites could not be seen. Port of Zanzibar, Tanzania: hours of delays, no turtles, no snorkeling, no monkeys as promised; the only site was the rock restaurant and 2+ hours were spent there needlessly. Port of Mombasa, Kenya to Tsavo Park: spent over 2.5 hours at the gate, not allowed inside the park, watching many other vans of private tours and MSC Cruises tours go in. Due to the delay, no lunch and no Masai Village. We were over 80 people in 14 vans - all bitterly disappointed! I cannot recommend this company.
IE
50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Poor experience
We thougt it was a good price for a safari but showed to be a really bad experience. Do not recommend.
CA
65+ years of age | Experience level: first safari
Better speak to your manager at the camp , she was not very happy to serve us , the food no good
We have nothing to say about our guide PITA , he was excellent , he try hard to find animals in the safari to show us, he explain everything , I recommandent him , his the best. But about the camp , the ladies there were not very at there place to received tourists, always said , wait a minute…no smile, they laughed together, they said that the power is on at 6 to 10 , but it was not that. And the food , so bad for the price Jocky Tours charge us. We have the same night meal , 2 times, the beef was too hard in our mouth, you have to review your meals and the staff at the camp. We were 2 couples and my friends had a frog in his bathroom and ants in his mattress…
DE
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
First impression good, then dissapointing
The first contact was quite good! We booked the trip in advance and had some few conversations via WhatsApp where all questions got answered.
The owner of the company picked us up from airport and told us that he proudly founded this company some month ago. We are also quite young and thought it is a good choice to support young companies.
What we booked and were aware about:
A shared safari for 6 days with lodges/ hotels and which Nationalparks we will visit
What we didn't know:
That all people who were sitting in the same car have booked different packages which caused the following negative facts:
1. Picking up people for 2 hours in the morning & dropping off people at the end of the day because every couple or single traveller was sleeping in another accommodation. This is not what you want when you do safari and pay for daily entrance fees in the national parks!
2. All people in the car have booked different trips (one day we visited a massai village because of two other people in our car who have booked just 1/2 day safari and afternoon massai village) The driver informed us about the afternoon plans at lunch the day itself. So there was no option to say "no" due to the fact that we were all sitting in one car. I liked the experience of the massai village and we had fun. But it is not the best experience when you don't have a choice! We paid originally for one day in the crater!
At the end of the trip the tour operator offered us to drop us off at the airport. We suggested a pick up time which was to early in his opinion so he picked us up 45 min later. The driver drove really slow and we needed to stop due to problems with the car. At the end we run into the airport and had no time left and has confirmed again how bad this company is organized!
We were really disappointed regarding communication and organization of Mousebird Safari. Its not about having the best cars or best food. Its about informing the customer in the best way so expectations are met.
One last sentence regarding the driver: Barton was excellent driving and explaining the wild life. I would recommend a trip with him (he is a freelancer) but not the safari company.
I hope this feedback helps the company to learn and improve!
NL
50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Good accommodation, unmotivated guide
We did Masai Mara, Lake Naivasha, Amboseli and Tsavo.
Contact with Silas was good before the trip. Accommodation was good and we had a wonderful Christmas at Lake Naivasha. I would give 4 stars for this, but we went to Kenya for the safaris.
On arrival in Masai Mara we would have a late afternoon safari. However, because of too many and ong stops, a lot of traffic and bad road conditions we arrived too late. We were disappointed we missed our first safari. Our guide/driver Isaiah promised we would get a long game drive the next day in Masai Mara till closing time 6.30pm. However, after a good day game driving we arrived at the gate at 5pm. I said Isaiah this is not what he promised us and then he got mad. He first did not want to go back into the park, but when I asked it again he turned around, clearly demotivated and driving very slowly. He also spoke ill over us against other drivers.
After this, all safaris were very disappointing. Isaiah did not even try to look for wildlife anymore. He kept on driving very slowly, did not communicate wit us at all and followed roads in the park were no other driver went.
In tsavo we really had it and I contacted Silas through Whatsapp. He said sorry to hear and he would talk to Isaiah soon. Our last day was a little better, although we did not see much game.
I did not get any response from Silas after this. We really feel it was a very poor trip thanks to isaiah. I did 22 trips in Africa before, but I never experienced such a terrible guide.
Our trip could have been much better
IT
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Not safe
Amboseli was good with a lot of Animals, but tswo East e west are not good. 2 days driving and we saw few or not Animals.
On the beach, beachboys are so boring and you can't live your Sea experience in peace. I cant suggest Kenya Just for this reason. Sea and beach are Maldive level for me
SG
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Glorified accomodation booking service
The booking process with Spirit of Kenya started positive. However when trying to get more detailed information on the accomodation booked, itinerary specific etc things started to get less impressive. I never managed to get booking details from our Tanzania accomodation from the operator. So we tried to get this info from the accomodation. However without the booking confirmation code ( which Spirit never provided) they could not helps us either. So it became a guessing game in what kind of room, which what inclusions we would stay. Worst part was that Spirit seriously understated all travel times. As I read in a few other recent reviews. This seems to be serial. A quoted 1.5 hrs drive would be 3 hours. And a 6 hour drive became a 11.5 hrs on the road!!!! On top of this they forgot to book Serengeti entry tickets. Causing a 90 minute wait at the gate while our guide was trying to sort this out.
In regards advise on what parts of the parks were good or not to stay in we received absolutely no recommendations leading to very long drives from accomodation to known hot spots for animals.
US
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Tour Vehicle Unacceptable
My wife and I arranged our honeymoon through Gosheni Safaris. I had developed the plan for our honeymoon in advance and contacted Gosheni simply to make the arrangements for us for a custom safari. They made reservations for the accommodations per my instructions and everything was fine from that side of things. Our guides were also very good at their jobs and we appreciated their insight and expertise. However, when it came to the vehicle that was assigned to us for our safari, it was far from acceptable. These are a list of issues with the vehicle in which we spent 7-12 hours a day:
no functioning air conditioning
no functioning outlets
broken cooler
musty/moldy smell
rusty and broken seat belts
huge cracks in windshield
broken shock/spring day 3
broken interior handle
exposed broken wires
broken strap for pop up roof
dirty ripped slipcovers
Gosheni claims that its vehicles are new and well maintained. Our vehicle was neither. The odometer on our vehicle read 99242km, and obviously the vehicle was not well maintained due to the issues listed. I will note that every other Gosheni vehicle we saw appeared to be in much better condition, so why we were assigned this vehicle during the low season is beyond me.
I contacted to Gosheni about the vehicle just a couple of days into our safari. They responding continuing to claim that the vehicle was new. I pushed back and asked that we be flown back from Serengeti to Manyara, rather than having to ride in this vehicle for an entire day. Gosheni did arrange this flight for us and paid for it, and the vehicle that met us in Manyara was indeed new and well maintained. However, spending several days of our honeymoon in the vehicle provided was simply unacceptable and not what we expected or paid for when we booked with Gosheni. If you decide to book with Gosheni, please inspect your vehicle before you head off on safari. But, I would suggest you look elsewhere for your safari needs.
As a side note, I should inform everyone that Gosheni pushes guests to pay $20 per day as a standard tip for guides. This is not in line with the other safari organizers in the region, which recommend around $10 per day. Please Google this yourself and do not get bamboozled by Gosheni.
US
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Possibly poor computer security
We contacted Jocky Tours for a quote. They responded and we started communicating with them through the email address on their website [email protected]. All communication was to / from this email. We sent payment as requested. When we got to Nairobi, they had no record of the emails or the payment. We suspect their email was hacked and our communications were being directed to a fraudulent third party. We have opened a fraud investigation on our side but caution anyone to be careful doing business with them.
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Not as informed and lack of communication
Before I paid a deposit I specifically checked through email communication if the safari would be in the order I saw on the safari booking website, i.e., day 1 Lake Naivasha, day 2 Lake Nakuru and days 3-4 at Masai Mara. This was so we would get as close to 2 full days at Masai Mara as possible as I was aware the trip would involve a lot of travelling. I was assured by the agent I communicated with by email it would be in this order.
On day 1 of the tour, when I was picked up, it wasn't until we were almost there and I asked before I was told we were headed to Masai Mara. In the end most of day 1 was spent travelling to Masai Mara and we only spent 2.5 hours on the safari. The very thing I was trying to avoid with my questions! Day 2 was a full day at Masai Mara. To add, the Lodger we stayed at, Jambo Mara, I really liked.
Day 3 was Lake Nakuru (which in the itinerary I was given we were supposed to go to on day 2). The accommodation, the Waterbuck Hotel is not great. Good breakfast but very rundown rooms with too much noise from outside so it's hard to sleep. Plus no fan or air conditioning.
Day 4 was Lake Naivasha and Hell's Gate, which was supposed to be on day 1. The accommodation, Masada hotel, was better than Waterbuck, bit still not very good and bathroom was quite smelly and mine toilet didn't have a toilet seat.
What I liked about the safari:
1. I enjoyed the actual safari itself and seeing all the animals.
2. I liked Jambo Mara Safari Lodge.
What I didnt like:
1. Not correctly informed about the itinerary of the trip, even though I asked.
2. I did a shared safari and everyone was given a different itinerary (i.e., each person was given a different order and some were told we would do a pre-breakfast drive at Masai Mara, which we didnt do). We were all on the safari for a different amount of days so I think the issue was they were trying to accommodate everyone's different schedules. This should have been explained when I asked.
3. The tour guide didn't explain from day to day where we were going and what we would be doing and seemed annoyed when we would ask for information. We were all quite confused from day to day and were never sure what we would be doing.