50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Fantastic Gorilla trecking experience
I highly recommend using safari bookings if interested in going Gorilla trekking. We were a group of 4 ladies doing a 6 day trip in Uganda. Justus was extremely professional and helpful with our bookings. And our tour guide Ben was fantastic. What a wonderful team this trip was everything we expected plus more.
CA
65+ years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
best tour safari in tanzania
Very good and honest communication.no promises only fact and precision. Good vehicule Fantastic itinery.
2nd time with them and planning a return with my grandchildren next summer
US
Complicated Trip Made Easy!
My wife and I had the pleasure of working with Darren and Compass Odyssey to plan an 18 day trip to South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Botswana. We had an ambitious itinerary that included many different flights, hotels/lodges, excursions, and border crossings. Compass Odyssey made our complicated itinerary a breeze through a combination of excellent communication, customer service, and flexibility. Darren was an absolute pleasure to work with and I’d highly recommend Compass Odyssey to anyone looking to plan a South African vacation.
We provided Compass Odyssey with a rough outline of our goals for the trip, including the budget, dates, locations, and attractions we wanted to see. With only that minimal information, Darren was able to develop an itinerary that included top notch lodging, all relevant transfers between locations, and access to all of the highlights we wanted to see. He was even able to incorporate a safari package that we purchased from a charity auction into the overall itinerary. Darren’s insight was incredibly helpful in navigating across the various countries, including timing of flights/vans as well as crossing the borders. This would have been a stressful trip to plan on our own, but Compass Odyssey made it seem easy.
There were no surprises once we arrived. All of the lodging was exactly how it was described to us and all of the transfers ran smoothly to/from the airport and between lodges. From the drivers to the tour guides, everyone we met that was affiliated with Compass Odyssey was helpful and pleasant. International travel can be difficult, especially traveling to a new country for the first time. Using Compass Odyssey to plan our vacation was a great idea and helped make the experience a memorable one.
US
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Awesome!
It was a awesome trip! Joshua came to pickup us ontime and gave us 3 boxes of water for 4 days trip:) Our tour guy name "James" were super well organized and nice, always answer all the questions that we had and try very hard to drive us around to find the big 5! Overall, everything is great and definitely recommend! Thank you:)
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Awe inspiring, amazing and wonderful memories to last forever
Email correspondence was fast and accurate whilst booking a tailor made safari for clients with a fairly specific criteria (and travelling and meeting up from UK / Australia) - massive thanks to Nick and his team.
We were really fortunate to have Kit as our guide - he was so knowledgable about the wildlife and knew exactly where to find them, very organised and checking us into lodges, and even took us to his local once we were all back in Windhoek! Friendship and memories made from the most amazing two weeks! Can't wait for my next trip to Namibia - a geologically rugged and stunningly varied country.
DE
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Avoid this guy!!!
Attention, be very careful with Faustin!!! I can't recommend this tour operator at all!!! We have never experienced such a disaster before. The tour was a nightmare!!! The organisation was terrible.
The driver left us in Mikumi at the Hotel, on the last day returning back and disappeared into thin air!!! Faustin and driver would not pick up the phone since then! We were left alone and had to go back by ourselves to dar!!!!!!!! Luckily it was not our day of the departure, else we would have missed the flight back home!
We reported this incident to the Police and the Tanzania Tour Association as well as the National Park Administration!
But let me tell you the whole story...
...My girlfriend and I, booked a 5-day Mikumi and Selous private tour. Faustin was recommended by friends, who made a 9day luxury safari. Faustin and his driver John picked us up with the car ready to start the tour. Once we paid him the full amount cash (by the way we never received a bill) he left the car telling us that he is not going to join the tour with us. If we knew before, we would have canceled.
Alone with the driver we soon realized, that John wasn't speaking English at all. Luckily my girlfriend is from Kenia and speaks Swahili. Even though John was not talking to us, he was just driving like a robot. No conversation, no stories, no jokes, no social interaction. In fact, he was texting all the time and even stopped to handle some private business while we were waiting for him in the car. Being scared of getting a fine he drove 40km/h although the speed limit is 50km/h. Can you imagine how long a 5-day-trip can get with someone like that!
John was just the driver, he had no clue about the daily planned program. He asked us, what to do next, instead vice versa. We had to coordinate the trip with the local guides ourselves, who were also shocked with Johns behavior. He littered in the national park. In the national park, during safari he jumped many times out of the car while talking on the phone, although advice differently by the guides as it is forbitten by the rangers. He scared away animals and spoiled pictures. He had no patience and was bored quickly. At some point, after a long wait, trying to get a good pic, he decided to drive off. At this point I lost my calm and had an argument with him. Because he didn’t understand English, he thought we insulted him.
A regular (taxi) driver with no safari experience would have done the job with more passion and care.
We booked a regular tour, but Faustin delivered less than promised. He cut our program short. He is profit oriented but delivers a really bad service and showed a very unprofessional behavior!!!!!!
During the whole tour, he never got in direct contact with us, although we expressed some concerns. Maybe he will do that now, through this platform. I'm curious to see his response.
After the driver dumped us in Mikumi, locals told us, that Faustin is known for this tricky behavior. He owes local guides/drivers money. He doesn't pay them their full salary.
If you are thinking of doing a safari-tour check the safaribookings.com for the best rated company. I strictly advise you not to ignore my review.
SG
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Honest, fulfilling, courteous and very client friendly.....
Everything was top notch and upto expectations.....
US
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Once in a life time experience!!!!
Where do I start?!?! Soul of Tanzania team was extremely patient and resourceful in helping us plan our route, they booked all our stays, provided all transportation, booked our balloon safari, and even our domestic flights to/from Zanzibar! The only thing we had to do was book our international flight, that was it! Once we stepped foot in Kilimanjaro everything was handled and we never had to worry about a thing. We initially began planning our safari with Soul ~ 1yr before arrival and interacted with about every staff member and experienced the same high standard of customer service across the board.
Our guide Ben was simply outstanding to say the least! He was very knowledgeable and extremely passionate about the wildlife. It was 5 of us friends traveling together and because Ben had such a great sense of humor and personality, that as days progressed he became a friend and not just our tour guide, it felt like 6 friends on vacation now not 5. Our only regret is not spending more time on safari. Oh, and if you’re a coffee lover Ben makes the BEST coffee in Tanzania! Thank you, Ben and the team, at Soul of Tanzania for all the wonderful memories!!!
NL
65+ years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
A very well, wonderful, advised, organized and skillfully executed safari trip in all its senses.
This trip exceeded all our our previous experiences, and these where already quite unique. It was a wonderful safari trip, in all aspects, organization, accommodations, setup and schedule of the safari from start to end Tarangire, Lake Manyara, Ngorongoro, Serengeti Central and Serengeti North. Including the various Camps, Lodges and under canvas accommodations, not one word of comments or complains should be justified.
Even the animals did there utmost best to make this trip one not to forget, of course in that aspect no one can do without a lot of luck or certain circumstances. However even with luck you need a very experienced and skillful guide with a lot of animal behavior knowledge and patience to make it a good combination.
Of course there is a difference in the parks and animal life, however the combination advised and chosen was for us a lifetime experience. Every day there a surprise or a moment of astonishment in one or another way created by nature and animals from small to big ones or groups.
Makasa Management and their Staff made their promises and our expectations to become a daily reality for us during our two weeks Safari. Animal Planets in reality .
US
65+ years of age | Experience level: first safari
Perfect planning and options fully responsive to our price range and the experience we wanted
Every aspect was superbly planned and executed. Matthew was incredibly responsive throughout the whole process. He proposed lodges that would provide exactly the experience we wanted. He answered questions almost before I even asked them. Our pickups and transportation were excellent, right on time and really pleasant. We stayed at Cheetah Plains Lodge and Camp Shawu. Both places were excellent. The guides were knowledgeable, personable and delightful to get to know. The staff at both locations were gracious and very responsive to our needs and preferences . It was an amazing experience, from start to finish. I can’t recommend African Safari Guru highly enough! Fantastic all around