US
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Choose ANY other company!
The guide Simon is a tourist who moved to South Africa to do tours and it shows in his arrogant, opinionated, disrespect of the South African people (he made fun of the way they talk), disrespect of the animals (he was gleeful at the thought of witnessing a kill in stark contrast to how the local guides respectfully handled the same situation and he even defended poaching saying "poachers are just people trying to feed their families") and his disrespectful comments about americans which he repeatedly made. Kruger National Park was amazing, the South African people were wonderful-- do the tour, just do it with ANY company but this one!
US
Don't Use David Kiango!
David Daud Kaingo, you asked me to write you a review……here it is!
I have been waiting 2 months (2 credit card billing cycles), to write this review. I will not mince my words, just, DO NOT USE this crook. David (Daud) Kiango has no intention of helping you to book a hassle free trip. To make a long story short, he quoted me a rate, including lodging in 2 different locations, and private charter flights between locations…..and in the end, I was made to pay twice more, above the quoted rate. He was cordial and prompt at first, while initiating discussion, trip planning and rates. But, once I paid for the trip, communication was pretty much non-existent. He urged me to pay via bank transfer, but, for my security, I opted to pay the higher fees in order to have the insurance backing of my credit card company. I was later to learn, that was a very good investment on my part!
I was planning this trip, only one month before our travel date. Normally, I book all travel by myself. But, with time constraints and little knowledge of travel in Tanzania, I decided that I should use the assistance of an agent. My bad, and so unusual for me, I did not research well. There are only a few reviews of this David Kiango, a couple good, a couple minorly bad. I want to change that, along with a more recent review that was posted just before mine. Just move on, do not consider using him!
After a few days of correspondence, I booked and paid for our trip, on 11/10/16, for a trip to take place on 12/15/16. After I paid, I heard very little from David Kiango. He strung me along, saying he was waiting for my payment to be processed. That I should be patient. That funds would be disbursed for hotels and flights, and then he would send me vouchers. I sent many emails, asking for confirmation and trip vouchers. Finally, I heard from him 5 days before we were to embark upon our vacation. It was not the email I was expecting to see….. He said that the flight charter company changed their rates, and I would have to pay more. Not just a little more, but, A LOT more. 5 days before our trip, what was I supposed to do?! I paid again, with the knowledge that I would have to contact my CC company after the trip, in attempt to get my money back. Incredibly, though, this is not the end!
I contacted both of the lodges before our departure. Our safari lodge, the first stop, assured us that they were indeed expecting us, and incidentally, Kiango, just days earlier asked them to book our flights. WHAT?! Well, ok, they assured me everything would be ok. I never again contacted Kiango regarding logistics of the trip. We were picked up by an agent of the hotel, brought to our charter flight, and off to our Safari lodge. Everything was great…… until our last night at the lodge. Apologetically, the manager approached us and told us that Kiango still had not disbursed the balance of funds for our charter flights! The hotel had tried to resolve the situation quietly, while we were there, but, to no avail. You have got to be kidding me!!! ……we had to pay yet again.
What more can I say. Do not take the risk, do not use this crook, also known as:
David Daud Kiango
Kaingo Adventure Safaris
Tanzania Safaris
Zanzibar Travel Holidays Online Shop
ZanzibarMagic
Botanic Country Resort
Made In Tanzania Safaris
DaudKiango.com
I am lucky, I came home from our trip (which actually turned out to be great, despite paying 3 times for our flights), disputed the flight payments made to Kiango, with my CC company, and got that money back. Just trying to save you all from the hassles……don’t use him!
65+ years of age
Trek to Kilimanjaro;change of plans; poor decisions;no real interest in clients;unsatisfactory; bad
Not what expected; "ladies group"? I was told on the day "just you" but luckily one more lady otherwise me at 75 and 7 or 8 local men. Route changed for doubtful reason . Staying at Kibo Hut for 2 cold nights a bad decision. No breakfast and a few dry biscuits, peanuts after a 5 hour climb, starting at 5am. Should have been 4 am but guides overslept. Could have reached final summit easily with a good group. Physically fit, no altitude problems just terribly hungry. I am quite small. A fuss at the hotel over security of items left "in Storage". A plan to drive 2 more hours was changed by me. Trauma in Arusha when Tony attacked a man.
RU
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Terribly
Cheating at every step. 1 liter of water for two persons for 4 days safari!!!! Calls Eric did not help. We had to buy in the budget camp. In the car was 9 persons instead of 6. 9 !!! The car is very very old and dirty. We did not see a leopard, the driver did not stop when we passed monkeys and other animals. view time was on his way. The food was just disgusting. Pancakes and beans. National park covered with roads, animals, even pity.
In Nakuru are pile of garbage along the lake. It's shame for the National Park.
There is no transfer back to the airport. Avoid this operator.
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Awful experience, use this company at your peril.
I was on the same tour as Eric, so there is little I can add, simply reinforce the truth of what Eric has written. I have never had such a stressful holiday in my life...
I have never been in the position before where I felt it was necessary to contact my Embassy (Irish). Frances, from the Embassy was very helpful; sourcing flight information - the day before we were due to leave Uganda – as Clement had not sent us any details. We did not receive flight confirmation info from Clement until 00:30 the day of our flight. This added additional stress to an already very stressful trip. Sunrise Eco Tours is an extremely badly organised company with an owner, Clement Kanamugire, who has no qualms about lying to his customers, and taking their money under false pretences. Various members of our group spoke to him on the phone during the trip (this is why we are sure of the lies), and he took our money and didn’t book activities, chimpanzee trek in Uganda, rhino sanctuary visit, failure to pay hotel bills. He did ofer compensation on our return home (nearly two months ago), to date, this has not arrived.
20-35 years of age
Disappointing, Scary and terrible service
I did a very disappointing 6 day trekking trip with Kapolondo. I was told i would be trekking Rongai route and will be doing camping at nights. But after landing in Tanzania, Tony the owner of the tour tells me that route is changed its marangu and no camping we will be staying in huts. I was shocked! After arranging everything and paying money upfront, they changed the plans without even consulting me. He also asked for a 250 dollar for porter tips when i confronted that since we are using tents and not camping he said i am mistaken and he meant 250,000 shillings.
The guide failed to wake up on the day of the summit and didnt give us any food when we started. We have good reason in believing that he was drunk most of the time. On reaching back, my climbing partner had to witness Tony beating and punching a guide who was just talking to her.
Couple of other people like our assistant guide david and another guide Mike was who assisted us with airport transfer and Arusha town sightseeing was really good. But on the whole the trip was just disappointing.
BE
50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Authentic Rip-off
I was promised 3 days of Walking Safari with "Camping in Comfort" in Ruaha N.Park. These "experts" didn't know that standard procedure this time of year is to close all walking trails due to high grass - so no walking. As for comfort - I had more in the army; of course the location was great and so on - it is Ruaha after all, no credit to Authentic. Food was barely OK, portions miserly. Equipment shoddy, badly maintained. You would do a lot better going fly-camping with a local company for a fraction of the price.
Bottom line : these guys are only after money, a disgrace to the safari business
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Very suspicious
We did not travel in the end with Visit Tanzania Tours & Safaris but would like to share our experience of the booking process with them. We have been left very disappointed and frustrated after many weeks of correspondence with this operator but fortunately did not put down a deposit due to suspicions we had with regard to the way they did business.
*Having confirmed an itinerary and price with Visit Tanzania we were asked to pay a deposit. The operator confirmed reservations had been made and would be held for seven days.
*I called the accommodation and found out however there were no reservations for us.
*Visit Tanzania said that their agent in South Africa agent was working on this.
*I called the SA agent and they confirmed they had not yet made reservations!
*A week or so later Visit Tanzania confirmed the reservations had now been made and the total price.
*I questioned the total price on several occasions as it seemed too good to be true – Visit Tanzania simply said it was due to the discounts they can get with the suppliers. The price was included on several emails along with inclusions/exclusions so seemed very clear.
*Due to the previous "confusion" I confirmed with the agent in SA that reservations were in place and they told us they were.
*We returned to Visit Tanzania to pay the deposit (we were asked for 30% upfront which is not unusual). I asked what contract there was between us and for confirmation of their T&Cs as we only had email correspondence to confirm the price etc.
*Visit Tanzania sent me a very short booking form on my request (this asked for passenger details only).
*By this point, discomfort and suspicions had grown so I asked the agent in SA if we could deal directly with them.
*At this point the price Visit Tanzania had quoted was investigated - it transpired that Visit Tanzania had “forgotten” to include all items of the booking and the actual price was over double that quoted.
I do not see how an experienced operator could misquote so significantly and I find it vey negligent that the deposit was requested before reservations were in place. We are lucky we did not pay the deposit as who knows how difficult it would be to get this back (we are not proceeding with either Visit Tanzania or the agent in SA as have found a more competitive offer with a reputable operator in SA).
CA
50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Beware - Unilateral changes in Itinerary, last minute flight changes, hotels not reserved
We booked a 10 day safari to Kenya and Tanzania followed by 4 days in Zanzibar. We were a group of four. Upon arrival, we were picked up at the airport and transported to our hotel, only to find out there was no reservation for us and the hotel was full. This required us to move to another hotel (much inferior in quality). The next morning, a representative of Africa Remote met us and indicated that the payments we had made one month earlier were still being held by their credit card agency and we would have to pay for the night's hotel plus US $160 (cash) for that day's entrance into Nakuru Nat'l Park - but that they would refund the money to our credit card. This they did but because we are not American, we do not travel with a lot of U.S. cash. We were told the money we paid should soon be available and everything would be O.K. Not so. When traveling from the Masai Mara to Amboseli Nat'l Park, we passed through Nairobi and were told the same representative needed to see us again. This time, were told we were required to pay the entrance fees into Amboseli - another $160 cash. Our U.S. cash reserves were getting very low at this time. We were assured everything would be O.K. once we crossed into Tanzania. The next day when we met our Tanzanian, guide we asked if all fees were paid. His response was that we were to pay the entrance fees for the parks. It took him over an hour to clarify our situation with the Nairobi office, but still we had to pay the entrance fee to Tarangire Nat'l Park. All these fees were eventually refunded. This is when things really started to go wrong. On our drive from Tarangire to Ndutu Tented Camp, our guide received a text message from the office that advised him to stop early at a 1 star (at best) roadside hotel until he could complete some necessary banking the next day. In other words, our accommodation at Ndutu had not been reserved or paid for. We wasted half a day at this hotel with absolutely nothing to see or do. The next day, we set off again and had to wait over 2 hours while our guide completed the banking. This resulted in a very late drive over some questionable tracks after the sun had set. To say it was nerve racking is an understatement. On our way out of Ndutu, it was obvious that no accommodation had been booked for the night. We had paid in advance to stay at the Rhino Lodge but ended up in the Bouganvillea Lodge (very pleasant, but cheaper) after our guide had a heated exchange with his office. What a surprise in the morning when we found out we had to pay for the night at the hotel ($186). That day was our flight to Zanzibar, which, at the request of Africa Remote, we had paid $280 each in May of 2015 - we were told it was necessary to pay early because the flights sell out. We had asked for the flight itinerary and when we passed through Nairobi were told that we were flying Precision Air at 1:15 from Arusha's domestic airport. At 9:00 a.m. we finally got our flight itinerary. We were now flying Fast Jet at 12:30 from Kilimanjero airport - over 2 1/2 hours driving away. They had booked us at the last minute on a Low Cost carrier (the tickets cost them less than $124 each -in other words, they made a lot of money). Our driver drove at breakneck speed to get us to the airport. We made it to the check in counter with less than 2 minutes to spare. Then we found out our flight not only had a 6 hour layover in Dar es Salaam, but we were charged luggage fees for each flight segment (another $ 70). Upon arrival late in the evening in Zanzibar, there was no one to meet us as had been promised. We made our way by taxi to the hotel listed on our itinerary (Pongwe Beach Hotel) only to find, once again, that no reservation had been made. Fortunately, the manager was very accommodating, had room for us and said he would work everything out the next day. He got an e-mail in the morning telling him to expect our arrival and "customer to pay". In other words, they had not paid for this hotel either. The manager tried to contact Africa Remote by e-mail and phone but had no luck. We ended up paying for this hotel for the three nights we stayed ($600). Pongwe Beach Hotel is a gem! Pongwe Beach even arranged our transfer and stay at our next destination in Stone Town. Africa Remote ended up owing us a considerable amount of money. It took them almost a month to process a refund. We are lucky because we had the resources to weather this situation. It might not be so for other travelers. Even though the two guides we had were excellent (Simon in Kenya and Hamza in Tanzania) the front office ruined this experience. We wasted time in hotels, while they were banking and sitting in an airport departure lounge. They caused us far more stress than any other trip that I have taken - and I have traveled to over 90 countries. I would never recommend this company!
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Avoid at all costs this safari company if you do not want to be hassled by the owner Richard Papa
We booked a 5 days and 4 nights safari Tarangire/Serengeti/Ngorongoro camping safari with World Tours & Safaris from Arusha to Mwanza. We needed to be picked up in Arusha and dropped off in Mwanza as we had plans to visit Lake Victoria. We contacted Richard Papa who was responsive but a bit short in his anwers. We didn’t think of it as it’s so easy to misinterpret the tone of someone by email so we decided to go with the company.
We were quoted for this private safari (as apparently no one wants to be dropped in Mwanza so it had to be a private one) my friend and I respectively $1000 and $920 (my husband was not traveling with us). I am a resident in Dar es Salaam and Tanzanian national parks charge residents slighty less than tourists this is why I was offered a $80 discount on the whole amount providing I could prove my residency in the country. If I failed to do so, Richard told me I would have to pay the difference at the gate which was fine with me since I had all documents in order.
We paid for the full safari by bank transfers, twice, the first time for the 40% deposit and the second time the remaining 60%. Richard told us we could only pay the remaining of the sum in cash with US dollars if paid on the first day of the safari. Since I live in Dar with my husband, we do not have US dollars so we did the second bank transfer to avoid any hassle.
The safari went well, we left the day after a night in Arusha Precious Inn, a very basic hotel but conveniently located a block behind the company’s office. Stanley, our guide and Gadi our chef, were good and professional. They made the best with what they had, which wasn’t so easy considering that the car was quite old and used (515 0000 km at the counter) and that their equipments were quite basic (for e.g after reading reviews on this website we decided to take our own sleeping bags). We enjoyed the 4 days trip even if the last day didn’t go as planned. We were indeed meant to go through the Serengenti again but we did not and drove straight back to Mwanza after reaching the last Serengeti gate. Still, we were quite happy with the trip and gave each of them (Stanley and Gadi) a nice tip once at our hotel in Mwanza. As previously explained, before entering each park I had to give Stanley my passport and visa exemption certificate (residency permit) so he could go and pay the entrance fees. I always asked him whether he needed them and except for Ngorongoro crater where he told me he didn’t have to show the documents.
Once the safari finished, this is when the problems started with Richard. We were eating our lunch in Mwanza when Gadi the chef came back to us saying that we needed to pay more. When I asked him to explain why, he told me that I needed to speak to Richard. I took the phone and then Richard literally started yelling at me telling me that this was the deal : I needed to pay $45 more for the Ngorongoro crater since I did not present my documents. He then told me that $45 was missing from his account (Stanley was apparently given pre-paid credit cards to pay the entrance fees) and that I should know where the money went. I told him that I was not one of his employees, that I did not know what happened with his credit cards and that so far only guides enter the park’s office to pay entrance fees. I do not even know what’s the entrance fee for each park since we always pick organised safaris. As a passenger you either stay in the car or go to the bathroom until the guide comes back and tells you to go back into the car. Richard said I did not present my documents so Stanley paid the fee for a tourist. I told him that when I asked Stanley before and he replied to me that for Ngorongoro there was no need for such document. As soon as I told this to Richard he started shouting : ‘Then Stanley lied to me, pass me Stanley now I will take the money off his wages….’ and hung up on me. Now I have been living long enough in Tanzania to know that $45 is a lot of money for a local. Stanley also explained to me that the mistake was coming from Richard for another reason that I did not get. I felt bad and Richard kept texting me saying I needed to pay or Stanley would have to (which felt like emotional blackmail to be honest) – I had done nothing wrong however unless I paid up then Stanley, who had been very professional the whole trip, would be forced to pay $45 - a lot of money for him. Stanley literally told me that if he had to pay the money the next safari he drove would essentially be done for free. Therefore I paid $45 on top of the $920 already paid not knowing whose mistake it was, Richard or Stanley. I thought that I could retrieve the money after speaking calmly to Richard since he was just shouting on the phone but I couldnt get a calm conversation out of him.
When I spoke again to Richard and told him that it seemed quite unfair I had to pay an extra $45 for the Ngorongoro crater since I could prove my residency in the country (which I did for Tarengire and Serengeti) and that this would affect my review of this trip (I was quite annoyed by this point, I did not like him shouting at me or at his staff on the phone) he wrote me back an sms (I quote) : ‘ I will reply to your review as you wish to write and give all breakdown to the World since you said you have permit. GOD will judge. Thanks’.
Our following exchanges were quite a roller coaster of emotions from Richard since it seems my possible review of the company was really annoying him. He successively threatened me to expose that we were staying illegally in the country (we have been living in Dar for 7 months, my husband works for an European NGO), then told me (I quote) : ‘I know you are a very good girl. You will not put us in trouble’ (I’m 30 by the way), then wrote ‘I am not sure why you want even my family and other staff to miss daily bread…’ (it’s not like we do safaris in order to write bad reviews) and then also accused us not have done the right bank transfers (which was very silly since we have evidence of our bank transfers and knew they had gone through correctly) and that we had cheated him.
Additionally, Richard constantly blamed his employee Stanley when he realized I was having none of this and wrote (I quote) : ‘Stanley is putting me and you in trouble…’ One of Richard’s email’s object is literally called ‘Stanley’ and is just a succession of accusations against poor Stanley.
When I last told Richard I could not accept the refund coming from Stanley’s salary (because to me it wasn’t clear whether he or Stanley did the mistake and also because it will result on an unfair burden on Stanley) he told me I should have reminded Stanley of the residency (which I did but also I do not work for the safari company so that should not have been my responsibility). And then the last email coming from Richard states (I’m just copying and pasting it because it is too good to be true) : ‘I will attache the same letter and the permit and my lawyer will write a letter to your Embassy, with copy to Ministry of Natural Resource, and another copy to Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority to show them the way you want to mistreat us.They will judge who has problem between me and you. We made a deal and nothing went wrong to my agreement between me and you. All arrangements was in order’.
I told Richard he was a dishonest person who’s been seemingly treated harshly his hardworking staff. Also, an important point, I did not understand his calculation : as a resident I had to pay $920 and my friend (a tourist) $1000.Since according to Richard I did not show my documents in Ngorongoro I had to pay another $45 on top of the $920 which makes it $965. Stanley told me that if I did not have the paper as well in Serengeti I would have had to pay another $45. Which amounts to $1010. Which makes it $10 more than the fee for a tourist and this not even taking into account if I had to pay an extra for Tarengire. When I asked Richard to explain how I would have had to pay more than my friend despite getting a residency discount (which does exist for national parks) if I had to pay the difference at each gate, he did not bother answering.
In a nutshell : I’m just baffled by the whole experience with Richard and his company World Tours & Safaris. Richard Papa strikes me as a very dishonest man and not a very professional one, not treating his staff nicely or even his customers. I would strongly recommend any potential customer to stay away from this company and to go with another safari company because you do not want to experience what we experienced. Besides, there are a lot of other safari companies out there that do provide the same service and the same trip without the hassle we went through.