BR
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Unorganized
Well, we made a safari tour from 22 of august to 24 of August of 2023
And our experience was not that great !
I was traveling with my wife, and Amos the contact of us, since the beginning was very impatient and changed a lot of things.
First of all, it was planned to stay in a particular hotel mid range, and we book 4 months in advance.
And 3 days before we arrive they changed our hotel because told that hotel was full!!!
Very unorganized the company!!
Besides that it’s was arranged that we were going to pay by transfer, and Amos again changed what he had combined and told 1 day before that we had to pay in cash…
After all they told a 3rd different hotel to the guide and we were driven to the wrong place after the first safari !!
The second day the same thing happened and the hotel was told that we were going to stay just one night there ! What was not arranged !
The guide was great ( boni) but I don’t recommend this company because the assistance is very bad !!
DE
50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Messing up accomodations
Best experience of our safari was with our guide Isaac. He is a safe driver, very good game spotter and a lovely fellow. Asante sana to him.
With the accomodations Kate was supposed to organize we were not so lucky and happy.
We did the 7 day's safari with drop off at kenyan coast.
About 8 months prior we agreed with her on an itinerary that was finally matching the offer on safaribookings.com in terms of accomodations.
We paid her the deposit of 25% to make all the reservations.
When we arrived in Nairobi we've found out that there were just reservations made for the first 3 night's!
The rest of the hotels such as Sentrim Amboseli, Ngulia Lodge and Voi were not booked for us but completely full at that time in high season.
Kate is a very emotional person and was very pissed that we've found out about that prior.
We belived her to get us the acomodations of our intinerary as she promissed once again. So we paid the 75% balance of the tour in cash on the day we started, just as agreed prior.
We started without knowing where we would stay the other night's. For most of them she found somehow comparable stay's.
Except for one night. We had to stay in a
lowest budget sh*ty zero star place called "Kilimanjaro Cottages Amboseli" https://www.google.com/travel/hotels/s/3yQTuqmxLhfF4mkE8
instead of the exclusive Sentrim Amboseli Lodge, https://sentrim-amboseli-lodge.hotel-mix.de/
We requested a refund of 150$ for that.
She did not refund for that!
We didn't tip for that.
We told her to give the refund straight to the driver, so everyone is happy again.
She didn't.
We can not recommend to book through her.
DE
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Bad driver did not deliver tour itinerary.
Maybe this experience is idiosyncratic, but our driver was not delivering the booked tour itinerary.
We booked a 3 days Amboseli safari, with a morning game drive on the last day.
The driver refused to deliver the morning game drive even though it was clearly on the itinerary. He also got aggressive ans insulting when we brought up the topic. My conjecture is that the driver wanted to pocket in the entrance fee for the park.
Further, on the way back, driver did not pay toll for expressway in Nairobi, letting us stand in traffic jam for 2 hours and unnecessarily prolonging the journey.
Also the convenience fee they charge on online payments is unreasonable.
Otherwise the service was okay but for the price I would expect differently.
Stay away from this provider.
DE
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Good guide but contracts not honored
I booked a tour (2 days Safari Maasai Mara). Did the 50% prepayment.
One day the company owner contacted me telling me that park fees got raised and that he wants me to top up my fee about another 80USD per person.
I told him out of generiosity, that I can take over 50% of the increased fees, because thats his business risk and not mine (and package+price was already negotioated).
He declined and didnt even try to find a good solution here, just wanted me to take the whole fee. As client paying hundreds of Dollars for that tour already, that behaviour just felt really wrong and "greedy".
So just wanted to warn you that if you book with that agency, you might end up paying for additional stuff that was not negotiated (maybe he will also charge you for inceased gas prices, who knows.)
Tour itself was good. We had a great guide. Just be careful with your prepayment. Cheers
MY
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Review about Lake Manyara National Park by Vanee Sivasamy
It was very hard to see any wildlife with so many trees and the lake had also caused damage to some of the forest area.
50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Unreliable
After reading the majority of positive reviews about Wildebeest Safari's, I decided to book a three day safari to Masai Mara with them. Two years ago I went on a combined Kenya&Tanzania, and having had a very positive experience on the Tanzanian side and not a great one on the Kenyan side, decided to try again.
Warning bells sounded when noah tried to charge me extra for an airport pick up and drop off, when pointed out the ad on safari bookings stated it was included, he relented and said it would be complimentary.
I was aware of the group joining tour strategy, ie various tour operators book guests that get put in a pool and divided on the morning of travel to various vehicles. I was allocated to a vehicle driven by josh.Josh, although new at the job( 2 months ) was lovely, professional and very helpful in what was a difficult situation regarding accommodation. I had previously stayed at a budget camp and requested an upgrade to a mid range lodge ( Simba and Oryx) with an amount agreed on. At lunch, it was apparent this wasn't communicated. Josh called Noah, who I believed confirmed the booking.The first evening,I was dropped off there .Sadly it became apparent no booking arrangement was made. They could not make a last minute booking either as they had full occupancy. Josh had to drive back and pick me up at 8pm. He managed to make a last minute arrangement at a camp that hadn't even been discussed as a budget option.Josh attempted calling Noah repeatedly with no response(he later stated he was in Tanzania). Sadly a night without hot water after a long drive was not fun
The following night , the manager of Simba and Oryx, James, also got involved. He contacted Noah to pay the fee for the one remaining night( this was more than Noah had quoted and i believe why the booking hadn't been procured- i paid the amount quoted).
The vehicle unfortunately developed problem with the steering wheel ( rotated 180 degrees) which necessitated being transferred to a taxi in the CBD to take me to the airport.
This review is about Wildebeest safaris. Josh, James, Simba & Oryx and the Masai Mara were all wonderful.
US
65+ years of age | Experience level: first safari
Review about Lake Manyara National Park by Bob Lyle
I would skip Lake Manyara and spend your time elsewhere.
US
It felt like an ad hoc freelance organization, thrown together from far away, without care.
The up front communication was relatively professional, but as soon as the trip started so did the problems. We sat in our hotel lobby in Moshi at 7am waiting for the pick up. We were the only guests in the lobby, but the driver was sitting in his van outside, instead of looking for us. The van had no markings to indicate it was from Soul of Tanzania. After about a half hour, he finally came inside and found us, and we were transferred to a safari truck in Arusha, again with no company markings. It seemed to be freelance, arranged ad hoc, and the results felt the same. Our contact at SoT, Jose, when he finally replied later that morning about our pickup issues, wasn't even apologetic. "I was informed by my operations team about the misunderstanding and I am glad that everything was sorted out."
In the truck, when we started seeing animals and asked for the binoculars that were included in our tour, we were told they were broken. Luckily we had brought one not very good pair from home, and had those to share between us. The driver found a pair at the camp that night.
Our driver drove slow on the public roads, when other trucks were all passing us (not a great feeling after a late start thanks to the pickup "misunderstanding"). On the other hand, he flew on the park roads, shaking the truck apart, with thick layers of dust coming in his open windows. We had to ask him to stop when we saw animals. On the first day we noticed that each time we asked him to stop, he would take out his phone and be playing on it until we said "ok, we can go". After asking him to be more involved, thankfully he stopped doing that and told us a bit about the animals.
At the end of a particularly long day, with a morning game drive in Manyare and then drive to the Serengeti, he couldn't find our camp. The sun set, we were exhausted, and we were still in the truck. I was trying to use google maps to help find a tented camp. Eventually we found a park staff camp, and got directions from them to find our camp. We checked in after dark, ate, and slept asap, to get up at 4am for the hot air balloon. Imagine our dismay when, the next night going to a different camp, we were lost again. We stopped at 2 very nice camps, and the 2nd camp let us use their toilet and sent one of their staff with us to show him the way. It seemed like a tiny amount of preparation could have avoided both issues, and especially after it happened the 1st time.
We saw the big 5, and a lot of of animals and beautiful sights, but we couldn't help but feel that we were an afterthought, just thrown into any car with any driver, and when the inevitable issues arose, we didn't find they had any interest in admitting mistakes or making them right. I thoroughly recommend doing a safari in Tanzania, just not with Soul of Tanzania.
NL
50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
A deal is not a deal!
Early this year, we started orientating for a trip to Kenya with our family. 2 tour operators jumped out and both offered a similar trip for a similar price. We chose Pamoja because they offered the beach hotel which was our preference. Whereupon we signed the offer and paid the trip deposit.
6 weeks before departure, we got word from Pamoja that 2 hotels (including the beach hotel) had become more expensive. Whether we wanted to pay an extra USD 11,400. This made our trip no less than 50% more expensive than agreed with us in the quotation and confirmation. We were very shocked by this and it caused the necessary unrest and emotions within our family. Because of this, it was not clear whether we could still go on the trip at all because of these extra costs. After a week of almost daily contact with Pamoja, they could not do more for us than deduct USD 3200. Still a difference of USD 8200. Still too much for us. By now it was 5 weeks before departure and booking through another tour operator was not very easy anymore. In the end, we opted for cheaper hotels for which we had to pay USD 2000,- extra. Unfortunately, we later had two more discussions about finances, which completely destroyed our trust in Pamoja and the fun before departure.
Fortunately, we can look back on a great trip through Kenya. The whole trip including transport, hotels and other logistics were well arranged by Pamoja. Our guides David and Alan were very professional and nice to travel with. They showed us many beautiful things and knew a lot to tell. For this, we are very grateful to them.
US
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
completely disorganized and made me feel unsafe
African Sermon Safaris was completely disorganized and had no idea what they were doing. As a solo traveller, I felt unsafe and like I was going to be stranded somewhere. To start, the company gave me no information about my pick up until I asked them multiple questions. They also messed up my reservation and initially put me in the wrong tour, despite me confirming multiple times which tour I wanted to do. When the driver picked me up, he drove me to a random gas station in Nairobi where we waited for the jeep to take me to Masai Mara. The jeep never came, so we went back into the city center to find it. I also assumed everyone on my tour would be staying at the same camp as me and doing the same itinerary, but that wasn't the case. I was the only one out of the people on my tour to stay at my camp. I signed up for the budget tour, so I knew the camp wouldn't be anything fancy, but the camp wasn't gated and our tents didn't even have locks on them. Everyone who worked at the camp was very friendly, but there also wasn't electricity except for 3 hours a day. Anyways, after the first two game drives, the driver thought I was going to Nakuru the next day, but I was supposed to stay in Masai Mara, so they didn't tell me until the next morning who would be taking me on my game drive, since everyone else in my tour was either going back to Nairobi or to Nakuru. It turns out they completely switched which tour company I was with and I finished the rest of the tour with Jocky Tours (which was a much better tour FYI). Except African Sermon Safaris never even told me I was being switched companies -- I only found out from talking to others on the tour. I was supposed to go back to Nairobi the next morning, and they didn't tell me who was taking me until the next morning at 8am. Also, the company never told me. The woman who ran the camp was the one who coordinated my trip back to Nairobi. Anyways, I know all the companies and camps work together, but it felt extremely disorganized and I hated being passed between drivers and companies. In total, I had 6 different drivers throughout my 4 day trip. Even on my way back to Nairobi they had me switch into a different car, which would have been fine, but then they realized they messed up and put me back in the original car. I'm surprised I wasn't stranded somewhere/didn't end up in a different city. While I still had the time of my life on the safari, I would never book with African Sermon Safaris again. It was extremely stressful and the communication was terrible.