US
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
The company is not professional with minimum customer care
George Killas, owner of Terrain Tanzania Safaris, left us completely unsupported during multiple trip failures—and never took responsibility.
After a full day of travel, our group (which included elderly family members) was denied check-in. The hotel informed us that George had failed to make payment, even though he had told us everything was confirmed. Later on, he tried to explain the situation and then we realized that he knew this could happen weeks ago but chose not to inform us.
When the hotel rejected the voucher, George told us to “just show it again” and dropped the call. We spent over an hour begging hotel staff to let us stay while he did nothing. It was humiliating, stressful, and completely avoidable.
Throughout the trip, George showed no accountability. From disappearing during emergencies to making excuses instead of solutions, he abandoned us when we needed him most.
We booked this trip expecting reliable support and coordination from a trusted safari company. Instead, we were met with negligence, dishonesty, and total lack of professionalism.
Do not book with this company. George will take your money—and leave you stranded.
CH
20-35 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Worst car company of the world
Horrible and dangerous car, and lire about all the answer for advise ! Don’t book with this company! In my experience, I felt scammed and ended up losing my money.
CH
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
⚠️ Avoid Mamu Travels & Safaris Kenya – A Very Unprofessional and Disappointing Experience ⚠️
We booked a private safari tour with Mamu Travels & Safaris Kenya from August 12–15, 2025. Before we paid, their representative Mariam D. was extremely friendly and always quick to respond. However, as soon as the payment was made, that friendliness vanished. She became unresponsive and offered no real help when issues arose.
The real shock came when the tour began.
Our private tour was anything but private. The driver, Daniel, randomly brought along a colleague — turning our private tour into a shared one. And the worst part? Mariam Desimo knew about this from day one and did absolutely nothing, even though she was fully aware it was booked and paid as a private experience.
He made no effort to find animals, didn’t listen to our requests, and basically just followed his own agenda. We felt like passengers on his trip, not guests on ours.
One of the included services in our official itinerary was a visit to a Maasai village. However, Daniel tried to scam us by taking us to a village where we were suddenly asked to pay an extra $30 per person — even though this visit was already included in our package.
As for tipping — the offer already included a mandatory $10 tip per day, which we were forced to pay. So it’s not like we tipped voluntarily — it was built in, and we had no choice.
After the tour, we sent Mariam clear photo evidence showing that:
-Daniel did not use a company vehicle - risking our lifes with a poor vehicle
-the tour was not private as agreed,
-services in the offer were not delivered properly.
Her response? Just an empty apology and a desperate attempt to convince us not to write a bad review. She didn’t care about our experience — she only cared about her company’s reputation.
When we reasonably asked for a partial refund based on the points that were clearly not delivered as promised, they outright refused. A serious company would take responsibility for their mistakes. Not here.
And the biggest joke of all? They claimed they “made no profit” from this tour. Come on — not even a child would believe that. Every tour operator works with special rates and partnerships to generate profit. Trying to pretend otherwise is just insulting.
We're now dealing with this legally through our lawyer — and even now, they refuse to refund us for the services we paid for but never received.
If you’re considering booking with Mamu Travels & Safaris Kenya, I strongly advise against it. In my experience, it was a waste of money, time, and peace of mind.
If you need proof – feel free to contact me privately. I have receipts, photos, and messages to back up every single word here.
I worked with another safari company during the same trip that was 100x better — professional, honest, and truly customer-oriented. So trust me when I say:
I would strongly advise avoiding Mamu Travels & Safaris Kenya. In my experience, the trip was ruined and I felt my money was wasted.!!!!!!!!!!!
CA
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Terrible car, trip hugely impacted
My 5 day safari with Simbaland Tours was mostly amazing - our guide was exceptional and showed us all of the animals we wanted to see in a limited time, including seeing the great migration in the very front row by the river.
However, the car that we were provided was visibly older and in worse condition compared to the other cars from other operators. The car had no front mirror (it fell off), there were cracks on both left and right side mirrors, and a long crack in the front window. No air conditioning, which meant we were breathing so much dirt dust when we had the safari roof closed.
Second day morning, the right side foot rest of the jeep started falling off from our ride from Tarangire to Serengeti. We had to stop twice on the way - once to try to keep it attached to the car (by tying it with a rope), and a second time to take it off and hang it on the roof of the car. This foot rest was hanging on the roof of the car from 2nd day lunch to 3rd day lunch during the game drives.
On the 3rd day lunch, we had to stop outside in a town of the Serengeti gate for 1 hour 45 minutes to fix the car - to put back the right side foot rest in its original position. We spent 20 minutes eating lunch while waiting, and rest of the time we were standing behind a tree in the heat.
Then, right after we passed Northern Serengeti gate, we had a flat tire. It took 1 hour to fix the tire. We could not do a game drive at Northern Serengeti this day, because we spent almost 3 hours fixing the car.
On the 4th day, stopped at a town to spend another 30 minutes fixing the tire.
On the 5th day morning, the foot rest that we fixed on day 3 was falling off again. We spent 30 minutes taking it off and hanging it back up. Because of this, we couldn’t fully close the roof all day.
Then, on the way out of Ngorongoro, we had a car accident as the driver was turning a curve and were stuck in the sand. We had to have another jeep pull our car out. Afterwards, we stopped again for 30 minutes to fix the tire again, which is when we started to worry about missing our flight back to Canada. As a result, we had to drive on the opposite side of the road very dangerously & fast for 3.5 hours before getting to Kilimanjaro International Airport extremely late.
All in all we stopped 8 times because of issues with the car, lost 5+ hours that could’ve been used to do game drives or spend time at the lodges. The car used to operate the safari by the company hindered our experience and we felt that we had to sacrifice a lot of our travel time here because of all the problems that the car had, that could’ve been avoided had the car been in a better condition and properly checked prior.
Unfortunately the car diminished the value of our trip. Having flown 30 hours for this once in a lifetime experience, it hurt to wait outside in the sun during the repair shop stops or wait in the car with no air conditioning in 30 degrees weather... I wanted to leave a honest review as I think it is important for anyone considering which safari operator to choose to have more visibility - as I don’t think anyone deserves the experience I had on their safari.
SG
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Do not join the shared group. You may be dumped to another group by the driver half way
Poor experience. Do not join the shared group!!!!!
Poor communication between agent and driver/agent. And seems like the agent lost control of the drivers.
1. All the accommodations are sopa as it was written in the website. I have adjusted my dates to ensure the hotels are available. They managed to help me book all under Sopa. But one week before the departure, they messaged me and said need to change Nakuru stay to another hotel cause Sopa Nakuru is not within the driver’s pick up area. If it is like that, why you don’t tell at the start and why you advertise you trip as all SOPA stay to attract ppl.
2. Sudden change of driver in the middle of the trip. Me and another Australian guy were transferred to another group by the driver without informing at the beginning. We wasted whole morning waiting for that group of ppl to finish their morning schedule. And the next 3 days our schedule were totally disrupted cause our schedule does not tally. I was promised to get a morning game drive for reimbursement then go to Nairobi Airport. The agent also called for confirmation. But the driver treated me. He drove me together with that group of ppl to Tanzania border cause their next destination was Arusha. Again my whole morning was gone. And after reaching the border, that driver transferred me to another driver again!!!!! 2 times of transfer within 7 days!!!!!!
3. The guide/drivers they arranged are unprofessional. The first driver/guide did rock climbing in the hell’s gate and we had to wait for him. Why a guide made his customers to wait for him to play!? Why he can’t play after he finished work?!
The second guide/driver was never punctual and he has no integrity. He made me wait at hotel for more than 30min without informing the change of timing. He treated me about the schedule and arrangement. And he was so blurred that he did not even know the other group’s schedule. I need to ask other ppl to find out and see if I can do something else to avoid conflicts. Such poor communication and arrangement.
These are not the agent’s fault. She told me tried her best and it was also out of her control. I am sure she is doing her best. But a capable travel agent and a powerful travel company should be able to identify good guides/drivers and hand over their customers to qualified/trusty ones instead of dumping to a random one. At least there will be some quality control.
So in summary, please do not take the shared group if you are only 1-2 persons. Please choose a private tour to avoid the above conditions. I am sure it may happen to any agent company and it may be a common thing in the shared group. Cause I have seen another poor traveller being dumped to our group on 2nd day. The driver’s company just want to maximise the profit and drivers are also the one being squeezed.
US
Left Stranded in South Africa after using Southern African Tours
Our trip with Southern African Tours (run by Craig and Bianca) turned into a complete disaster. We started planning more than a year in advance (Sept 2024 for travel in Sept 2025) and followed their payment schedule faithfully:
Initial deposit: Sept 2024
Second payment (domestic flights): Nov 2024
Final balance: June 2025
At first, communication was fine. Bianca seemed organized and responsive. But after our second payment, everything went downhill. She became nearly impossible to reach — delays of days or weeks, excuses about being “too busy,” and eventually, total silence.
The real problems began just before departure:
5 days before flying out: We requested a group call to confirm details. She promised Monday — then vanished.
Day before departure: We begged for pickup and flight details. No reply.
Arrival in Johannesburg: No local flight was booked. We had to purchase tickets ourselves at the airport.
First lodge stay: Our reservation had only been made the day before. They demanded we pay again for the first two nights.
Subsequent itinerary: No transfers, no accommodations. We were forced to arrange (and fund) everything on our own.
Cape Town flights: Also never booked. Once again, more last-minute scrambling and out-of-pocket costs.
In short: we paid Southern African Tours in full, but they delivered nothing. We were repeatedly abandoned, overcharged, and left to fend for ourselves.
Looking back, we should have taken other negative reviews more seriously. Their responses always shift blame onto the traveler — now we know why.
IT
50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Don't book with them
GREAT guide/driver, but TERRIBLE office organisation. I strongly recommend you don't book with them.
I work in the Tourist Industry and I'm very expert and objective: Never trust Big Apes and Peter for your trip to Uganda.
Our tour guide, Sam Waako, was wonderful - knowledgeable, communicative and funny. The safari itself was great.
However, the office organisation was terrible, not up to par.... Peter (the manager) was absolutely silent. No call, no email, no communication whatsoever if not through the guide but I believe a manager who considers himself as such should pick up the phone and talk to the customer who is complaining of a problem.
My advice would be - book with a different company. It's all fine if everything goes well, but if there's a problem then They won't solve it.
MY
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
They stole our money
5 pax, paid deposit 50% on mid Aug, arrived on 6th Sept and paid the remaining half in the office.
2 days no issue in Masai Mara, though there was a change of lodge (which they claimed their staff booked wrongly, but it's an "upgrade").
Highly suspect they book last minute.
Then 3rd day no accommodation was booked at the discussed Lake Nakuru Sopa Lodge when we arrived at the lodge in the evening.
Driver claimed he got the funds for the park fees at 5pm then no reply from the operator regarding accommodation booking voucher since.
unreachable via phone as well.
Asked the lodge staff to check the remaining of the accom, no bookings were made under their name or our names.
Went to Naivasha Tourist Police Unit to get an advise but he said to go to Dosasha's Nairobi office to claim refund.
Lilian is nowhere to be seen in the office, only Alfa.
Another guy you should be aware of.
TLDR, we involved embassy, TPU HQ, and diplomatic police in Kenya.
They still haven't refund us.
It's a whooping USD 13500 for 5 of us.
Do not go with this operator.
Whichever staff name they claim they are, it's the same person.
Reddit has a year old post that someone got scammed by the same person as well.
They'll likely create another agency name and do the same thing all over again.
I've already have at least 5-6 groups of people around my travelling date that got scammed or last minute cancelled Tanzania part. They thought we can't get them cause we're foreigners.
If you're a victim, make it big.
Involve whoever you think can, only they will take action.
Someone emailed safaribooking.com and they claimed they'll take this operator off the list in the site.
I see it's still all and well here.