US
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Tshukudu ROARS, Hamala closed, Seasons Resort NOT!!!
Our tour started off poorly when we were met by our tour guide to find out that we would not be travelling to the Humala Lodge. We understand “things” happen, but we were surprised, as was the tour guide, Thabo, that we were not informed by Touchdown Tours in advance. As luck would have it, thankfully they decided to move us to the Tshukudu lodge for 7 days. A simple email in advance from their customer service department certainly would have been appreciated. Not a good way to start a trip!
The Tshukudu lodge is beyond words. The accommodations, the people, the food, the “bush” bar, the game drives, simply put, how about 10 STARS!!!! Karmin and her staff made sure everything was perfect. Our game guide, Tyler, was INCREDIBLE. His knowledge of the animals, the bush and even the dung beetles was AWESOME. I could have listened to him forever!! The staff at the lodge were great, especially Dolly, Bongani and the young lady who made the BEST eggs on the morning buffet!!! We did 6 days of drives, early morning and evening. No 2 drives were alike. We were able to find the BIG 5 and then some. Again, Tyler made these drives SPECTACULAR!!! During our downtime, our tour guide, Thabo made sure our time was occupied with side trips. We were saddened to leave this lodge, especially with what lied ahead.
The Seasons Resort is NOT a resort, a major disappointment. It is a timeshare community with a couple of townhomes reserved for guests. The rooms lacked WIFI, phone to contact the front desk and no safe to lock up our valuables. The room we had was the furthest from the lodge as you could get. Add to that, the pathway was dimly lit, you walked on cobblestones and the walk to the street was at least a 20% incline (wet weather made this dangerous). We complained about this unacceptable situation and spoke with Touchdown Tours customer service. We were told they would look into this and we even asked to be moved to a hotel. Sadly, our complaint fell on deaf ears as NO ONE FOLLOWED UP ON THS!! The side tours that we went on were really nice. 2 of them were advertised as ½ day tours, but realistically, they were only 2 hours each (Walk with the Elephants and Monkey Sanctuary). Had we known about this, we could have flown home a day early rather than being sequestered at this “resort”. Luckily, our tour guide, Fabian, tried his best at making a bad situation better.
The people really made this tour!! Thabo and Fabian were AWESOME tour guides. The entire staff at Tshukudu made our time there EXTRAORDINARY. You MUST have Tyler as your game guide!!!! You MUST have Thabo as your tour guide!!!! Yep, we loved these 2 people!!!
So, would we book this tour again? Probably, but minus the time at the Seasons resort. I think Touchdown Tours should quit misleading people by calling this a resort, call it what it is, a townhome community! Our airport hotel bested this resort easily!!
IN
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Inflexible. We were not able to see the lions and I was another game drive
1. We were not able to see the lions and I was expecting that they will make another effort by giving us another game drive so that we have a complete experience but no effort was made
2. I made a request to change my drop location to my hotel instead of airport but it wasn't approved.
3. It was football world cup final that evening & the taxi was late by 1 hr. As a result I missed the world cup final.
BE
50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Review about Nxai Pan National Park by Anouk de Sloovere
Lodge was not so spectacular.
Drivers can not go of road so you don't get to see much wildlife (we didn't)
US
65+ years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Review about Addo Elephant National Park by Elizabeth
We did see elephant’s, and the bbq was outstanding. It was difficult to see the animals since the park is so dense with brush.
US
65+ years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
The corrupt leadership of the country and the disparity between classes is heartbreaking.
The most beautiful part of the trip was taking the panoramic scenic route from Johannesburg to Kruger national Park. Kruger was awesome and we saw all of the big 5. Cape Town is a fantastic city and is a cross between Sydney, Australia, and San Francisco, California. We especially enjoyed the V & A waterfront. We would highly recommend the hop on hop off bus to get a feel for where you want to return to.
US
65+ years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Review about Kruger National Park by Brenda Poland Willis
Kruger seemed a lot like Yellowstone National Park in the States...a lot of people, and it was very crowded even though we were not in the peak time.
NL
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Review about Lake Nakuru National Park by Lisa van der Hoek
Lake Nakuru is beautiful, specifically because of how non-tourist focused it is. Most animals were seen from quite a distance. The park is a Rhino sanctuary, but don't expect these big fellows to cross the road in front of you. After a long day, we eventually found a group a couple of 100 meters away from us, which is magic on its own.
Seeing the animals actually be free; very few cars, roads and lots of freedom; is a great experience that one should not miss.
CZ
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Average services, had some issues
We decided to take a safari tour to Serengeti from Arusha. First I would like to say its a nice area and we saw all animals what we could, so we are happy to did this trip. However there are some things that was not perfect as you would expect - safari car did not have A/C (did not work!!) so it was too hot first day so we wear exhausted. Also, the road is very dusty and car not good for dusty roads and the driver had open windows nearly all the time, we did not understand if he likes dust in his lungs. Also we sent in advance some diet requirements that was not met in our lunch box and the boxes were just a little, not a normal lunch. We have seen in picnic points what some other companies could do, so this is a very weak pain point and would expect more. If we would return? Probably not by car to the area, better going to fly and spent days directly at lodges in Serengeti park.
DK
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
I was looking forward to the safari ending.
TL;DR: The safari is amazing; the accommodations were pretty decent; the company was not great.
My partner and I booked a four-day, three-night safari from Arusha in late December 2022. At first, I was pleased with the constant updates and communication from Marta, my journey designer. We made the first 50% payment, via credit card, and almost immediately we were asked for the 2nd 50% payment. It was a little awkward because we're talking about thousands of dollars here. We had been previously staying in Arusha, so we didn't require a pick up from JRO, and we expected to meet our guide in the morning on the start of our safari.
And that is where my qualms began. I had to reach out to SoT to confirm the guide would meet us at the hotel, I wasn't provided his or her name at all. The morning of the safari, we checked out of the hotel at 8AM promptly, and had to go searching in the parking lot for our guide - it seemed like he couldn't be bothered to actually meet us. In fact, the first thing he said after hello was how much he expected to be tipped at the end of the safari. Off-putting, to say the least.
The car was fine, it wasn't that updated and the charging ports didn't work. It certainly managed across the rough roads and terrain. There was water for us, which was great, but there was also no hand sanitizer or wet-wipes, which in a post-COVID world should probably be standard. Setting out from Arusha, we made a pitstop to "support the local community" and were basically asked to buy trinkets from folks at a roadside gas station. Moving on to Manyara, the animals weren't out but our guide was indeed very good at spotting them and highlighting them for us. There were several times, however when we had an opportunity to take pictures of certain animals (giraffes, for example) that we asked him to stop and he did not, saying we needed to be "kept on schedule". After blasting through Manyara, we made two - two - pitstops at gift shop tourist traps. We expressed our non-interest in doing so, and the guide told us that we would stop because he got credit for how many tourists he brought and would get a present at the end of the year. It was frankly a bit annoying that it seemed like we rushed through Manyara just to spend time at gift shops selling the same things, and yet another Tanzanite Experience, neither of which we wanted to do.
The first night's accommodation was fine. It was us and another solo traveler staying at the Mandhari Lodge as the original accommodation was booked up. The food was fine, nothing to write home about. The bed was comfortable and the coffee was strong. The staff was friendly and I really enjoyed chatting with them. The second day was a long drive to Serengeti which was fantastic. The guide was informing us about the great migration, and how we would see a lot of wildebeests and zebras. However we stopped at **two more** gift shops and were asked multiple times if we wanted to go to a masaai village and make a "at minimum" fifty-thousand schilling donation. We were exceedingly clear we didn't want to stop at anymore gift shops nor the masaai village and it seemed that it annoyed our guide.
The accommodation at the Acacia Central Camp was by far the best of the entire four days. The staff at Acacia was professional, warm, helpful, and just a great deal of fun to be around. We clicked more with the guys at Acacia than we ever did with our guide, unfortunately. The dinner and breakfast at Acacia was wonderful, and the bed and tent were sublime. No notes.
The third day was more Serengeti and the drive back to the Ngorongoro Crater. Ngorongoro was fabulous, however we were slightly disappointed at the accommodation when we arrived at the Pakulala Luxury Safari Camp. This was also the most expensive accommodation (at $740/night) and so I think we had a certain expectation that the food would be fantastic and the place would be comfortable. We were disappointed - the food was fine, but not great. And there was no electricity so we sat eating dinner with a high-powered halogen light in our faces. Not entirely sublime. We don't discount that the remoteness of the camp makes it more expensive, but the camp was also located between two permanent, luxury lodges, that were priced not that much more than the camp.
When we booked the safari, we contracted that the SoT would take us straight from our fourth day at Ngorongoro to JRO for our evening flight. We spent the entire safari reminding the guide that this was something we expected - he very clearly did not want to take us to JRO and in fact arranged for another driver to take us - he drove us to a mall outside of Arusha where another driver picked us up and took us to JRO. It was super awkward.
Finally - the lunches. The website goes to great lengths to say that your lunches will be the envy of other safari groups, with hot plated lunches and wine. We had three plated lunches, all variations of spaghetti bolognese and all stone cold, to the point that I was curious about food safety concerns. The wine was fine, it was incredibly inexpensive South African wine that was served room temp and in glasses that weren't cleaned. The lunch on the last day was a piece of cold pizza wrapped in foil and some cookies and juice. I was really not impressed with the lunches and I strongly advise a potential customer for SoT to manage their expectations.
My partner and I were happy with the animals on the safari and with the people we met - we had a fine time with the guide though it seemed like he was pre-occupied with other things, to the point of watching videos while we were stopped trying to take pictures of animals. We certainly don't discount that safaris are expensive, and that we were in an expensive country. However, we definitely did not feel that SoT, nor our guide appreciated just how much money we had spent to even do this safari - we felt a little like we were treated as an ATM, and it soured the experience a little bit. Our guide tried to even have us agree to stop at the same four gift shops we stopped at on our way out - it was a bit much.
I also got some insight from a friend in Arusha who runs another safari company (I didn't know this before booking with SoT, else I 100% would have). She informed me of the things that she does for their clients (provides a recommended list of packing, reminders for sunscreen, bug spray, etc.,) and I realized that SoT was only communicative when it came to getting the payments - I never received a recommended list of anything, a highlight of what to expect, emergency contact information, nor even the name or picture of the guide so that we could find him on our first day.
Do the safari - it's an incredible experience and you will want to do more. We do, but we will not go with SoT the next time
DE
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Review about Hell's Gate National Park by Stefan Hoextermann
Great for cycling or walking