BE
Unreliable and Left Me Stranded
I booked a 6‑day safari tour to Kruger and Mozambique with this company, and they never showed up for the pickup. No email, no call, no message — nothing. I was left standing alone at 6 AM at the airport, in a foreign country, with no information and no support.
They ignored every attempt to contact them: my emails, my calls, and even the messages sent through GetYourGuide. I received absolutely no communication or explanation.
Because of their negligence, I had to scramble to find another tour last minute, paying double the price, wasting precious time, energy, and experiencing an enormous amount of stress. As a solo traveler, this situation was not only frustrating but genuinely frightening.
This company is completely unreliable and should not be allowed to operate tours. No traveler should have to go through what I did. Avoid them at all costs.
50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
untrustworthy!
This company lies that this is a fraudulent review, saying we never did a trip with them. We have shown proof and my review was reposted. Now it's been flagged it's fraudulent, again. They say we didn't travel with them, but they have responded to both my google review and review with safari bookings addressing my review in detail! That shows what kind of a safari company you will be dealing with if you book with them. Not trustworthy at all.
We booked a safari with this company, months ago. We communicated with Jose who put this trip together for us. This was our 5th safari, but our first, with Boost safari, and it turned out to be a disaster.
1. We were told, Steve was our guide, but Steve appears at the airport with Joseph and introduced him as our "guide" There was no communication whatsoever!
2. The accommodation we had confirmed at Sentrim Amboseli when we booked this trip, was changed without prior notice, and we were dumped in an awful hotel, which was a two hour round trip to the game park, and this was additional to the six and a half hours to get there! We were told by Jose that it was an upgrade, but later admitted they overbooked, hence the change. Again, no communication! This was the second change. The first, was our accommodation in Lake Nakuru Lodge because they overbooked. They changed our accommodation which we already paid a deposit for to a cheaper accommodation which we refused. They then changed it to a better lodge, which we agreed to. The accommodation in Amboseli was not an upgrade.
3. We were not given a "guide" He had no knowledge of the animals and never made an effort to look for or track the animals. There was a Masai guide in our safari in Masai Mara for two days, which was not planned, and Joseph admitted he didnt have much experience. His CB radio was broken, and looked like it wasnt working for a long time. The animals we saw were spotted in plain sight. He didn't even know how to get to planned destinations. He stopped and picked up a local for directions. A three and a half hour trip took more than five hours and we missed lunch completely. There was no time management or communication. He was on his phone all the time, even whilst driving, which made us feel unsafe. He had no interest In providing the service he was hired for. The safari vehicle was not well maintained. It was hard to open the doors from inside. At one stage he was driving so fast, the boot opened and was banging so hard, he didn't even realise it until we alerted him. That's how rough he drove!
There was no communication, transparency or professionalism from this company! We were given the shorthand of the stick again and again. Jose for a period of time, didn't answer our messages. He never checked to see how we were doing and Steve never showed up as promised after the safari.
Integrity is a great moral attribute. If you are deciding on who to go with on a safari, think carefully before parting with your hard-earned
50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
No respect for there staff.
The place is dirty, bed bugs. The food is terrible terrible and the safari vehicles are falling apart.
KR
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Respond to customer inquiries quickly. But it's hard to communicate when there's a conflict.
I wouldn’t recommend this company
1. Guide
Our guide was a very nice person, but honestly, in our experience, he was more like a driver than a guide. He mostly drove and gave us almost no information. he said “giraff”, “elephant” when we saw animals.
As the days went by, the explanation increased a little, but overall I was not satisfied.
and We found it difficult to communicate with him in English. On the first day, we asked Ngao company to change our guide, but he told us to try to communicate better with him.
2. Vehicle
During the safari,
We had to sit in the car for many hours, but our car was almost the only one without a headrest cushion among the 30–40 cars I saw. It was very uncomfortable.
One window could not be opened, so when we took photos, I had to take them through the dirty window. The window stains were also visible in my photos.
Other cars had their own company logo on the back. Our car had another company’s logo, so we wondered if they had rented the car from somewhere else.
3. Food and accommodation
We chose government-run accommodation to save money. However, the breakfast was like the one in the photo.(before)
We paid more than $1,000 for the safari, but we were given a meal like this. After I complained, they improved the breakfast. (after)
The lunch was also almost the same every day.
Was this because we chose a cheaper option? If they had told us that the service would be like this, we would not have booked with this company.
4. They did not understand what we wanted
I booked this safari because I wanted to see the Great Migration.
Before the trip, I was told that we would see the Great Migration on the first day and the Big Five on the second day.
But on the first day, our guide saw about 10 wildebeest and told us this was the Great Migration.
At the end of the day, he told us that the migration was over and that we would see the Big Five the next day.
We were very confused. I explained that we wanted to see hundreds or thousands of wildebeest moving together, not just 10 wildebeest.
Only after I explained this did they change the plan for the second day so we could see the Great migration.
If I had not said anything, I might have finished the whole safari without seeing the Great Migration that I came to see.
TW
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Willing to agree to a refund on paper, but extremely slow to actually deliver on it.
We agreed on a full refund with Meektrails Safaris after cancelling our trip, but nearly three months later we still have not received it, despite repeated promises of "next week" or "soon." Please think carefully and consider this before booking.
IT
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Incompetent people
Absolutely not recommended, I think the positive reviews are fake, he made us pay a hefty deposit and then asked for the balance every week before the tour, the package also included the internal flight (which would have saved us a lot of time to live the safari experience more, obviously we paid it in advance) and instead only upon arrival at the Arusha airport he informed us that he would take us by car making us waste 7 hours of safari on the first day and 7 hours on the third day just to reach the entrance of the park, basically out of 3 days we only did one day of safari, he did not refund us either the flight money or the lost safari days, I believe he is a real scammer, do not take tours with him
(automatic translation from Italian)
GR
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
I believe they are scammers and thieves
SCAMMERS AND THIEVES — DO NOT TRUST THIS PROVIDER
I strongly recommend staying away from this company. In my experience, they are scammers and thieves.
We paid a $1,000 deposit in May to organize a safari for August. Despite having months to arrange everything, by mid-July they had still booked absolutely nothing.
We gave them another chance after they promised to resolve the situation. By the end of July, nothing had been booked. At that point, we asked them to cancel the safari and refund our $1,000.
From then on, their behavior became even worse. They stopped answering our messages and phone calls. They promised that our refund would be paid by August 7.
Today is August 18, and we still have no refund, no answers, and no explanation. They continue to ignore our calls and messages.
This is completely unacceptable.They've taken our money and then disappear. That is exactly how we have been treated.
If you are considering using this provider, Do not give them your money. Based on our experience, we believe they are scammers and thieves, and I would not trust them with even a single dollar.
We paid $1,000 in good faith and were left with nothing but broken promises, excuses, and silence. Stay away from these scammers and thieves.
50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
No flamingos there !!!
We were very disappointed when we were there in the early July this year. There were almost no flamingos in the lake( only 3-4 flomingos) and we have been told that the flamingos have migrated to another place permanently because the lake condition changed. Why the authority still make this untrue AD everwhere?
RU
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
The day before the safari they said the group was full.
We booked a safari a month in advance. The evening before the safari, when we were already in Arusha, they said they were fully booked and could offer another group starting at 3 am (groups usually start at 5 or 6 am). We declined. We had to look for a new safari company that evening; many were already booked for the morning, so we were very lucky to find one. At least they refunded the deposit quickly, so thank you for that.
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Deceptive and rude
Wish I had looked at reviews before hand but across three countries I had only been overwhelmingly happy with all services booked. This guy was SERIOUSLY UNFUN! Booked a ‘2 day 1 night’ Hwange safari for $500, expecting a dedicated overnight package with two game drives, meals, and park fees included (standard for this type of package unless otherwise stated, per every other safari I’ve done in the region). What I actually got: pickup was 40 minutes late (sitting and waiting in the cold at 5 am), and the drivers then got lost en route, so we didn’t arrive at the park until about 1.5 hours behind schedule — in a vehicle with no working air conditioning. The drivers themselves weren’t even aware I was booked for an overnight stay. No water was offered all day except at lunch, and the first meal/drinks came over 8 hours after pickup. That evening, the drivers told me the hotel was in charge of evening activities for me — except the hotel had no idea I was even coming. There were no evening activities after the day trippers left and no dinner. I was told I’d be joining an an organized tour that already existed but in reality no dedicated arrangement existed; I was simply folded into other groups’ day trips. After the Day 2 morning drive, no ride home had been organized at the scheduled time; the operator’s fix was to offer me the afternoon drive with a day-trippers group, but then said they were ‘too far away’ — leaving me waiting at a hotel for 4 hours with no plan, and losing an entire extra day of my trip. On top of all this, I paid $100 out of pocket for park entry fees, dinner, that should have been covered and a night drive with the hotel. When I raised these issues, the operator’s response was to insist I’d ‘agreed to the itinerary’ — an itinerary that was never actually followed in the first place. If you’re looking for even decent service, I would steer clear of Marvel and his company.