35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Great budget safari
This is a great budget safari for those who want a no frills experience where you are immersed in the Masai Mara park and Masai culture. I emailed frequently with the owner Alex before I arrived and he was very helpful! I signed up by myself but was added to a group of 5 others and we had a nice time together. Also, I’m very glad I chose the jeep 4x4 versus the mini van, as we had to help a few vans along the way that got stuck on the treacherous roads!
We spent a LOT of time out on safari-I was pleasantly surprised! Our guide Isaac was very knowledgeable and also did a good job of navigating the awful roads around the park. Masai village tour was included and was wonderful!
Lenchada camp is very basic but fine since you are basically just there to sleep. As a single female traveler, I felt very safe at the camp. Food is nothing fancy but flavorful and plentiful!
Suggestions: don’t drink too much water when you are at the Mara since there are basically no bathrooms; bring cash to the camp to buy beer, water, sodas or snacks. A flashlight is helpful for getting around the camp at night. The animals are noisy-earplugs are helpful at night. Bring layers especially if doing a safari in the colder months of June and July.
A few comments: meal times should be more frequent or we should be told to bring snacks. Most days we would leave the camp at 6am and eat lunch around 2pm, which was too long to wait for most of us. We were all starving well before lunchtime each day. Also, I didn’t like that the camp doesn’t provide any drinking water. The safari vehicle did have water but I also had to purchase bottled water at the camp. That seemed a bit strange to not have water available at meals or in the rooms.
All in all, it was a great experience and first safari for me.
DE
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Great experience. Best regards to Joseph
Great safari tour with wonderful accommodations, delicious food, helpful staff and great guides/drivers. A superb experience. The only thing I would do differently next time would be to offer ballon / small plane transportation between parks and the lake manyara airport for transfer to Zanzibar. Besides that, an impeccable experience. Highly recommend to others.
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Fantastic
Booked a 3 day tour with Going Green Safari, to include mikumi safari and uduzwunga national park. Lenny was brilliant and organised everything for us. The tour was very reasonably priced. We had a great time. All the staff we met, drivers and tour guides were very friendly and made our experience even better. The only thing I would say is that day 3 of the tour is just the transfer drive back to Dar es Salaam, so it's actually more of a 2 day tour plus one day transfer. However we had a great time and appreciate everything. Lenny went above and beyond to accommodate us. Thank you!
20-35 years of age
Good trek but ensure to be explicit with what is included
The trek itself was excellent. There were 3 of us supported by a guide, a porter each and cooks. The team were friendly and took care of us very well. We enjoyed going up Sirimon and down Chogoria. Chogoria is the more scenic of the two routes and enjoying this on the descent is recommendable. There was ample food and hot drinks at regular intervals.
Dennsland trek tours were responsive during the planning stage. There were a couple of issues around what was included just before the trek but these were resolved. Do check the approximate exchange rate from USD to Kenyan shillings in advance as this was higher than the bank exchange rate and hence a bit higher cost than expected.
65+ years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Yaneta Safaris is a reliable tour operator in Africa & has good customer service.
I booked a 21-day Uganda Safari with Yaneta before Covid. Since everything stopped due to Covid lockdowns, my trip was moved to July 2021. Uganda was still on lockdown but tourism was open. Yaneta had all the Gorilla & Chimpanzee trekking permits ready. Two weeks prior to my departure, Uganda required a visa prior to departure instead of visa on arrival. I had to hurriedly apply for a visa from the Uganda Embassy. Yaneta closely followed my application. My visa was approved day before my departure.
I had a wonderful time. The driver/guide was very knowledgeable. This was a private safari. We started in the north & worked our way down to the south. One time our vehicle had a mechanical problem. A replacement came at night so the trip went smoothly.
Yaneta is very reliable & has good customer service. They made sure that I was happy & comfortable.
DE
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Our tourguide Gerald is very kind, knowing and always busy to let the tour become special !!
Communication via email top !!
Only thing: ...would have loved to get some specialized informations about visa for Uganda or best stuff to wear for the trip in advance ;-)
The tourguide Gerald was a top leader, who did everything to make the tour special !!
JP
65+ years of age | Experience level: first safari
Excellent private safari tour arrangement with good consideration and reasonable price.
I asked several Safari tour companies to give the quotes for a week private tour.
Sino Africa Safari proposed us the best plan to consider carefully for our expectations include price, itinerary, and so on.
Also they provided many valuable suggestions in advance, and whenever I sent the questions by email, Jong quickly give me the detailed answer. They were very helpful for us to prepare the trip, what we need to bring or not.
If you expect 5 star tour, I will not recommend Sino Africa Safari. But you expect 3-4 star tour with reasonable price, I strongly recommend this agent.
Two points I would suggest Sino to improve.
1. Make better selection for the hotel in Nairobi
2. Upgrade the Safari car from normal mini-van to Safari special car, such as TOYOTA Land Cruiser.
Sino arranged us the normal mini-van, the driving capability in off-road are relatively lower than those special cars. Our car sometime stuck or nearly stuck, and need to change the route due to the poor driving capability of the car, though the Land Cruiser easily pass those roads.
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
The trek itself was amazing but we had some troubles in the office
Our trek was brilliant. We went up the Sirimon route and got photos of us crossing from the southern the northern hemisphere. It was so scenic and our guides were so lovely. We were really looked after with delicious food and hot drinks and even popcorn and biscuits at snack time! We took an acclimatisation day, so it became a 5 day trek. I'd really recommend this as I was huffing and puffing on the acclimatisation day where we did a small walk up the mountain and back down to the same camp as the night before, but the next day on summiting I felt fine. On summit day we walked up by headtorch and the stars were like nothing I had seen before. We reached the summit for sunrise and it was one of the best experiences of my life. We came down Chogoria and that was stunning too. I felt very looked after throughout the whole trek.
Sadly our office experience was not so good. The company said they used a higher exchange rate than the national rate without explaining why. They also struggled to evidence this. They also didn't accept dollars in cash if the notes were from before 2007. Apparently this is a Kenyan-wide thing but I did feel these issues with paying should've been outlined before as we ended up paying a fair amount more than we were expecting.
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Great safari experience
Our safari guides were very knowledgeable and caring and provided very good experience. The office staff was very responsive to our questions. The Safari jeep came with a cooler which was great to keep the drinks cold. The seat covers were old and could use cleaning and that is the only reason for 4 stars instead of 5.
DE
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
had a good time with them
I went on a 5-day tour as a solo traveler with Buyaga Safaris and had a great experience. I went with the itinerary details and choice of lodges as proposed by them and was quite happy with it. Unfortunately some unforeseen car issues caused some disruptions along the way, but my guide was always looking for solutions without compromising my experience.
From the get-go I felt that I was in good hands with Buyaga Safaris. Thank you Peter for this fun and interesting trip!