FI
20-35 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Awesome tours but poor tour management !
I spent some awesome time when exploring Tanzania. I joined into 2 tours operated by Kili Slopes, Mt. Kilimanjaro tour and Serengeti NP tour.
Im giving only 3 stars because of poor tour management.
+ guides + other personnel were awesome
+ landscapes were memorable
+ tour programmes were cool
Kilimanjaro:
- As a tipping culture not being common in my country, i was totally surprised when i was asked to pay extra 350 USD after my tour as a tip for the guide and personnel. I wasn't given any information about this arrangement beforehand, which annoyed me a lot. Im not definitely denying the staff wouldn't deserve and need the tip usually given, but as me being the only tourist joining the tour and still asked to pay for the normal tipping sum made this situation absurd. Moreover, I imagined the staff being paid enough for a decent income, obviously not. As a compromise, i gave them 100 usd.
- Again, when discussing about the matter of tipping, I was given the feeling by the tour operator, that as a tourist (and a white person ??) I'm supposed to be rich and afford to give away random extra 350 USD ! Oh, I am surely a millionaire, but only in my dreams.
Serengeti:
- My Serengeti tour was awesome, but bit messy. Considering this tour too, i wasn't given enough information beforehand, again including the thing with tipping. Other customers were having some more information, like list of equipment needed, which i never had. What comes to both of my trips, i thought i was having all the information in needed. Well, I didn't (even though asking for every possible information needed couple of times).
- Overall 6 customers attending to this Serengeti tour, and every person was having a different tour program. It was obvious right from the beginning that it would be impossible to coordinate everything. This is why some ppl didn't get what they were looking for - but ill let them to write their reviews on their own behalf, if they wish to do so. ++Our awesome guide Jackson did his best trying to fix it all ! ++
US
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Extraordinary Promises but Ordinary Delivery
My husband and I decided to skip our wedding and use the money for a once in a lifetime trip to Tanzania. We choose EJ because we wanted to climb Kilimanjaro before going on a luxury safari and beach trip.
Our final iteneray information regarding our treking company was wrong upon our Intial booking. Once our final documents were sent to us 3 weeks before our trip, our trekking information was incorrect again. After pointing out several inconsistentcies we were provided with "correct" information. Once in Tanzania and meeting with our guide the provide and confirmed information was incorrect again. Examples are if our sleeping Bags were included as part of our climb, having space for them in our bag, if we were going to be tested for oxygen levels daily and the tipping process. Additionally our Kili guide was told a different time than we were to meet him and ended up waiting for over 2 hours because of EJs mistake while we were on a planned day excersion.
As for our Intial arrival we booked an escort through customs. The escort did not arrive until we were through customs and already received our bags.
Our one day trip to Arusha National Park was supposed to include a walking safari. However when I asked the guide about it he seemed very surprised and we had to abtain an additional permit at an additional cost once we arrived at the park.
We arrived at our final destination in Zanzibar and there was some confusion as to our included beverages. EJ said we would have cocktails on the beach, ect however once we arrived we were told no cocktails were included. Upon reaching out to EJ I was told "we are not always aware of what "premium drinks" mean." It is my expectation that if a luxury travel company makes a recommendation of a location they are aware of what is provided.
Overall we were very disappointed with the level of organization and execution. Especially when you are promised the moon when booking. It is unfortunate because we spent close to $25,000 on a 2 week trip and the amount of mistakes was truly extraordinary.
We have voiced our disappointments along the way but we often get canned responses with no real action.
With the amount of travel companies out there I highly recommend you choose someone else if you have multiple legs of your trip.
NL
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
great safari with very good Gide/driver and amazing cook.
We just had an amazing safari in selous-mikumi-ruaha (7days). The driver (William) drove really safe and had al lot of knowledge about the animals and provides answers to every question. He's really experienced, knows the parks and the surrounding areas. Even when the car broke down he made sure it was fixed as quick and possible and that the safari wasn't compromised. The cook (Amos) was really friendly and happy all the time. He made delicious food (even for us vegetarians). We loved his veggie pies and he even made bush pizza! He made a lot of delicious food (often more than we could eat) and enjoyed taking care of us.
All the places we stayed where good especially the one in Ruaha which was inside the park! Because it's a rather new company we didn't really know what to expect. Just make sure to check beforehand if you sleep in or outside the park!! There where some small misunderstandings in our case but the company is open for feedback and we are happy with the way they solved the issue.
The only thing we didn't like was the walking safari. You won't see any animals and it outside the park. We also didn't like the way the bushman acted out all the things the local people did in the past. Some of the information was interesting but he was pretty loud and he was pretty focused on elephant dung (drinking from it, smoking it etc).
Concluding: great safari with very good Gide/driver and amazing cook.
AE
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Could have been better
We booked a 4-day safari in Amboseli and Tsavo with the company. The initial booking of the trip was a bit tedious with us having to call them a few times since we were not getting responses to emails, they explained this was due to an overload of bookings.
They failed to inform us that one of the safari camps they suggested, Kibo Safari Camp, (which we chose from the list of options they provided) didn't have electricity for most of the day, which would have been nice to know in advance. And there was a small mess up on our return airport transfer.
Also, since we were first time visitors to Kenya, it would have been great to have some expert advice from them on the various options for safari locations, hotels, food, etc.
However, the rest of the trip and the other hotels were great. The driver-cum guide they provided, Steve, was a very nice guy with a wealth of information about everything around us.
QA
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Both Good and Bad Experiences (9-day trip with kids)
I just came back from a 9-day safari trip from Kenya and Tanzania. I want to write down both good and bad experiences. We have 2 adults, one 10.5-year boy and one 2.5-year girl.
Good experiences. (Peter is the one who runs the company)
1. Peter is very nice, from email contact to meeting me in the airport.
2. Peter upgraded my last night room in Nairobi for free, since I had some bad experience (see shortly below).
3. The travel guide is good.
4. The hotels are good.
Bad experiences.
1. On the trip from Masai Mara to Serengeti, Peter told me that it will take 4 hours. In fact, it took 14 hours, which was a terrible mistake. Although Peter said later that there is another route that he tried to ask the driver to use, however, I don't quite trust it since (a) the > 12 hours route is written in the itinerary; and (b) we have met in that day, if he knew another way, he should change it. BTW, the 12 hours driving is without traffic, but with very bumpy and dusty road.
Things got worse that night that the car we ran out of gas, in the middle of the big Serengeti national park. I don't know how professional people can make such mistakes. That was totally a mess, and we were lucky that the Tanzania guide found his friend to fix the problem, which took one hour. The worst case could be that we stayed in the car with kids for the whole night.
2. The car in Tanzania was bad, with a lot of dust, which made my daughter coughing and in fever for 2 days. Peter has no ability to change it, since it is from another company.
3. From Ngorongoro to Lake Manyara in Tanzania, it should take only a little bit more than one hour. However, in fact, it took us 4 hours. The reason is that Peter forgot to buy the pass. In Tanzania, you cannot even pay cash for the national park, the money should be transferred and the car should be registered before hand. This made us very unhappy since my son was sick and we wasted >2 hours for the pass (ticket) that was not prepaid.
Adding to the above bad experience is that, if you take more hours (for nothing) on the road, simply you have less hours to see animals, which you have paid for.
Again, Peter is very nice and he is very sorry for my bad experiences. However, I have to write down my experiences.
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Really wanted to like them, left some things lacking
I went on a 3 day Rwanda gorilla trek with Encounter Africa. While I really want to like them, there are a few things that were lacking.
Pros:
1. The driver was nice and friendly. He also spoke good English and very helpful.
2. The car was good and comfortable for the two of us.
3. Accommodations were but clean, safe and hotel staff was friendly.
4. Price: The price was fair.
Cons:
1. Communication troubles: Not sure what it was but the office was extremely responsive at first via email which I why I wanted to go with them initially. But then fell radio silent. So I followed up on skype and had some challenges getting a hold of them. They said that there were issues with their email, so may that is fixed?
2. Quoted a price, and then told us that they didn't have any more availability at the lodging and then wanted put us in a lower quality hotel. Ended up paying the original price for a lower quality hotel. The hotel was fine, but the experience of that change was frustrating.
3. Finally, the biggest issue was that the driver was 2 hours late for the initial airport pickup! This was extremely inconvenient because we did not have Rwanda phones and had no way of contacting the driver. For a minute, I thought we had been completely scammed. He came in the end, but this resulted in us driving back in the hills in dark, getting to the hotel extremely late, and missing a proper dinner (that we had paid for in our room/board).
However, what frustrated me most was they claimed that it was the Uganda / Rwanda time difference that caused the delay. However, Uganda time is 1 hour ahead, so of anything, they would have arrived an hour later rather than 2 hours late. When I mentioned this to them, they then said that it was because they had to pick up the permits. If that were the real reason, then tell the truth the first time. Do not lie or try to pull one on me.
So all in all, I'm mixed on this group. While the rest of the experience itself was incredible (highly recommend the gorilla trek to anyone), there were logistical things that were a lacking and the lying about being 2 hours late was a huge detractor.
CA
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Tale of 2 countries. Stick to Kenya.
Our trip was a 13 day trip split between Kenya and Tanzania.
The first half spent in Kenya was amazing. Everything we could have asked for as the guides were friendly and knowledgeable and the accommodations were pleasant. The game drives were incredible as well, especially at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro. After the first week, this trip was absolutely 5 stars.
However, the second half of the trip in Tanzania was a completely different story. The guides were unhelpful at best, there was constant mix ups, mismanagement, and miscommunications. And though they were advertised with similar descriptors, the accommodations were atrocious. Too much time was spent at the lesser parks that could have been used elsewhere.
As well, too much time was spent driving and it seems like a better planned schedule could have helped make it more enjoyable. Ngorongoro Crater is without a doubt a terrific destination, but only spending 24 hours there is not worth the rest of the week. Tanzania only gets 1 star.
The saving grace is that David and the Absolute Holiday Safaris Ltd team was willing to respond to complaints and the office in Kenya did their best to alleviate the Tanzanian mess.
IN
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Good first time safari experience
We traveled to Lake Nokuru national park and the Masaimara reserve. Both the places were truly breathtaking, full of wildlife. We did have lots of fun. However, our accomodation at lake nokuru was inside the nokuru town - it would have been a much better experience had there been something close to or inside the park. The hotel facilities at nokuru were however excellent. Same cannot be however said for the Masaimara camp. The biggest downside was that power was available for only 4 hrs in the evening and there were no charging points in the tents.
65+ years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Hustlers thieves, officials,police,ruin what would otherwise be a wonderful tourist destination
Zambia is a beautiful country with so much to offer, but traveling up from Botswana, there is a stark difference -the official's police and the Botswana people are friendly and efficient, (been several times) , have never been hustled in Botswana -the moment you arrive in Zambia there will be a hustler at your door -the Botswana officials expedite you quickly and efficiently -The Zambian side will keep you for hours -But that we can deal with.Livingstone(Vic Falls,) was empty this year of tourists, one would think they would welcome the ones who do come,but there we felt immediately like we were a mark, and constantly harassed and hustled, beware of the money exchangers and hustlers, do NOT deal with them,even if it costs a bit more, use a bank or ATM, where you are nor surrounded -they will come at you in gangs and try to distract you as others steal from you -this happened to us with our international guests who had money stolen, the police are no help,so don't expect any help there, we did go to the Livingstone police but they laughed at us and said we most probably dropped the money ourselves -so they find it a joke and obviously are not there to help tourists -our guests said it spoilt their experience there, and I doubt will recommend anyone else to go there
US
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
A somewhat nightmarish, yet remarkably astonishing safari experience through Elkan.
My last safari was a bittersweet experience in every sense of the word. What would start out as a suspected long-con ended up being a pretty incredible safari through the ranges of Manyara and Ngorongoro, to the plains of the Serengeti. I even ended up making friends with a couple of lovely people from Spain with whom I had a surreal amount of fun. I am a New Yorker, and I was travelling alone.
I picked Elkan as my operator, not after doing a properly extensive search for a reputable operator, but only because of the simple fact that the response from Victor, the sole owner/employee of Elkan Ltd., was a very welcoming and exciting one. I was offered an itinerary of exactly the sort of safari I had envisaged, and Victor also allowed me to negotiate the overall rate a bit. From the very beginning of our correspondance, I kept growing more and more excited as the safari dates approached.
What was initially meant to be a group of six people on a 7 day safari, ended up being reduced to only 3 people on the day our safari started. Apparently the group had been broken up in 2 to accomodate specific itineraries. There appeared to be a lot of misinformation for all the parties on our safari, including the driver/guides, who apparently had not a single idea of our itineraries, what they entailed, etc. It was at this point we began to suspect a hint of disorganisation and misinformation on Victor's end.
After a glorious first day in Tarangire, where we saw lions mating, a whole world of elephants and the most stunning, yet underrated landscape, we were brought to a semi-decent campsite around Manyara called Sunbright Campsite. It was at dinner that our group, which consisted of myself and the two ladies, and our over-exhuberant narrator/driver Osman, learnt about the completely misguided information from Victor we were all under. Our driver was only going to be with us for one more day-trip to Ngorongoro, before he was to hand us over to another guide, Adam, who was to take us around 3 different parts of the Serengeti over the course of 5 days and 4 nights. However, according to Osman, the Serengeti was only going to be 2 nights. I immediately shot an email to Victor demanding clarification to which he responded everything was status-quo, no changes of any kind whatsoever.
The next morning we received a call from Victor asking us to accept a 2 night safari in the Serengeti and a refund for the remaining 3 days. That was bollocks, and we made sure he understood what bollocks meant.
Needless to state, at this point we knew we were about to be caught in a Tanzanian local tour operators clumsy attempt at conning perfectly well-educated international people, all under the pretence of their sad mentality of "this is Africa", which seems to be the only place on Earth with a licence to be inadequate in everything consumer-related.
We carried on with our safari as we'd planned and had another magnificent day of animal-spotting on the Ngorongoro Crater floor. We saw a coalition of lionesses set out to hunt buffalo end in the most ruthlessly perfect execution, and then each of them returned to collect their cubs hiding in the bushes 5 meters from our car. Our entire engagement with this pride was an incredibly rewarding experience, one that only few people get to experience on that vast crater-floor. And when the other shoe came cascading down from the sky, we were told by our guide that we needed to rush back as he had other Victor-related engagements to adhere to. Our resistance to being swindled once again only earned us a speedy drive passing all variety of animals to the lunch-spot to wolf down our pathetic lunch boxes, and rush back to the rim so as to accomodate Victor's disorganisation. This was when we were handed over to a driver/guide named Adam, who would become our sole Tanzanian assistant in making sure we would not be robbed of our safari, as had apparently been planned by management. Turns out Adam worked for another company called Sunset Africa, who were in a deal with Victor to provide our safari. Turns out they too were having a devil of a time working with Victor, financially.
The 3rd day, according to the provided itinerary, promised to be quite exciting. We were all high spirits as we drove through the Ngorongoro ranges towards the Serengeti. Then we arrived at Nabi gate where you enter Serengeti from Ngorongoro, and shortly after were notified that our park entrance fee had not been paid by Victor and that we would have to bear the cost, until it could be refunded to us later. This is where the whole tide turned against Victor as it had become all too clear that this one-man bad operation was out to flat-out rob us. After an intensely excruciating 3 hours of demanding the services sold to us, the owner of Sunset Africa, man named Ally, stepped in and decided to handle the dealings with Victor, and letting us proceed with our safari. But, not before we were each asked to pay $70 in order to enter the Serengeti for our first day, which would act as a day's fee while the "management" got things sorted in Arusha for the remaining 4 days.
For the next 4 most incredible safari game drive days, very very sadly we also had to deal with going to the extension office every single day during lunch to extend our days as it was not sorted out appropriately since our very first day in the Serengeti, which meant we never got to leave the Central Serengeti/Seronera region at all. For 4 days, we hung out with the same pride of lions, same herds of elephants and even the same Leopard whom we spotted twice. While this was indeed THE most amazing 5 days of hanging out with the lionesses of Seronera and their cubs and boyfriends, and all the other beautiful wildlife in Central Serengeti, for the purpose of the company review it should be stated that we were initially offered a 5 days safari in the Serengeti to several different areas of the park, Center, North and West as it is simply massive. Nevertheless, our 5 days around the central area and nights at the Serengeti Wild Camp (operated by Zara Tours) were just fantastic.
We chose to abandon the toilet of a public campsite arranged by Elkan called Pimbi. Even the animals found it too disgusting to graze by.
Ultimately, this was, without a doubt, a safari of a lifetime for me considering all the wild animal interactions we had, and our stay at a semi-luxury lodge, with abundant wildlife through camp. Although, a lot of it was due to the diligence employeed by our smart, hilarious and jolly-spirited guide, Adam. He single-handedly saved all his co-workers faces by showing that some Tanzanian people do value a good work ethic and will do whatever they have to to deliver.
In the end, Victor was, as you'd expect, quite apologetic and I can honestly say that we were not robbed of anything, except several hours of our safari time. All else was sorted once we got back to Arusha, including our $70 and timely transfers back to the airport. I do genuinely hope that this was just one big logistical/planning error on Victor's part and that he'll do better to avoid such an instance next time, else I can't imagine Elkan Ltd. or any other local Tanzanian tour operators who don't learn from such experiences, would survive too long in this highly personalised and incredibly lucrative business.
All the best, Victor.