NL
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Great company
I want to say how excited im of Bison safaris. They give excelent organisation and services. Very good communication. In the future im going to use them again. Thank u,asante
SG
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Reliable tour operator for trip around Rwanda and Uganda
It has been a great tour around Rwanda and Uganda.
David, the driver / guide, is very reliable and will try his best to ensure your comfort and safety during the tour. Further, he is quite skillful in navigating and driving through the mud road of Africa - a skill that is highly recommended when travelling during the rainy reason.
The communication with the company on the tour has also been relatively straight forward and smooth. Relies generally comes within 1 - 2 days.
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Great 4 days safari
We had a great experience with Noel. Smooth negotiation, Noel was very friendly and patient. Safari was exactly as discussed, nice lodges, very professional driver, timely pick up and drop off from Kili Airport.
I was a bit afraid prepay tour, but everything went very well)
Highly recommend Noel's company for safari!
BE
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
professional company
we travelled with our family, 2 adults and 4 kids between 2 and 9 years old.
we had private toyota landcruiser with opening roof and driver Franco during the full 8 days.
we really had the impression to see a fair bit of the country, although we only threaded the south (maasai mara, naivasha, amboseli, tsavo west).
kids were enchanted by the many animals and colourful masaai.
some of the journeys were quite long for the kids, but we tried to entertain them with playcards and games.
our 2 year-old was ill for most of the trips, but she got better once we stopped the malaria pills. (probably not really needed anyways. low endemic regions for malaria.)
mid-range hotels were sufficiently comfortable: zebra plains, great rift valley hotel (really comfortable), Serena Camp (amboseli), Severin Camp.
we slept in tents in 2 out of the 4 camps, and especially the unfenced camp in Tsavo West was a great experience.
a bit of rain on the first day in maasai mara with 18degrees C , but else getting hotter by the day as we came down in altitude towards the coast.
Tsavo was more difficult to see the same abundance of wildlife as we saw in Maasai Mara & amboseli.
This due to the many bush, trees in this reserve and due to the current drought in this region animals were probably hiding near the water.
the driver dropped us in Watamu at the end to spend a couple of days on the beach.
all-in-all this was one of our best holidays in recent years.
US
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Sisi was our tour guide and she was wonderful, knowledgeable, and fun.
We booked this tour through our hotel. We were picked up promptly and reached our destination on time. We saw most of the animals we expected to see except the big cats, which seems somewhat common.
We were able to take a lot of pictures and the guide made sure we were all ready before advancing from each stop. Would definitely use MoAfrika again.
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
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
The tour operator was very friendly and they gave us the best services.
I booked a safari with Mohrale tours and travel to Aberdare National Reserve Last year December. They gave us the best rates and a well planned itinerary. Our safari was well organised. I would recommend this tour company 100%.
FR
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Best Guide ever
Our safari was amazing with king Solomon as a guide. he is very professional, he can find all the animals in the savannah. we loved his company!! thank you King we are a fan of you and the experience you made us live
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.
PL
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Great
I spent 5 days with this company on safari in Serengeti, Ngorongoro and Tarangire, full professionalism, I can recommend with a clear conscience
