20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Amazing safari experience - “Wildlife Safaris” - http://www.wildlifesafaris.com
Amazing experience. Christine and Nic took care of everything. From helping organise flights, to taking us to Kruger, to checking in the lodge, to taking us on the best routes, restaurants, avoiding the queues, taking pictures, and finally taking us home! Always at ease and Nic is THE most experienced man in Kruger. 30+ years experience, nobody has worked in the park longer.
Can’t recommend this enough. Reach out to them, tell them what they want and let them take control. They know what they are doing!
Re price, you may find another firm $100 cheaper, but this $100 savings is given back in either longer queues, jam packed vehicles or poorer food. I wouldn’t look anywhere else, and I know 1 client who has come back to Nic and Christine over half a dozen times.
http://www.wildlifesafaris.com
Enjoy! Best of luck!
Blair
US
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Custom Tour in Kilimanjaro Area
We had a series of day trips including one to Arusha National Park and one to Tarangire NP. The other two days involved more local activities, one in the Marangu area and one in the Lawate - Sanya Juu area. The weather curtailed a few of our anticipated activities, but what we did get to do was very enjoyable. The food was plentiful and delicious. Norbert was a great driver/guide to the two national parks.
Communications could have been a little better at times. That may have been partly due to our somewhat last-minute arrangement of our itinerary, or due to the fact that we were staying at the lodge of a friend of a friend, so we coordinated more often with that friend than with Brian himself.
US
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
The drivers are incredibly knowledgeable and felt like part of our family by the end of the trip!
Harrison and Charles were wonderful tour guides. They are both safe drivers who allowed us to snap photos at our leisure while ensuring that we saw the best that Masai Mara had to offer. Both of them are very knowledgeable and they shared their vast amount of intel throughout the trip. The van was comfortable to ride in. Both drivers were prompt in their timing and kept our large group to a schedule to allow us to see as much as possible while in the Mara and at Hells Gate. We will definitely be booking with African Hagyko again for our next safari and highly recommend it to anyone traveling in Kenya!
An unbeleivably well organised trip of a lifetime which went way beyond our expectations
From the earliest contact and planning, right through to the end of the trip, the communication and advice from Kevin Nicholson and his team on the ground was always swift, professional and responsive to our needs. His experience and extensive knowledge of Uganda enabled him to tailor our holiday perfectly to us. From the moment our driver met us at Entebbe Airport and then met up with Brett and Rebecca we knew we were being really well looked after....indeed, their entire staff at the Karibu charmed us with their smiles, enthusiasm and desire to make us feel at home at all times. They made us feel special from start to finish. We were introduced to our guide Davis, who talked us expertly through the next 10 days of travel, lodge accommodation and national park drives, so we felt well prepared for it all. Davis turned out to be so much more than a guide.....he took us on an unforgettable trip around beautiful Uganda, always making sure we got the maximum experience and information needed whenever we asked. His knowledge of the wildlife ( particularly the birds of Uganda) is really impressive. Davis went the extra mile on several occasions to ensure we encountered as many different animals as possible. The lodges chosen for us were all different from each other, all very welcoming and of a high standard....the Mihingo Lodge in Mburo deserves a special mention for its location, quality and superb service.
Throughout the trip, we were never made to feel "just part of a party", the group numbers were always small, and the excursions were run to perfection. We spent the last 3 nights of our holiday back at Karibu, and it really felt like being back home....a perfect way to unwind in its beautiful gardens before returning to the reality of a British winter, withBrett, Becky and all the team treating us so well. It was an emotional farewell from there after what was a thrilling 14 days which included trekking elephants, giraffes, zebras, chimps, gorillas, tree lions and shoebills in their forest, game park and swamp habitats.......what a ride we had! To say that it exceeded our expectations would be an enormous understatement. Thank you so much, Experience Uganda, you really care for (and about) your clients.
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Safari with Jocky Tours
First time in Kenya and on safari. Our driver/guide was excellent, friendly and very knowledgeable. Would recommend!
US
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Great time in Masai Mara!
Everything was great! I didn't expect much, but this tour was fun, well organized, and stress free. All of the accommodtions were adequate or better. This wasn't a luxury safari, but accommodations sufficed.
CA
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Best Trip
We had an amazing trip, started from moshi to the north Safari in Tanzania
At first we had some changes in our itinarary and Sylwia adjust the hotel and activities for us. If you plan a safari, you have to know that there is many factors who can affect your itinarary, (weather, conditions etc) so you have to be flexible as traveller. Sylwia made an amazing job switching the activities and operation to make it work.
Serengeti huge, amazing and full of animals, the Pumzika Camp was my favorite acomodation in all of my 20days trip in tanzania. Very welcoming people, good food and amazing view.
For me it was a bit hard, safari its very long, (10-11h drive in one day) hot and humide, in the dusty and very bumpy road, if you have motion sickness like me, try to arrange a flight to get there, I wish I could have know we could do that at first, I would have flight with no hesitation to get to the safari area.
The balloon tour company adventure Aloft also has amazing tour guide and very friendly pilots.
After the third day, we had some issues with the driver-guide. I write an message to Sylwia, witch was very avaialble and understandable and she arrange everything to make sure we are happy with our guide.
The guides are nice, but it would be good for them to be trained to provide more specific information about park, animals, environment, trees, etc. That would also be a good idea to provide some sort of booklet with all the annimals we can expect to see with a little description and some details of their lifestyle. i am sure it would make traveller very happy to learn about animals, vegetation and parks and would be some sort of a gift souvenir from the tour.
The africa Glamping camp was very good too, good food and professional staff.
The Ngorongoro Cratere was my favorite game drive dont miss it there is plenty of animals.
We also had a couple of day trip to mafia. We flew there without any problem and we got to the beach easily.
Also, end of november begin december is for me the best time to visit tanzania. Its the small rainy season, but we didnt have any rain at all, very good weather and no tourist at all, we had the full hotel for me and my boyfirend very often, so dont hesitate to book at this time.
The trip went very well, the service was amazing, Sylwia was very available for us at any time, professional and flexible. She make us feel like our satisfaction was her priority so a huge thank you to her for making us so happy.
It was a dream trip.
US
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Was amazing
First of all, we were lucky we got the BEST DRIVER ever , RAYMOND "everyone loves Raymond.
He was really clever , polite and could answer all our questions about the Safari, and he drove us all over the field,
We were able to see all the 5 big animals of the Safari, I really enjoyed it a lot.
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Cheap price but overall a pretty average, stressful experience
We had a very mixed experience on our 11 day Kenya/Tanzania safari. We booked with Explore Africa Holidays but never met anyone from that company – seems to be another trading name for Baboon Budget Safaris. In Tanzania they contract out to 7 Wonders Safaris.
Pros:
- Overall we had a great time - got to all the parks we had planned and saw incredible wildlife. All the Big 5 in both Kenya and Tanzania; views of elephant families in front of Kilimanjaro a definite highlight at Amboseli!
- One of our guides in Kenya was fantastic – Isaac. He was from a different company called Jocky Safaris that we’d been handed over to for the day
- We really appreciated the opportunity to stay at Masaai-run camps in Kenya & chat with the guys working there (Miti Mingi Eco Camp & Kimana Amboseli Camp)
- In Tanzania the camps were extremely basic (more below) but on the plus side was really cool to stay right inside/very near the national parks, with visits from elephants, hyenas and zebras in the night
- Kenya/Tanzania border crossing was managed pretty smoothly, though communication could have been better. We just trusted the random people who presented themselves to us which might be stressful if travelling by yourself.
- Price is very cheap compared to other operators
Cons:
- In Kenya we had 2 different guides for the 3 parks we visited (Masai Mara, Lake Nakuru & Amboseli), plus another driver at various points. This meant changing vans every single day and a lot of time spent on logistics that often felt very disorganised. On our third day we waited 2.5 hours for our pick up to go to Lake Nakuru. We hadn’t expected to be with a different group and different guide almost every day and ended up feeling like cargo being passed around impersonally. The constant change made it hard to relax into the trip as we were never quite sure who we’d be passed to next, what our group would be like, if we were going to miss out on something we’d planned to do.
- For the third Kenyan park we were placed in a car that wasn’t a safari vehicle. The windows didn’t wind down and were tinted so it was completely unsuitable for game drives (I’m not a tall person and would have had to sit on cushions to see out! :-)) When we asked about this it was resolved and we were able to do the game drive with another company (Isaac with Jocky), which we appreciated.
- Our first guide in Kenya, Josef, didn’t volunteer any information on our first game drive and talked the group out of doing an early morning game drive in Masai Mara on the main day there. Thumbs down.
- We were told we’d be met off the bus in Arusha and dropped off at our hotel however the person (Sayid) didn’t show up. Luckily the lovely bus driver seemed familiar with 7 Wonders way of (not) doing things and dropped us at their office. There we were quickly briefed by the manager of 7 Wonders, Evelyn, who informed us of multiple changes to our itinerary including a different Arusha hotel (Stereo – absolutely fine), reversing the order of parks and a different campsite for Ngorongoro. When I asked why we hadn’t been met off the bus as arranged Evelyn dismissively said she didn’t know anything about it. Very poor first impression.
- In Tanzania we again had 2 different guides for the 3 parks we visited but much less chopping and changing. Had one of the guides for 3 days in a row, Florian.
- During the whole time with Florian we felt there was a lot of cutting corners and general lack of service/professionalism. To his credit he made sure we saw lots of amazing animals in the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater and was mostly happy to answer questions when we asked. However the biggest negative for us was that he rushed through every single game drive – our group was always first back to camp (by an hour or more), a couple of times we saw male lions or elephants he told us there was no time to stop, but each time we passed through a park gate we had to wait 45-60 minutes (we could see there were no queues at the ticket offices; we suspected it was to make it seem we’d spent longer at each park than the actual allotted 24 hours). Florian and the chef Ibrahim also spent a fair amount of their free time flirting with the one single woman in our group.
- The Land Cruiser safari vehicles in Tanzania were far more comfortable that the converted Toyota vans used in Kenya, however on our second last day the safari vehicle stalled on the steep road out of Ngorongoro, we had an uncomfortable 10 minutes while Florian tried to stop it rolling backwards and get it started again. Luckily another vehicle came along and gave our group of 6 a ride to the top while Florian drove up ahead & park rangers had also arrived quickly. We imagine this is probably a common enough occurrence as the road out of Ngorongoro is very steep. Having said that, our guide didn’t seem very familiar with driving on mountain roads.
- The camps in Tanzania were not of an acceptable standard. We were fully aware we’d booked a budget safari and are not precious, but if you’ve paid for a tour we think basics like drinking water and toilet paper should be provided (or at the very least a heads up from the guide to remind everyone to stock up before leaving a town). We stayed at Jambo Lodge near Manyara, Pimbi in the Serengeti and Simba near Ngorongoro.
Couple of other pieces of info that might be helpful: in Kenya fixed camps are large canvas tents, often with a private bathroom at the back (though very basic we had decent mosquito nets in each place); in Tanzania camping is actual tents with bed rolls and sleeping bags, you are expected to help set up your own tent and the overall experience is fun. Food in Tanzania was much nicer than in Kenya (except for the lunches which were all pretty awful). Kenya/Tanzania border crossing: driven to Namanga, met at Immigration office & helped to navigate departure/entry process (very simple), directed to public bus which then drives you on to Arusha (we waited about an hour).
We hope this is useful information if you are thinking of booking with Explore Africa Holidays or Baboon Budget Safaris. Overall we had a fantastic time in terms of unbelievable wildlife but would not recommend either Kenyan safari company, and definitely wouldn’t recommend 7 Wonders. We completely understand this is a budget tour at budget prices, but for us it was still a fair amount of money to spend on 10/11 days of our trip and we felt that basic service was totally overlooked. If you can afford to spend a little more we think it’d be worth it to feel looked after, have one guide & one group for the duration of your safari, and generally be able to relax and fully enjoy the experience!
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Cheap price but overall a pretty average, stressful experience
We had a very mixed experience on our 11 day Kenya/Tanzania safari. We booked with Explore Africa Holidays but never met anyone from that company – seems to be another trading name for Baboon Budget Safaris. In Tanzania they contract out to 7 Wonders Safaris.
Pros:
- Overall we had a great time - got to all the parks we had planned and saw incredible wildlife. All the Big 5 in both Kenya and Tanzania; views of elephant families in front of Kilimanjaro a definite highlight at Amboseli!
- One of our guides in Kenya was fantastic – Isaac. He was from a different company called Jocky Safaris that we’d been handed over to for the day
- We really appreciated the opportunity to stay at Masaai-run camps in Kenya & chat with the guys working there (Miti Mingi Eco Camp & Kimana Amboseli Camp)
- In Tanzania the camps were extremely basic (more below) but on the plus side was really cool to stay right inside/very near the national parks, with visits from elephants, hyenas and zebras in the night
- Kenya/Tanzania border crossing was managed pretty smoothly, though communication could have been better. We just trusted the random people who presented themselves to us which might be stressful if travelling by yourself.
- Price is very cheap compared to other operators
Cons:
- In Kenya we had 2 different guides for the 3 parks we visited (Masai Mara, Lake Nakuru & Amboseli), plus another driver at various points. This meant changing vans every single day & a lot of time spent on logistics that often felt very disorganised, sometimes chaotic. On our third day we waited 2.5 hours for our pick up to go to Lake Nakuru. We hadn’t expected to be with a different group and different guide almost every day & ended up feeling like cargo being passed around impersonally. The constant change made it hard to relax into the trip as we were never sure who we’d be passed to next, what our group would be like, if they were going to deliver or we'd miss out on something.
- For the third Kenyan park we were placed in a car that wasn’t a safari vehicle. The windows didn’t wind down and were tinted so it was completely unsuitable for game drives (I’m not a tall person and would have had to sit on cushions to see out! :-)) When we asked about this it was resolved and we were able to do the game drive with another company (Isaac with Jocky), which we appreciated.
- Our first guide in Kenya, Josef, didn’t volunteer any information on our first game drive and talked the group out of doing an early morning game drive in Masai Mara on the main day there. Thumbs down.
- We were told we’d be met off the bus in Arusha and dropped off at our hotel however the person (Sayid) didn’t show up. Luckily the lovely bus driver seemed familiar with 7 Wonders way of (not) doing things and dropped us at their office. There we were quickly briefed by the manager of 7 Wonders, Evelyn, who informed us of multiple changes to our itinerary including a different Arusha hotel (Stereo – absolutely fine), reversing the order of parks & a different campsite for Ngorongoro. When I asked why we hadn’t been met off the bus as arranged Evelyn dismissively said she didn’t know anything about it. Very poor first impression.
- In Tanzania we again had 2 different guides for the 3 parks we visited but much less chopping and changing. Had one of the guides for 3 days in a row, Florian.
- During the whole time with Florian we felt there was a lot of cutting corners and general lack of service/professionalism. To his credit he made sure we saw lots of amazing animals in the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater and was mostly happy to answer questions when we asked. However the biggest negative for us was that he rushed through every single game drive – our group was always first back to camp (by an hour or more), a couple of times we saw male lions or elephants he told us there was no time to stop, but each time we passed through a park gate we had to wait 45-60 minutes (we could see there were no queues at the ticket offices; we suspected it was to make it seem we’d spent longer at each park than the actual allotted 24 hours). Florian and the chef Ibrahim also spent a fair amount of their free time flirting with the one single woman in our group.
- The Land Cruiser safari vehicles in Tanzania were far more comfortable that the converted Toyota vans used in Kenya, however on our second last day the safari vehicle stalled on the steep road out of Ngorongoro & we had an uncomfortable 10 minutes while Florian tried to stop it rolling backwards and get it started again. Luckily another vehicle came along and gave our group of 6 a ride to the top while Florian drove up ahead & park rangers had also arrived quickly. We imagine this is probably a common enough occurrence as the road out of Ngorongoro is very steep. Having said that, our guide didn’t seem very familiar with driving on mountain roads.
- The camps in Tanzania were not of an acceptable standard. We were fully aware we’d booked a budget safari and are not precious, but if you’ve paid for a tour we think basics like drinking water and toilet paper should be provided (or at the very least a heads up from the guide to remind everyone to stock up before leaving a town). We stayed at Jambo Lodge near Manyara, Pimbi in the Serengeti and Simba near Ngorongoro.
Couple of other pieces of info that might be helpful: in Kenya fixed camps are large canvas tents, often with a private bathroom at the back (though very basic we had decent mosquito nets in each place); in Tanzania camping is actual tents with bed rolls and sleeping bags, you are expected to help set up your own tent and the overall experience is fun. Food in Tanzania was much nicer than in Kenya (except for the lunches which were all pretty awful). Kenya/Tanzania crossing: you get driven to Namanga, met at Immigration office & helped to navigate the departure/entry process (very simple), directed to public bus that then drives you on to Arusha (we had to wait about an hour).
We hope this is useful information if you are thinking of booking with Explore Africa Holidays or Baboon Budget Safaris. Overall we had a fantastic time in terms of unbelievable wildlife but would not recommend either Kenyan safari company, and definitely wouldn’t recommend 7 Wonders. We completely understand this is a budget tour at budget prices, but for us it was still a fair amount of money to spend on 10/11 days of our trip and we felt that basic service was totally overlooked. If you can afford to spend a little more we think it’d be worth it to feel looked after, have one guide & one group for the duration of your safari, and generally be able to relax and fully enjoy the experience!