20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Unforgettable Experience
Wow! The safari experience we had was indescribable but I will give it my best shot!
From the moment we booked our safari trip we had good communication with Kiliholidays.
On the first day, the drive through different villages gave us a a glimpse of African life, this was accompanied by the information given by our guide.
The African Safari Camp was where we stayed for the first 2 nights it was amazing, all the staff were friendly and accommodating and gave a very enjoyable stay. On the first evening we went on a boat safari, the 2 guides on the boat gave us lots of information about the different animals and birds and took their time to take in the sights. We saw; birds, hippos, crocodiles and a stunning sunset.
The next day, we went on a walking safari. We were taken around by Salume who was a outstanding guide, full of knowledge and was very engaging showing us different games, secrets of the jungle and songs! We highly recommend him.
After this we started our first game drive, we got see so many different animals and throughout the 5 days we saw 4 out of the big 5! Leopard, Elephant, Lion and Buffalo. We never felt rushed on the safari and Paul allowed us to take as much time as we wanted to photograph and really take in what we were seeing.
Paul our guide was very informative and ensured we had a great experience.
The safari experience surpassed all of our expectations, it truly was a holiday of a lifetime.
RU
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Good service for affordable price
It was our (my wife and me) first trip to Tanzania and first safari at all.
We starting the choice of provider for 2 day trip to Mikumi with 3 options and Raja have provided a clear and fast answer with the best price for an individual tour with Swiss Lounge.
A few important points:
1) 30% prepayment to pay via the internet (+4% commission as for almost all card payments in Tanzania)
2) We started a trip around 6 am and I strongly recommend to start it earlier due to traffic (one-way road took more than 8 hours, the same on the way back)
3) All safari took around 4 hours since you arrive to park at 2-3 pm and at 6-7 is already a sunset and on the next day you have only one hour road through a park on the way back
4) We had the change of drivers on the halfway to park and both of them were good, but one had better English and much more interesting stories to tell :)
5) The place with lunch is ok for a toilet stop, but the food is so-so.
No matter of small things, in general, this experience was great, we have succesfully seen what we wanted to see (giraffes, zebras, elephants, impalas, crocodiles, hippos and lion with kids) and now have unforgettable memories.
DE
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
The 2-Day Mount Kilimanjaro Climbing - Marangu Route was really nice!!
We enjoyed 2 days at Mount Kilimanjaro hiking along the Marangu Route, the experience was very interesting
BR
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Great experience
It was definetely one of the best experiences I 've had in my life.
We were in a group of 4 and everything since the first contact to the tour was perfect.
The guide Willem was awesome, a really nice person. We loved his company and professionalism.
I totally recommend it.
Thanks guys.
35-50 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Timing was very good and everyone was friendly and helpful. Last accom a bit noisy, but comfortable.
Everything happened very smoothly, timing with each step of the tour was really good. People friendly and helpful. The accommodation in Kigoma was just a bit noisy, but otherwise good.
DE
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Four-days gorilla safari tour in the Bwindi National Park- Uganda
We booked via internet a four-day gorilla trekking tour with two permits - Nkuringo and Rushaga in the Bwindi National Park in Uganda. Julie our tour consultant from Achieve Global Safaris was excellent. Always extremely helpful and fast with her responses. We arrived in Kigali the night before (organized on our own). Next morning Tom who drove from Uganda to Kigali (Rwanda) picked us up - with some delay and we were quite concerned - but he had a good reason since something broke down in his car. After that everything went perfect and he was a very friendly and helpful guide, always in time and we had no problems with the care despite very difficult and bumpy roads in Uganda trough the Bwindi National Park.
We left Kigali at around 11 a.m. driving towards Uganda to reach our first lodge Ichumbi Gorilla at around 5 pm. At the border, it took about 1h without any good reason, but we had all the time in front of us, without any commitment so we took this as an African experience.
The Ichumbi Gorilla lodge and especially the view was marvelous. Lydia the owner of the lodge was there to take care of some very special guest- the daughter of the 1st Lady. Lydia is visiting the lodge only occasionally.
We got a hand massage when we arrived, a welcome drink and then we got our beautiful rooms. The dinner was excellent and the entire stuff very helpful and pleasant people.
The second day we went to the gorilla trekking tour in Nkuringo to see the X-Christmas gorilla family. Seven guests with the guide and the porters (extremely important and helpful for those tracks) were on the track. My porter Bryan is a Batua (the evolutionary oldest and small people on our plant) and he was so gentle, helpful and kind. I was very happy that I have chosen him; he was the only Batua among all porters. The three trackers left about 2 hours ahead of us to spot the gorillas. After a 2 h trekking tour up and down on quite slippery ground, we reached the gorillas. We saw 3 gorillas: the silverback - 22 year-old, a female gorilla and her baby. We got quite close to them 5-7 m. It was a fantastic experience.
Coming back, we were allowed to take a shower in our room and to chill out on the terrace with coffee and tea and again the fantastic view on the surrounding mountains.
At 3:45 pm we were sad to leave the first beautiful lodge to drive to our second lodge Ichumbi. But the Ichumbi lodge turned out to be an amazing place too. Each of us got an own little beautiful cottage. The administrator of the lodge was a very open-minded, visionary, professional and perfectly organized person, originally from Rwanda. We enjoyed a lot to talk to him and to hear about all the history and experience he went through. Impressive!!! We hope all his dreams will become reality one day.
Since it was my birthday they organized a nice Donate-cake with a candle and flowers, they song and dance for me. This was so touching and wonderful: many thanks in case you ever read this report. The entire experience in Ichumbi was great. The food was delicious, the stuff very friendly and helpful, the place beautiful and very clean.
The 3rd day we went to our 2nd gorilla tour in Rushaga and visited the Mishaya gorilla family. This was a really jungle tour crossing 7x a little river until we reached the gorilla family (after about 1.5 h).
We saw seven of the nine family members and they were extremely well habituated to people, so they passed about 1.5 m between us, fully ignoring us and weren’t afraid of us. We got fantastic photos of them.
The 4th day we had to get up at 4:30 a.m., had breakfast at 5: 00 and left to Kisoro the fly back with a small plane to Entebbe. The flight back was incredible it was like a taxi-flight (hop on - hop off). The plane had three additional stops to pick up quests or to get off guests at different little “airports”. We flew over beautiful landscape and saw a lot of the country in this way without having a 9 h drive. I would do it always again in this way.
In Entebbe, Patrick, the driver waited for us and drove us to Kampala, were our scientific meeting started.
These 4-days were an incredible and wonderful experience in East Africa. Expensive but worth to conserve the mountain gorillas on our planet.
IN
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Big Five And Five Stars. The day I started my talks with Axis Safaris I knew this tour gonna be good
Lennox got everything sorted out for me and his promt mails got me informed of all the schedule and where I would be collected. I joined the Four Day Tour with five more and left for Masai Mara on time. The star of the tour was Mr.Evans our driver come guide who is funny enjoyable man with great knowledge of all animals.. plants..birds etc. I stayed at Lechanda Camp which was very clean and the tents comfortable. The meals were yummy. Next two day we saw almost all the animals, four of the big five and fifth I saw on the last day in Nakhuru. Lucky to see five lions feeding on a zebra and next day a solitary lion who ambushed a wilder beast. Last day I saw the georgeous White Rhino with her cub in Nakhuru and later in Lake Naivasha saw Hippo’s in close proximity. Evans thanks a lot for all the informations and patiently answering my doubts... cheers buddy. Special thanks to Lennox the provider. Will come back again Lennox and Evans.
NL
50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
GREAT!!!!
For the second time we have been traveling with Tailor Made Safaris. Everything was perfectly arranged and booked. It is a personal travel organization with good services. They offer good accommodations and we have had another amazing time!
Last time Kwazulu-Natal and this year Limpopo and Guateng.
They do what they promise!
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Wouldn't use again
I did the 52 day Southern Safari trip with Absolute Africa traveling from Nairobi to Cape Town. Highlights include rafting along the Zambezi river, Spitzkoppe and of course all the amazing animals we saw on safari (Serengeti, endangered rhinos at Matopos, Etosha). Some driving days were long (we covered a lot of countries in 52 days), tent equipment was good quality and food was usually plentiful (unless people in your group want to eat breakfast before breakfast time and they don't save you enough food). For the first 10 days our tour leader Kip/Edmund was great, he had a positive attitude and he was really patient. Then we joined another group and had Martin as our tour leader. Whilst Martin was really informative in the beginning about the daily itinerary, with time i felt he became less informative. It was also clear to some people that Martin favoured certain individuals in the group. I understand that there will be people (even tour leaders) that get on with certain people more than others but as a professional i expected him to treat the group as a whole and listen to us as a whole, taking control of the group during more difficult situations when needed. There were certain situations where Martin acted quite childishly to certain members of the group, a few times he did not respect people's confidentiality by talking to certain members of the group about other people. One particular incident he publicly ridiculed someone in front of the whole group during dinner for not helping cook dinner one night because she was tired. You wouldn't expect this from someone who's been a tour leader for 20 years.
Some of the optional activities i did i felt like it wasn't worth the money, for example we spent 3 days in the Okavango Delta and one day had 9 hours of free time where we had to stay in the bush camp or swim in a pond. Our tour leader didn't tell us this so some people didn't bring things like books etc. Absolute claim that they send you the most updated information (itinerary and optional activities list) however they included activities that haven't been running for years or they don't even run. We went to Antelope Park, Zimbabwe a private reserve home to a lion conservation programme with the aim of breeding lion cubs from captured lions in order to release them into the wild. Since 2005 they haven't released a single lion. I read articles by National Geographic and Africa Geographic that questioned the ethicacy of the programme and there was also speculation about whether the park involved itself in Africa's lion industry (look up Blood Lions for more info). Animal conservation should never involve animal-human interaction or breeding and these do/use to do both these things e.g. cub handling and lion walks.
Correspondence with Absolute prior and throughout my trip was thorough and professional. After giving feedback about my experiences there was an obvious lack of accountability and ignorance. Overland tours are a great way of traveling to so many African countries and overall i really enjoyed most of the activities i did and the people i traveled with. However there are quite a few African overland tours and I am unlikely to use them again.
US
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
awasome team....they do everthing to make u feel comfortable...their guides r excellent.....excellen
best ever i had...good team..nd amazing place...love the guides. nd wanna mention the person robert muhale...amazing...wl b back soon...juat try it guys...worth of money