US
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Wonderful people, safe, fun and unforgettable!
This was my first experience traveling to Tanzania and Africa, but my fellow travelers have gone before and worked with Gladiola. We were so impressed with the welcoming nature and kindness of the drivers, Lalashe and Simon. We spent nearly 2 weeks driving around Northern TZ and I always felt safe and comfortable. We had a blast seeing wildlife on safari and just as much fun learning about the culture while visiting villages markets and the countryside. I can’t wait to return and would highly recommend Gladiola to friends or family.
HK
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Well organised and worth to recommend
Both Maggie and Lucy, the tour consultants of Tekko Tours and Travel are very nice. They always response swiftly with detailed and clear answers, which made us have confidence in their service. This is our third time to Eastern Africa, so we can compare Tekko's service with other companies, and it is no doubt that Tekko's service is very good and their jeep is the best. Also, our guide Jackson is excellent. He is polite, punctual, knowledgeable and always try to do his best to find animals. We can feel that he really love natural world and it is very important for a good private tour, as the guide can share his view of environment protection to us . We are pleased to recommend Tekko to you if you would like to have in depth safari experience in Kenya. Also, it is no doubt that we would back to Kenya again within a few years and would choose Tekko as our "partner" again.
US
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Well managed and professional operation with great attention to service and satisfaction.
Craig and his team did an excellent job in working with some of our special timing requests on the 7 day Cape Town/Kruger tour. All transfers, lodging, and tours went off impeccably well....we put a lot of trust in Craig's operation and did not have to worry about any of the details.
A real blessing was meeting Gerard Maretz, our guide from Southern African Tours in and around Cape Town. He is a wealth of knowledge and experience, and I highly suggest requesting his services.
Cape Town is certainly one of the world's great beach cities, and Kruger is indeed the Garden of Eden. The lodging and tours that Craig's operations set up for us in both locales were perfect.
It was an amazing trip. I have been blessed to travel to many places in the world, and South Africa will be among the most memorable. We especially enjoyed all of the people of South Africa.....they have a unique understanding of human nature, regret, forgiveness, and most importantly hopefulness for the future. South Africa is one of the world's most special places geographically. It's rainbow of people make it an even more special place.
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Very poorly organised; disappointing.
Namibia, the people and the wildlife is great; but do NOT use Discovery tours. Different friends and family members have used them and they all say that their tour organisation stinks. I was a single female and on the return from Etosha with one of their drivers I frankly felt unsafe. He left me in the car at a truck stop for an hour with no explanation, was rude, played loud rap music very loud despite my complaints etc etc While at Etosha the tours were not as advertised and very limited. Other people I spoke had similar experiences
CA
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Exceeded my dreams
Our guide, Solomon, was outstanding from start to finish. He seemed to figure us out right away. He knew where all the hotspots were to find wildlife and the other guides with other companies seemed to have a lot of respect for him. He was kind, very knowledgeable and easy to be with. The wildlife was crazy in the Lake Manyara National Park so was a great start.
Weather was perfect. Although a bit wet on the rim of the Ngorogoro Crater, it did not matter because if you waited a while, the weather changed. Also, at our Ngorogoro Lemala camp, they had a well functioning heater to heat up our tent as well as hot water bottles. Food was very good at this camp. We really couldn't believe how well we were taken care of and the staff was so kind and caring. Having a fire just before dinner was a treat as well. We were not disappointed when driving around the Crater. I feel like we saw it all including a black rhino. The Maasi were so attentive. Hot water for the shower was a perfect temperature and enough to get clean for sure.Then we drove to South Serengeti where it looked empty for the first day. Solomon drove everywhere to find wildlife but the rains were late so there was not a lot of big game. It was still so fun because we saw honey badgers, mongooses, wildebeests, zebras, a family of owls, giraffes and a Serval Cat!! When all the big animals are away, we see the little stuff. The Serengeti is beautiful when barren of large beasts.
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We had it all including a beautiful thunderstorm kind of surrounding us at the Ndutu campsite. This site looks out on a marsh and you enjoy beautiful sunsets in front of a fire. The staff was unreal. The food we ate was unreal. Hard to believe we were in the bush. Julius, Winston, Frank and Aloys were all very attentive. We were thoroughly spoiled as well because we had the camp to ourselves for two days!!
More animals arrived on day two because of the rains the night before and it was cool watching the grass grow so fast. One night I heard a giraffe walk by our tent.
Such a great trip. Would recommend it to anyone. Thanks Tanzania!
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
We couldn't have hoped for more from our safari adventure!
We went on a 4 night, 5 day safari trip across Lake Manyara, the Serengeti & Ngorongoro crater with Lion King adventures.
When spending roughly 10/14 hours a day with people on a tour it can be an intense experience, the success of which is dictated by the attitude of those that you're in the company of.
Luckily for us, we were blessed to have Salehe as our guide and Yussuf as our chef.
They were both a complete joy to be around, even in the sometimes long and hot days. We had such a great time with these guys. Our days were filled with good food, insane safari experiences and jokes and good humour aplenty!
Salehe was knowledgeable on a vast range of the animals and birds we encountered. How he was able to spot the location of some of the animals, often camouflaged and way off in the distance as we drove, is still beyond me. It was by no luck that we saw all of the big 5 and then some on our travels.
Yussuf's cooking was tasty and plentiful, especially his soups, and seasoned with his wit and humour was a delight to have at the start and end of each day.
Aside from our final night when a herd of buffalo grazed cm's from our heads, surrounding our tent (it proved too much for us - so we relocated to a "safer" sleeping spot) we couldn't have hoped for more from our adventure.
We strongly recommend and if you're lucky enough to get Salehe & Yussuf - you're onto a complete winner!
Asante Sana!!!
US
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
We trusted Tanzania Choice Safaris and they gave us the safari of our dreams. Highly recommend!!
Our 12-day budget friendly safari with Tanzania Choice Safaris was fantastic and we got exactly what we hoped for. We wanted a company and a guide who would be our partner. The planning process was excellent - our interests, budget and special requests were heard and fully taken into account in the planning of things to see, places to stay and our photographic journal of the trip. Their expertise gave us a sequence of one amazing experience after another. The animal encounters were incredible. Our guide, Kakasii, who speaks 7 languages, guided us not only to the harder to find big animals like Leopard, Cheetah and Rhino, but per our request to see the smaller mammals like hyrax and mongoose, was also attentive enough to spot a chameleon, leopard tortoise and, amazingly, over 100 different birds, as well as dozens of Baobob trees (our eccentric fascination). We quickly saw that you need a guide who has great relationships with the other guides to maximize sharing information, and we could tell that the many guides with whom Kakasii spoke in the quest, enjoyed speaking with him and were eager to share. Kakasii stopped every time we asked, and was great at bird identification and backed it up by showing us from his bird book, being sure to correct himself the couple times his first hunch was off. We saw several infrequently sighted animals like a couple month old leopard and a pile of lion cubs as well as an unbelievable Wildebeest crossing at the Mara River. Brenda and Kakasii went above and beyond with our physical concerns for managing the trip, provided a personally customized tour just for the two of us, and couldn’t have been more hospitable. Having as many days as you have time for is totally worth it with the variety of parks in Tanzania as well as the different areas within each park. Our safari was enhanced by amenities in the Land Cruiser which not all companies have including air conditioning, the ability to charge our equipment on the go, a two-way radio for talking with other guides, a refrigerator for endless cold drinks and a shelf that was a huge help for our camera’s and notes. We highly recommend Tanzania Choice Safaris for all your travel needs in Tanzania and especially an extraordinary animal safari.
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Great experience with Bobby Camping Safaris
Thanks to Bobby Camping Safaris for an amazing trip I had with my kids. We saw everything we wanted to, including a live lioness hunting a baby buffalo. The driver Jolis was very enthusiastic about finding all the animals.
I would definitely do another trip with Bobby Camping and would recommend whole heartedly to anyone else too.
Thanks to Director Sameer for arranging our safari which was a great experience and also all our needs were met.
EE
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Unforgettable experience, incredible scenery
We had a custom made trip arranged by Ene for a group of 6 persons. We had a week for safaris in Ngorongoro, Manyara, Serengeti and Tarangire, later another week rest at Zanzibar. Our group was lead into safaris by a driver´/guide Freddy, who was so incredibly friendly and nice, by the end of our journey we felt he is our brother from another mother.
Personally, I did not know what to expect as it was my first safari ever. However, already on the first day I was blown away with the scenes in Tarangire; we saw more animals I could dream of, most from very close range. As we soon found out that was just an introduction to our amazing trip, over the week we saw all animals we had dreamed about, from the big five just a rhino managed to hide from us. We witnessed activities and action, which you can expect from National Geographic programs but not happening in-front of you, such as back of lions hunting down a buffalo herd, cheetah nursing her cups just few meters from you, elephants chasing away lion herd, etc.
I had one fear before going to Tanzania, I was afraid of black mamba as one of the most poisonous and fast snakes in the world. When I asked from locals about the mamba threat-level everyone assured me that there are no mambas, you're not going to see it even from far away. Yet, at one rest stop in Serengeti when we were all out of the car, a black mamba appeared from bushes and wriggled extremely fast towards us. Before I realized what it could be the snake was already just few meters away, naturally me filming it innocently. The mamba was smarter than myself, it changed direction and hide itself into nearby termite nest. Only at the very end of this encounter a local man nearby shouted at us to keep away - it is a black mamba. Then it hit me how close it was...
As travelling around we spent nights at very different locations, some, such as Rhino lodge (more like hotel!), was extremely exotic and luxurious, the buffet was sooo tasty!!!. Some other venues, example the lodge in Serengeti, surprised from the other angle. Not that we could not survive there, but just a prior information about its modesty would of helped to prepare us. The place was extremely worn out, with broken windows, no running or warm water (water was provided in buckets), not mentioning about wifi (for few of us a permanent daily internet connection was very important due to some personal events happening at home), electricity was gone at 10... It is somewhat sad that lodge owners do not see any need to invest into their property there, they will always find someone who is looking for the roof over the head at Serengeti, the demand is obviously high. As a recommendation - do inquire information about your sleeping facilities to avoid surprises.
Ene and her team was extremely hospital and helpful throughout the trip. Even though we happened to be there at very busy time for the organizers, there were other groups coming and leaving, Ene was always available for us to answer any questions and solve problems even from far away. Just to mention another incident at Zanzibar where resort managers had improvised and relocated our group into in their words "equal" resort, which turned out to be a total s...t hole. Ene, being herself at Safari somewhere at mainland, gave us full assistance so we managed to solve the problem in few hours and were relocated to a decent resort.
Another hint: at Zanzibar you can trust beach boys to arrange trips for you. At our beach was a local man who called himself Sweet Banana. First I was suspicious towards him when he approached me at the beach, but after some French quests recommended him I started talking to him. With a little negotiation we got from him trips at half price than the same offered by the hotel. In the end, example at the snorkeling trip, we were all in the same group; these who paid at hotel and we who paid half price. In few days Mr Banana arranged for us anything we needed - a taxi service, purchasing beer at fair price, anything we needed.
There is more to share than anyone would bother to read, I have been lengthy already. To wrap up, the trip indeed was incredible. I could not imagine to witness so many special moments, I made so many photos/videos of animals and locals that already during first days my device run out of memory. Hint - take with you a sufficiently large memory card! None from our group had professional photo equipment, however, we have collectively so many incredible photos I don't think we missed anything; fortunately today's smartphones have sufficiently good cameras and we were really close to the animals. Our driver Freddy was truly exceptional in finding these special moments - he is a strongest asset for the company, very much oriented at serving clients to their highest satisfaction. And then Ene, she put it all together and made it possible, beyond what words can ever describe! Many thanks!!
US
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Professional and very nice folks.
We had such a wonderful adventure! Emmanuel prepared every aspect of our trip to include more than we could ever imagine. He would check with us to see how everything was going. We were in good hand with our driver, Michael. Michael was like part of the family. He was filled with so much information, love and respect for nature. What a wonderful time!!!
