AE
20-35 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Amazingly best tours i came across
The communication was excellent and of high standards .Really enjoyed the services offered .our holiday,tour with Estleon was amazing memorable experience in deed.The safari tour makes us miss kenya adventures with friends and family from DUBAI.We cant wait for the next vacation leave to tour with Estleon again.
IT
35-50 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Everything went as expected
We planned to visit Namibia quite late in the year (march-april) and Cardboard Box Travel Shop (Lilly in particular) was the only Travel Agent that tried (and indeed was able) to set up a tour for us...
So
US
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Do yourself a favor and use any other company!
We do not recommend using Ecobushman, Isaac Ouma and Shelley McCarthy if you go on Safari. We paid $568 per day and stayed in hotels that were filthy, had no water, and unsafely locked us in the hotel with bars. Many of the restaurants we ate at were dodgy at best and many meals were cookies on the road. The car was constantly in the shop which caused us to lose over a week of our 5 week trip. Everywhere we went they had trouble accessing our money so this trip seemed to be a lot of waiting for a lot of money. Isaac and Shelley have said that it’s the roads, the banking and Africa’s imperfections. We have never heard of such calamities with any of our friends that have traveled to Africa. Do yourself a favor and go with one of the many other companies available. Feel free to contact us with any questions. [email protected]
US
Bright African Safaris exceeded our expectations in every way!
We booked an 11 day Safari through Bright African Safaris and it was the best trip of our lives. They exceeded our expectations on every level. The accommodations and hospitality of every camp we stayed in was fantastic. Salim (our guide) was spectacular. His knowledge of the area and ability to find the animals was impressive. Each day just kept getting better and better. I highly recommend Bright African Safaris as they can put together a great Safari for every budget. Every aspect of the trip went just as planned. I would use Bright again in a heartbeat.
US
65+ years of age | Experience level: first safari
Once in a life time grand experience
Great service all around from emailing Lennox to our Safari driver Richard. Richard was an amazing guide. He found an amazing amount of wildlife and was very knowledgeable about them as well. He stopped and stayed as long as the group requested for photos. He got us amazingly close to all. We saw other safari vans where the people looked like they had paid a lot more and we were all viewing the same animals often times we were even closer. The Lenchada Camp was super clean and friendly. Lots of places to charge cell phones. Also convenient location within walking distance to the Masai Village. Actually preferred the camp to the Lanet Matfam Resort. Food was plentiful and beer was available for purchase. Richard drove safely through some tough terrain in the parks and on the main roads. I believe the good time was had by all. Wished we had booked a longer tour.
20-35 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Remarkable experience
Skilled well informed, very hospitable in hosting of guest. Love the charisma
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Simply amazing and proper service.
Service was amazing, the tour breathtaking and expectations outlived. Highly recommended.
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Had a very superb experience with this company from the first day thanks for making it happen.
Very straightforward and highly dependable I liked the transparency from the first day and the professionals in this company are awesome thank you for making our stay enjoyable looking forward to booking our next holiday with you guys.
DE
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Great custom trip to Rwanda and Uganda
Edris arranged a great 8 day Rwanda/Uganda itinerary for us. The accommodations (mid-range) were all very nice, and our driver/guide Fred was excellent. Fred really put in extra effort to notice what we were interested in - he asked the lodges to specially prepare local dishes for us, made extra stops such as helping us get a custom jacket sewn, pointed out animals long before we noticed them, and knew every bird. Our expectations for this section of the trip were exceeded!
However, we also continued on to 5 days in Tanzania booked through African Pearl but executed by another company. The Tanzania portion of our trip was not as well planned and the guides were not so good. Though Edris stayed in touch with us and tried to improve our experience, the company there in Tanzania was just not committed to providing the kind of 5-star experience that we had in Uganda. I would certainly recommend African Pearl for their home territory in Uganda/Rwanda.
DE
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Poor guides, poor itinerary, mechanical problems
My husband and I did a 2 week/3 country East Africa tour, and Essenia was responsible for 5 days in Tanzania. This portion of our trip really did not meet our expectations in any category: itinerary, lodges, customer service and especially driver/guides. We had a lot of trouble communicating with our first guide. English comprehension problems meant we could not easily ask questions about the schedule, animals, or general cultural questions. During game drives we had a lot of trouble requesting him to stop in time to see animals, he did not know the birds or trees, and even misidentified a monkey as a species which doesn't live in Tanzania! After an upsetting first day of game drives, we asked to change guides. Essenia did not seem to take the problems very seriously, and we had to really push them to find someone else.
The next day, our safari truck was leaking gas and we stopped at a garage to have it looked at. 40 minutes down the road the dashboard suddenly started smoking heavily. Just as we bailed out of the car, a call came that they had found a new driver and he was waiting for us with a different car an hour down the road - lucky timing, I am not sure what would have happened if we hadn't already requested a new guide! After a comedy of errors where we waited an hour for the new driver to pick us up while he waited for us to come to him, we flagged down a passing car from another company and hitchhiked to the new driver. Between morning delays to call customer service, mechanical issues and bad coordination we basically lost this entire day of our trip - quite frustrating.
The new guide was better than the first one. I can say he was competent, but no where near the quality of driver/guides we had on other legs of the trip. For example: he kept telling us stories about customers who tried to make requests which he thought were a bad idea ("tried to do his job of guiding") and to show them that they were wrong, he would let them have a really bad experience (ie drive slowly and hit all the bumps on a road) until they apologized and begged him to do it his way after all. We tried to be careful not to upset him so that we didn't have an experience like that.
We also had problems with the overall itinerary/planning, especially scheduling transit time in the morning when animals are more active and game drives in the mid afternoon heat when animals are there but not doing much. It turns out all 4 lodges were actually owned by the same hotel chain. Though they were nice properties, we would have preferred to experience more variety and local flavor - and not the same buffet for every breakfast/lunch box/dinner! These two issues I should have paid closer attention to before booking, when I could have asked for changes. Essenia never followed up with us directly during or after the trip. We did see lots of animals, there are plenty in Tanzania so we didn't feel this was due to any special skills of our guide. In summary: Essenia really let us down and I would strictly avoid doing business with them.