35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Amazing Holiday - Off2Africa were very professional and their recomendations were spot on.
As an ex-Zimbabwean returning to Zimbabwe after many years - we booked through Off2Africa to ensure we got the best travel experience possible. Their recommendations were excellent - and all transfers flowed seamlessly. After a few days in Vic Falls, we stayed at Bakwena Lodge just outside Chobe National park. For our group of 6, this was a wonderful lodge and great value for money. Amazing animal sightings in the park included Leopard and Lion and even wild dog when en-route back to the lodge one evening. From there, we caught a road transfer to Khulu Lodge just outside Hwange national Park - where again we had some fantastic animal encounters including Elephant drinking from the pool 2 meters from where we sat - that was truly a unique experience and one we will always remember.
Off2africa truly value their clients and stayed in touch with us during our trip to ensure everything was tracking to plan. I would highly recommend them - they know and understand the region and will ensure you have a trip to remember!
US
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
11-Day Kenya/Tanzania Mid-Range Safari - Trip of a lifetime!
My wife and I joined a couple of friends for an extraordinary private 4-person safari with Amazing Memories. Our safari exceeded our wildest expectations in large part due to the tour operators of Amazing Memories. We are extremely satisfied having gone with them after comparing several safari companies over many months.
We had a pop-top van in Kenya and pop-top Toyota LandCruiser in Tanzania. We ended up strongly preferring the LandCruiser for good suspension, comfort, space, ease of drives, and for viewing purposes. Our itinerary included tours of, in order, Lake Nakuru, Lake Naivasha, Maasai Mara, Serengeti, Ngorogoro Crater, and Amboseli.
We were greeted warmly at the airport and were immediately taken out to Nakuru, which was a pretty lengthy drive. We had had problems with Qatar Airways getting to Nairobi, and Anne of AM was incredibly helpful in adapting our itinerary to fit our late arrival and start to our safari. (as a side note, I highly recommend building in an extra arrival day before your safari begins). Anne was instrumental to the planning and coordination of our trip. She made us feel like we were her most important clients before and during the trip. She was eager to match and beat prices of other safari tour operators for the same itinerary, and made really helpful suggestions to that itinerary. She also upgraded one of our camps a month or two out from our safari, which was fantastic – she moved us to a camp that was probably our favorite place to stay.
Itinerary Comments:
We chose an itinerary that minimized times in major cities – many of the multi-site tours across most safari companies spend time in Nairobi or Arusha prior to border crossings. We wanted to minimize driving time and build the most direct route possible. The direct transfer between Maasai Mara and the Serengeti was in fact the main reason we found and ultimately chose Amazing Memories. This ended up working out really well for the most part (read exception below under “Guides” section). We loved every site we visited, and the order we visited them. The one thing I would say, however, is that transfers between locations were always longer than the itineraries accounted for, especially between the Mara and Serengeti. So we didn’t have quite as much game viewing time as we were led to believe.
It seemed like every day and game drive added a unique experience or sighting to our safari. I’d say the Mara, Serengeti, and Ngorogoro were the highlights, but Nakuru, Naivasha, and Amboseli each added great things. We didn’t see as many rhinos as some others did at Nakuru, and the flamingo population had declined significantly. But it was a great start to the trip. We enjoyed Naivasha, and the optional add-on walking tour of Crescent Island is highly recommended! Maasai Mara was incredible…we saw a huge array of lions, elephants, and giraffes in particular. By the end of the trip we had racked up 68 lions, 2 rhinos, 6 cheetahs, a tree-climbing leopard, hundreds of elephants and giraffes, and thousands of herd animals. Many of the key animals were in the Maasai Mara, highlighted by about half the lions and a group of five cheetahs who made a kill, ate it, sauntered to a drink, and then plopped for a nap. The Serengeti was perhaps our favorite park experience – we had great luck in the Seronera region of the park. The park also has bathroom and picnic locations, which were really helpful on our full-day game drives. Here we saw the full array of high value animals – basically everything but a rhino. Ngorogoro was otherworldly and should not be missed…it’s like being in a fish bowl with almost every safari animal you can imagine, in a place that’s unlike any other. And Amboseli was a fantastic park to finish our trip – so many elephants, birds, and lions. And we had a lucky hour or two on our first day when Kilimanjaro became visible for a brief time. I think if we were to take a second safari, we might minimize the number of sites and stick with Tanzania. We didn’t get to see Manyara, Tarangire, or Zanzibar either (which was our choice). But for our first trip, Anne and AM designed a truly spectacular safari.
Camps/Sites Information:
We were really happy with AM’s choices for our stays. We stayed at Flamingo Hill Tented Camp our first night at Nakuru…it was spectacular. The grounds were gorgeous, the staff incredibly kind and welcoming, and the food exquisite – the best of the whole trip. And they were incredibly gracious in asking park officials to keep the gates open late for our late arrival. At Naivasha we stayed at the Sopa! Property. It was a larger, more hotel-like operation. We appreciated the wifi for photo updates. But the grounds were incredible in that animals wandered through the grounds. Zebras, water bucks, monkeys of various sorts, even hippos late in the evening. Don’t worry – they have security staff to escort people around the grounds. For our first night in Maasai Mara, we stayed at the Sentrim camp. It took a long time to arrive here from Naivasha, and Sentrim was perhaps our least favorite camp. But it was in an excellent location near the park entrance. We had been slated to stay here three nights, but we were upgraded to the Ashnil Luxury Camp within the park the next two nights. We LOVED it here. Its location was ideal for game viewing, situated above a large bend in a river that was populated by lots of hippos, birds, and crocodiles. It had an excellent restaurant and bar, and the tents themselves were really nice. We really enjoyed our evenings at Ashnil. For our Serengeti evenings we were at the Ikoma Tented Camp. It’s near one of the smaller park entrances, but it’s only about an hour’s drive into the Seronera region of the park. It was the closest to feeling like “being in the bush” – it was a comfortable and minimal group of tents that we really enjoyed, wolf spiders notwithstanding. After our visit to Ngorogoro, we stayed at the Crater Forest Tented Camp, which is in the middle of a coffee plantation. It was a really gorgeous location and nice tents and restaurant. Finally, we stayed at the Kibo Safari Camp in Amboseli, which gave us prime place to see Kilimanjaro when it came out for a couple hours. Kibo was a lot like Ashnil – really exquisite tents, good restaurant and bar, and beautiful grounds. Overall, AM did a great job of selecting a mix of places to stay – each had their own distinct atmosphere. I think the most important thing in the future is picking places already within the parks – it greatly reduces drive times. But Anne did a great job of mixing location with keeping costs within our budget.
Guides:
Each of our three drivers said the same thing: “You are one of the luckiest groups we’ve ever had.” We saw a ton of rare animals. But we grew more convinced that it was driver talent rather than just luck. We had Anthony in our first Kenya leg, Farro (of Migada Adventures) in Tanzania, and Joseph for Amboseli. Simply put our guides were the most important and influential part of our trip. We couldn’t be more thankful for their enthusiasm, knowledge of the animals, skill at getting us in really great viewing spots, and in accommodating our requests.
Anthony was particularly good at wedging us amongst the number of cars at high value areas, and anticipating how animals would move. He was a charming and really effective guide. The one thing I’d say about Anthony, though, is be sure to be very upfront about times. As we learned later, he started our drives much later than other guides, and we didn’t get to do afternoon game drives with him. Moreover, our transfer between Maasai Mara and Serengeti went very poorly. He had picked up a Maasai companion/guide for our days in Maasai Mara, and to return the companion to his home we had to take a 4-hour detour on our way to the border. As a result, we missed our first afternoon/evening game drive in the Serengeti, probably our favorite park. Without the detour, we would have made the drive without a problem. Anne was very responsive to this issue, and even compensated us for the missed game drive. And we were given a different driver upon our return to Kenya for Amboseli, one who was explicitly instructed to maximize our game drives. But this was a little frustrating since this transfer was the reason for going with AM in the first place.
In Tanzania, Anne had arranged for Farro and the Migada Adventures safari company. We couldn’t speak highly enough about Farro (and the LandCruiser…we loved that thing). He really knew the parks well and always seemed to get us to the best animal sightings at just the right times. And he always seemed to guess precisely how the animals would behave, especially the leopard that killed the prey and took it up into the tree. If it had been up to us we’d probably have stayed in the area all day, but he suggested we continue on because the leopard would nap there all day. He was spot on – we returned on our way out of the park, just in time to see the leopard feed on the impala and come down the tree. That sort of thing happened a lot with Farro – he was really eager to stay as long as we wanted, but was equally eager to make really helpful suggestions. He was professional, kind, personable, really knowledgeable – the perfect guide.
Finally, we had Joseph guide us through Amboseli. His knowledge of the animals was unparalleled. We had seen nearly every animal by this time in the trip, but we learned so much about each one we saw. He was especially good with spotting and knowing about birds…he was really excited that our friends were budding birders. He was equally personable and skillful at finding great sightings. I’d say the guides were really the highlight of the trip – they were the main reasons the safari was spectacular as it was.
Conclusion:
The safari truly was the trip of a lifetime, and we have Anne, Anthony, Farro, and Joseph to thank for that. I think we’re a bit more savvy now understanding transfers, and being much clearer with our guides about our desire to maximize game drive times and knowing about transfer times. But the trip exceeded our wildest expectations and we are very thankful of Amazing Memories’ care in planning and executing the trip. We have a number of friends now considering taking safaris, and we are eager to recommend AM to them for their (and our) potential visits in the future. Thanks Amazing Memories!
CA
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
A lovely, amazing experience in the Masai Mara.
My four friends and I had a great safari. Our driver, Jesse, was awesome and continuously checked on me and my 3 friends to make sure we were doing well. Our camp accommodations were very good and we met a whole bunch of lovely people from around the world. All in all it was a great experience and I would definitely do another safari with them, perhaps in a warmer month.
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Amazing Usambara really is amazing!
If anyone is thinking to go to Tanzania and climb Kilimanjaro they should not hesitate to book their Kilimanjaro climb with Amazing Usambara Trekking! Ronaldo, the owner, knows everything about the mountain. He gives a reasonable price and doesn't pressure you, he wants you to make the right choice for you. Very professional team that took fantastic care of us on the mountain and enabled us to reach our goal of getting to the very top! We had the best two guides, Lodrick and Danson
65+ years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
What a wonderful time! The perfect way to celebrate our big event.
The booking process was greatly helped by easy WhatsApp chat with Edna from Falcon Safaris. Advance on-line payment proved straightforward. It turned out that the guest house we had booked, Mopani Lodge, was part of the same company and this meant all the logistics worked like a dream. Our visit was to celebrate our golden wedding, so we were hoping for something exceptional - and that is just what we got! Over our two day stay, we booked three of the activities from the extensive menu: a guided tour of Vic Falls, a sunset river cruse on the Zambezi, and a day trip to Chobe national park in Botswana. Each one of these was truly spectacular and awesome. We were pleasantly surprised by meals etc that were included but even more by the fact that we had individual guides, not shared with others, and all the guides were very helpful and knowledgeable. We loved the wildlife, and our guides could name all the birds we saw. As well as the abundant bird life, we saw hippos, elephants, giraffes, impala, lions (including one sitting in front of a recent meal of baby elephant...) and even a sable, an endangered species. And Vic Falls themselves - well beyond description! Our visit was in July which is round the best time of year to go, and it was a truly awe inspiring experience. Our visit was enhanced by our guide, Brave, who fed us with interesting facts while allowing us to fully bask in the glory of this wonder. We are left with so many wonderful memories and can only record our great appreciation for all aspects of our visit provide by Falcon Safaris. We recommend them without reservation. (One small tip for UK visitors if you go to Chobe. This is in Botswana, and you need to have a multiple entry visa for Zimbabwe. If you have a single entry visa you may be able to get an extension but only before you leave Zimbabwe. Otherwise you have to buy another one on re-entry!)
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
We had a great 2 day safari with Vuriva Complex & Safaris Limited in Tarangire and Ngorogoro
Firstly, in terms of the organisation of the safari, William, the manager, was very helpful in finalising the financial details and coordinating the logistical arrangements of pick up and drop off.
The safari overall exceeded expectations, as the guide also delivered excellent service and we saw lots of animals considering our safari was 2 days overall.
I would highly recommend Vuriva Complex & Safaris to anybody as they delivered an optimal service that was tailored to our budget and time restraints.
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Top Service Standards, Before, During and After - Hello Tanzania we will meet again
Hello Tanzania, have provided us with a wonderful experience of our first time in Tanzania and the Mikumi Safari experience.
Mwajabu has been wonderful in answering and helping with any query I had throughout the process.
We were picked up straight from the airport, very early in the morning, Mwajabu had arranged an on the go breakfast for us.
Loads of drinks and snack were provided for the journey. Our safari was amazing, our safari guide/driver Bob was very knowledgeable and made the safari experience so much better, Camp Bastian was lovely and the food and service provided.
Mwajabu checked up on us through messaging throughout the safari and even after. She also helped arrange our ferry tickets to Zanzibar which was ready at our Hotel after the Safari.
Mwujabu and her team provided consistently professional and very friendly service.
We very highly recommend Hello Tanzania, we will be visiting Tanzania again, Mwajabu and Hello Tanzania we will meet again.
NL
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
The trip was very good, Omar is very nice!
Walter is a nice man, but he is very intrusive. If I don't respond yet, he has sent me another message a couple of times. The same goes for booking a safari: we had not yet arrived at our hotel for 5 minutes or he was already on the pavement.
Walter, you can regulate the trips well but a little less intrusive please
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Experience of a life time!
We visited Victoria Falls, Hwange and Botswana as a family group and it was the most amazing trip!
Everything ran smoothly and Becks recommendations on accommodation, safaris, and activities were excellent.
We had some amazing encounters with leopards, elephants, lions and so much more. Everyone that has seen our photos wants to go and experience it just like we did.
We fell so in love with our holiday and the country that we are going back next year to get married. We completely trust Beck's knowledge and advise on booking our next very special trip. We can't wait to go back!!
US
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
GREAT experience!
Great experience with Africanchallenge safaris! Kennedy was really communicative and helped me organize my trip to Kenya and answered any questions I had. He arranged for me to be picked up the morning of my safari and be brought into City Centre for pickup! My guide, Maxwell, was very informative as well and made the safari really fun! You also get to meet lots of people from other safaris which is really cool. I went on this experience alone as well which was great because you get to meet so many people from different countries! This safari is great for budget travelers and was an overall awesome time! Thanks Kennedy and Africanchallenge!