CN
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Pedaso Safari / David – My personal experience of a 14-day Safari in Kenya and Tanzania; I strongly advise future travelers to choose this option care
I don't usually write such long negative reviews. I can completely understand minor problems during a trip, especially in Africa, where there are many uncontrollable factors such as roads, weather, wildlife, and local suppliers. However, this approximately 14-day Kenya + Tanzania Safari made me increasingly feel that the problem is not just "an occasional minor mistake," but rather that the travel company's organizational skills, communication skills, accommodation arrangements, local ground handling capabilities, and how they handle problems are all seriously flawed. So I decided to write down the whole process in detail, hoping that future travelers planning safari trips to Kenya and Tanzania can understand what we actually experienced before choosing a travel company.
First, the conclusion: **The animals did not disappoint me at all.** The Great Migration, the Serengeti, Amboseli, and the wildlife we saw along the way were all well worth it; this should have been a truly unforgettable trip. What truly disappointed me was Pedaso Safari and its manager, David. The following is all based on our personal experience during this trip.
## 1. Accommodation Arrangements: What Did We Actually Pay For?
First, let's address the most basic issue: accommodation. Our payment/booking information clearly stated **"2 × Double Room"**. Before departure, I specifically asked David if we could get a lower price since we could share a room, but he clearly stated no. We accepted this and confirmed again on WeChat that we would be accommodated in two double rooms.
However, later, especially on the day we arrived in Nairobi, David's stance changed. He suggested that if we insisted on two rooms, my sister and his son would share, while I might have to share a room with a stranger. This arrangement completely deviated from the initially confirmed "2 × Double Room" and made us realize for the first time that the actual accommodations weren't following the initial booking.
Throughout the safari, we actually only had one room. Later, during the camping phase, it became even more absurd that the three of us were put in one tent. The problem wasn't just "crowded" or "uncomfortable," because there simply wasn't enough space in the tent; we didn't even have a proper place to put our luggage, and eventually, ants even crawled into our suitcases.
I believe there's a very basic principle regarding travel accommodations: if a travel company is prepared to have customers share rooms, tents, or three people share one tent, that's fine, but they should inform customers in advance so they can decide whether to accept it, rather than having customers pay and depart only to find out on-site that the actual accommodation arrangements are completely different from what they expected. Especially since this was a 14-day safari, accommodation isn't a trivial detail; it's a service we paid for.
## 2. The Guide Incident: We don't object to carpooling, but we object to last-minute changes to confirmed arrangements.
Here I must specifically state: **Carpooling on the Safari itself is perfectly normal; this is not the reason for our complaint.** We were never unhappy because other tourists joined the car. The real issue is that before departure, we clearly confirmed that Daniel would be our guide for the next few days, and we accepted this arrangement and began our trip accordingly.
However, during the trip, a white male tourist joined the car. This in itself was not a problem, but after boarding, this tourist continuously criticized Daniel's work and contacted his travel agency, demanding that Daniel be reassigned to his Amboseli itinerary.
What truly made us uncomfortable was the way the whole situation was handled. As Asian tourists, we clearly felt throughout the process that our needs and the arrangements confirmed before departure were not given the same level of importance as this white tourist. I don't want to directly accuse anyone of racial discrimination because I can't know their true motives. I can only describe our feelings as customers at the time: Why could our pre-confirmed guide arrangements be suddenly changed because of a last-minute request from another tourist? If the travel company needed to adjust the guide for operational reasons, I could completely understand, but they should at least have informed us beforehand, explained what happened, discussed it with us, and let us know what options were available, instead of having Daniel leading us one second and then telling us he was leaving the next.
We also had a 6-year-old child and a lot of luggage. This wasn't a simple "change of driver," but a major change to our confirmed travel arrangements. I believe that regardless of the other party's nationality or skin color, if it involves a confirmed customer itinerary, the travel company should communicate in advance, instead of demanding immediate acceptance after the fact.
So we contacted David. David told us, "15 minutes, I will call you back." A little while later, he said in the group chat, "Problem solved." Seeing this, we naturally assumed the problem was resolved, meaning our original arrangements with Daniel wouldn't change. So we told Daniel, "It's okay, we'll stick with you." But Daniel told us he hadn't received any notification.
So I called David again. This time, David explained that they had a large team and needed to coordinate different tourists. But this only confused me more: **If things were still being coordinated, why tell us "Problem solved"?** If it wasn't truly resolved, they should have told the client, "We're still coordinating," instead of letting the client believe everything was back to normal.
In the end, the problem wasn't actually solved. To avoid further disruption to the entire group's itinerary, we had to sacrifice our planned Hell's Gate trip and go to Amboseli earlier. In other words, we didn't request a change of itinerary for our own reasons; rather, we bore the consequences because the travel company hadn't properly coordinated the arrangements between different tourists.
What I found even more incomprehensible was that David then demanded additional fees. I was speechless because we didn't actively request a change of itinerary; we were forced to change it because of this problem. The final result was: **we lost our own itinerary and had to pay extra fees.** **
## 3. Upon Arrival in Tanzania, Things Became a Massive "On-the-Spot Itinerary"
After entering Tanzania, the situation became even more chaotic. We went through seven different people before finally arranging the rest of the itinerary. From our experience, this frequent changing of liaisons wasn't normal internal team coordination, but rather suggested that David himself lacked local ground handling capabilities in Tanzania; he was simply constantly transferring our itinerary to different local companies. Therefore, our Tanzanian portion was likely temporarily "split" and assigned to other teams.
More importantly, during this process, we were actually directly "inserted" into another tour group to perform the same itinerary, and this group's itinerary had already started before we joined. In other words, we didn't start with a complete itinerary, but rather joined a group that was already in progress. This directly led to the misalignment of parts of our original itinerary—for example, the national park that was supposed to be our first day's itinerary had already been visited by members of this other group before we joined. When we joined the group, this stop had already been "skipped" and moved to the back as a make-up stop.
We didn't initially have much of a problem with this. Adjustments to the itinerary during a trip are normal, and we were willing to cooperate as long as the trip could ultimately be completed. However, the problem was that since the itinerary order had changed, had the travel company reconfirmed the new hotels, drivers, and subsequent itinerary? What happened later told us that they hadn't.
## 4. Fig Tree: You told me it was "all arranged," but it wasn't booked at all.
On the morning of the day the previous leg of the trip was about to end, I proactively contacted David to confirm the next steps, where we would stay, and what the next leg of the trip would be. David's replies were consistently very clear, giving the impression that everything was arranged without worry. So, of course, we believed him.
But in the afternoon, when the driver dropped us off, he suddenly told us: **David hadn't booked Fig Tree for us at all.** More importantly, Fig Tree was fully booked for that day.
Here I must emphasize that this wasn't a last-minute change of plans, a last-minute request to change hotels, or us being late; it was that the travel company told us the hotel was arranged, but in reality, it wasn't booked at all.
We kept trying to contact David with the driver, but he was unreachable. He finally appeared over an hour later, explaining that he was taking an exam and couldn't bring his phone in.
I completely understand that everyone has their own things to do, and it's normal not to bring a phone during an exam. However, the problem is that our trip didn't suddenly happen while he was taking an exam. He could have easily arranged the hotel beforehand. If he knew he wouldn't be able to handle client affairs for a certain period, he should have confirmed everything in advance. What I can't accept isn't "David is taking an exam today," but rather: **because you're taking an exam today, we don't have a hotel tonight.**
## 5. Even more confusing is the different explanations that followed for the same thing.
The explanations we received later regarding why Fig Tree wasn't booked also left me very confused. David initially said he was told we were too tired to go; but this explanation itself is hard to believe—if we were really too tired to go, why did I repeatedly confirm the arrangements with him early in the morning? Later, he changed his story, saying the driver had the wrong hotel. Throughout the whole process, his explanations kept changing, more like constantly finding different reasons to explain the problem than directly stating what actually happened. The problem is, we'd stayed at this hotel before, and the driver had taken us countless times, so I find it hard to understand why it ended up being a "driver mistake." If the hotel was truly booked, the simplest solution would have been to produce a booking confirmation, which wasn't available at the time.
For consumers, what truly matters isn't how many explanations the travel company can offer later, but rather: **Was the hotel actually booked?** If it was, they should provide confirmation; if not, they should admit it wasn't, instead of giving different explanations at different times and constantly shifting the blame onto the driver or us.
## 6. So we had no choice but to return to Arusha with the driver.
Since Fig Tree was full, David was unreachable, and there were other passengers in the car, we had no choice but to return to Arusha with the driver. On the way, we confirmed again: "Where are we staying tonight?" David replied "Charity." Based on our previous communication, we chose to continue trusting this arrangement.
But when we arrived at Charity, we discovered that the hotel was hosting a wedding event and was fully booked, unable to accommodate us.
So the problem returned to square one: we were once again taken to a hotel that was actually unavailable.
We then contacted David again, and his response was still: "Let me make a call."
At this point, the essence of the problem was very clear: this wasn't a single booking error, but a series of systemic issues—**failure to confirm hotels in advance → last-minute change of plans → new hotels also unavailable → further last-minute failure**.
For a travel company responsible for arranging the entire 14-day safari itinerary, this level of accommodation mismanagement was no longer a simple communication problem, but a very serious issue of itinerary management and execution capabilities.
## 7. We later gradually discovered that Pedaso seemed to lack sufficient local ground handling capabilities in Tanzania.
It was also during the process of resolving these issues that we gradually learned that David/Pedaso Safari's itinerary arrangements in Tanzania seemed to require the involvement of other intermediaries. Based on the information we gathered, it seemed that David contacted Deo, who then contacted the local agency.
I don't know the specific business relationship between them, so I won't speculate here. But for tourists, the truly important question is: **When we're in Tanzania, haven't booked a hotel, and the driver is unsure of the arrangements, is there someone who can immediately take responsibility and resolve the issue?**
From our experience, no.
Every time a problem arose, we contacted David, who then contacted someone else, and we waited. But for someone traveling in Africa, you're not sitting in an office waiting for emails. You're changing hotels and national parks every day, traveling with luggage and children, and often without stable internet access. In this situation, the most crucial element for a travel company is its local ground handling capabilities.
And this is something we clearly didn't experience on this trip.
## 8. From Arusha to Nairobi: The Driver Didn't Even Know Who He Was to Pick Up
Finally, we finished our Tanzania trip and needed to return to Nairobi from Arusha. A driver was supposed to pick us up, but he didn't show up for ages.
We contacted David, and his first question was: "Which hotel are you staying at?"
I really didn't know what to say, because this meant the driver hadn't even received the complete pick-up information beforehand.
The driver eventually showed up, but we later realized the problem was more serious than "incomplete information": the driver hadn't actually received our pick-up information in the first place. He had been dropping off other passengers and had already driven for about half an hour before finally showing up.
(automatic translation from Chinese)
QA
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Marhaba Holidays ruined our trip!!
This was undoubtedly the WORST and MOST STRESSFUL trip we have ever experienced, entirely due to Marhaba Holidays tour organizer FELIX. We booked based on a personal recommendation and paid the full quoted amount by day three after things initially went smoothly.
Issues began the morning of day five during our planned 6 am full-day game drive at Masai Mara. Felix failed to buy our park entry tickets, offered excuses, and asked us to pay $700 out of pocket with a vague promise of reimbursement. We refused. To accommodate the situation, we absorbed the cost to delay our flight so we could do the drive the next day. Despite our flexibility, Felix delayed the next morning's drive by TWO HOURS, though we eventually completed it.
Upon returning to Mara Sweet Acacia Lodge at 2 pm, the hotel held us HOSTAGE and refused to release our bags because Felix had not paid for our two-night stay. They improperly pressured us to pay $400. After detaining us for over two hours, Felix arrived and was also detained, leaving us stranded without transport for our six-hour drive to Nairobi to catch a flight in under 12 hours. Cornered, we paid $160 out of pocket to secure our and Felix's release. In total, the hotel detained us for OVER 4 HOURS, leaving us barely enough time to reach Nairobi for our flight.
I believe Felix is a cheat and a fraud. Our family suffered immense mental stress, embarrassing conditions, and an extra $600 in out-of-pocket expenses due to his failures.
Avoid this agency. Felix (the so-called Manager) can ruin your vacation, shatter your dream safari, mentally put you in hell and try to steal your money.
I would advise you never book Marhaba Holidays if you want a trustworthy tour operator.
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Terrible experience we wouldn't wish on anyone
We have had a terrible and incredibly stressful experience with Congema Safaris. Everything started off great until they got a deposit from us and then it became incredibly difficult to get any communication from them, for months. We found out that nothing on the itinerary was booked for us by contacting hotels and providers directly. When we requested our deposit be refunded, they said they would do this after almost 2 months and explained they used OUR money to book other groups in for a trip that was cancelled. They seemed quite happy to let us think our holiday was all booked for months, which makes us believe they were scamming us. They have not refunded our money and are ignoring our communications again, which makes us believe we won't receive it. Please make sure to look for well reviewed providers so that you don't go through all the stress and struggle we have.
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Do not use this company
Our money, over $2500 US dollar cash was stolen inside the Safari jeep that we took for Masai Mara safari tour. My main contact for this safari tour is Peetah from Peak Season Africa Safaris company, who repeatedly asked us to bring cash to settle the balance. On the morning when the safaris tour was about to begin, our tour driver brought us to the parking lot of Peak Season company’s office. When Peetah and I met at the parking lot, I took out the cash from my bag pack when Peetah actually saw exactly where the cash came out from. When I step away from the Safari jeep with Peetah to the inside of the building, I found out that my old phone came out from my bag pack and realized that my bag pack was touched by someone while I was away, my money was stolen during that short period of time. When the stealing was actually happening, our tour driver and my wife was actually standing outside on the driver side of the jeep, and they didn’t notice the theft, except that our tour driver saw someone walking by on the passenger side of the jeep. We can’t afford to lose time to report to the police, and our tour driver suggested to write this on the Peak Season’s review. Bottom line is that our tour driver failed to protect our property from stealing, I wouldn’t recommend to use this company.
IN
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Excellent
Good work, Peter Kapino! 👏 We booked our safari with Axis Africa, and Peter was our safari guide. We are from India, and Peter was an excellent guide—very friendly, knowledgeable, and professional. He explained everything about the animals, wildlife, and the places we visited. His boss was also a very nice person.
However, I would not recommend Axis Africa because of Winnie, who handled our itinerary. She made several mistakes in the itinerary, which ultimately cost us around ₹1.60 lakh extra, and this should not have happened. After taking the advance payment, she gave us an incorrect itinerary and later asked for additional money or suggested cancelling one of our Maasai Mara drives.
So, Peter was excellent, but my experience with the itinerary management was disappointing. If you book with Axis Africa, I would strongly recommend double-checking the itinerary and all costs before making the payment.
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
We believe they are scammers
We believe we've been scammed by Congema Safaris and Constantine. We paid a deposit in January 2026 for a Rwanda trip in August 2026. We didn't get updates from April onwards, despite constant messages to them, they just ignored us. Luckily, we contacted the hotels we were supposedly booked into and found payment wasn't made and that the gorilla permits we paid for weren't booked.
We were told in June that we would receive a refund by 10th August for our deposit (over $4000), but it is now the 14th and they are again not responding to any emails we send.
Please be careful and choose a more reputable and well reviewed provider so the same issues don't happen to you.
UY
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
I do not recommend them
tThey are just a WhatsApp number. What they do is outsource absolutely everything to other agencies. This means that you are constantly added to different groups where the guide has no idea about what you previously arranged or requested with them. Even when I went to make the payment, the office had the name of a different agency.
SAFETY: They subcontract independent guides who have vehicles in very poor condition, making the experience unsafe.
The tires on the vehicles were completely worn out.
The vehicles did not have basic recovery equipment such as shovels or recovery boards. At one point, due to the driver’s lack of skill, we got stuck in a ditch and another vehicle had to come and pull us out.
The seat belts were broken. The front windshields were cracked. Some vehicles had no windshield wipers.
We lost a significant amount of time due to engine problems—time that we should have spent looking for animals.
VEHICLES: Very poor maintenance. The refrigerators did not work, so the water was always hot. The inverter for charging our phones did not work. The seat belts were broken.
COMMUNICATION: At first, they responded quickly on WhatsApp. Once we had paid, they stopped responding and stopped taking responsibility for the various problems that came up during the trip.
GUIDES: The groups were a mix of customers from many different agencies, and each of us had been sold different things. The guides did not even know where we were supposed to go the following day. This caused them to be constantly in a bad mood.
PRICE: The price seems good at first, but after talking to other people in the same groups who had booked through different agencies, we found out that they had paid 10% less than we did. This makes sense because ETA outsources everything and adds a markup. They don’t actually operate anything themselves.
LUGGAGE: Because they did not take proper care of our luggage and overloaded the vehicle, they broke one of our suitcases and never acknowledged or compensated us for it.
PAYMENT: I paid part of the cost in cash when I arrived. Despite asking for a receipt every day, they never gave me any proof of payment.
FOR THE SAME PRICE, YOU CAN FIND SOMETHING MUCH BETTER.
50-65 years of age
Caution female solo travelers - not safe
Caution - solo female travelers - was subject to isolation from my friends, manipulation onto the wrong trail, and theft of cash by their team on Mt.Kilimanjaro trek, and it cost me making the summit. Reported incident to the company and to date not happy with the resolution. Do not book with this company.
NO
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Breach of Agreement and Extremely Poor Customer Treatment
We booked our honeymoon safari with Kwanza Safaris and unfortunately had a very disappointing experience.
Before booking, Kwanza agreed in writing to a discounted price and confirmed several inclusions that were important to us. Once we arrived, we did not receive what had been promised and were asked to pay extra for services we believed were already included.
The most concerning part was that we were pressured to make additional payments while on safari and were even threatened with police involvement if we refused. Being in a remote location, we felt we had no choice but to pay.
To be fair, the hotels and lodges were good and matched what was advertised, and communication before our arrival was excellent. However, customer service once we arrived, and afterwards, was extremely poor, and our complaints were ignored.
Unfortunately, based on our experience, we cannot recommend Kwanza Safaris.
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
A very unpleasant experience
Our experience with Tima Tours was unpleasant from start to finish.
Firstly, the driver did not meet us at the airport due to a "technical issue" and we received no communication from Tima Tours to alert us of this. We instead had to wait at the airport for almost an hour and eventually had to enlist the help of another touring company to transfer us to our hotel.
When we met Samul, the managing director, after eventually arriving at the hotel much later than planned, he convinced us to take a Stone Town and Spice Farm tour the following day (5th August 2026). When we asked what the price would be he told us that the guide would tell us on the day, but we were not told.
The next day, we went along with the tour without knowing the price since we felt obliged to as the guide and driver were already there with us (which, in hindsight, we know we shouldn't have done). The tours themselves felt very rushed, with our guide having seemingly little patience whenever we would stop to take photos. The guide seemed agitated with my partner for taking photos with the stone town doors (which are some of the main attractions/themes in the town). We also felt rushed to go to the Spice Farm and were not given the opportunity to have lunch. When we pointed this out to the guide, he said that we can't since the driver was already waiting.
The price and payment of the tours remained undiscussed throughout the remainder of our time in Zanzibar until we were being transferred to the airport (8th August, three days after the tour). What followed was one of the most stressful experiences that we've ever been subjected to by a tour operator. As we arrived at the airport, with the existing stress of having to ensure we made our flight on time, Samul called demanding that we pay what we felt was a ridiculous price of $80 per person for the Stone Town and Spice Farm tour. Any quick check on websites such as TripAdvisor or GetYourGuide will tell you that this was AT LEAST DOUBLE the going rate! We strongly felt that Samul was trying to force us to pay an overly high price due to the fact that the price was not told to us before taking the tour and that we were in a rush to check-in at the airport. Samul came across as very aggressive on the phone and we felt that the driver would not have allowed us to leave without paying. After expressing our astonishment at this price, Samul agreed to give a "discount" of $15 per person, which we felt he expected us to be grateful for. He also didn't provide an explanation or breakdown of the price he was demanding, which would've helped us to at least understand where such a price was coming from. The transfer between the stone town and spice farm was already included in the cost of the transfer to the hotel (which we had already paid for as part of our original tour package) since the spice farm was on the way to the hotel. This made it even more baffling to us that the cost was so high.
Due to being stuck in this situation, and with less than two hours until our international flight, we reluctantly had to take money out of the ATM to pay the driver the demanded fee.
However, after this, our primary tour operator from the mainland stepped in to handle the situation for us, which resulted in Tima Tours giving us the money back so that they could instead settle the cost between themselves.
We were truly appalled by the conduct of Tima Tours, and Samul in particular (however, we do not wish to say any bad words about the drivers who were friendly and respectful throughout). We feel that this practice can unfortunately give a bad image of Tanzanian/Zanzibari tourism industry, which we otherwise found to be very pleasant, professional and transparent to deal with.
Based on our experiences, we strongly advise any potential customers to avoid Tima Tours and use an operator who are more transparent and communicative about their prices (which you may also notice are not disclosed on their website for the Stone Town and Spice Farm tours!).