Go2Africa

Incredibly Life Changing & Amazing!!

The Staff was Beyond Hospitable. Attentive, Polite & Made Us Feel like Family. Our Drivers were Very Nice~ First Experience picking us up at the Airport after a Dreaded 18 hr Flight & was Very Friendly!! Then the Staff at Amboseli Porini Camp was Also Helpful & Friendly. It is Where We Saw the FIRST WILD ELEPHANT & I was in AWE also Very Humbling Experience to Meet the Masai Villagers, I Learned A Lot!!! Kichwa Tembo Camp was Beautiful & Again The Staff Impeccable with Their Help Joseph Our Driver was a Hoot & Friendliness the Food was Delicious & Our Surroundings.. Well AFRICA ROCKS!! Safari's Majestic Beauty Watching All the Animals Mingle Together & So Many Interesting & Beautiful Birds & ELEPHANTS!! Sundowners was a Neat Treat ;) Hot Air Balloon Ride was Inspiring~ On a Scale from 1-10 WE Give this Entire Experience a Big 10000000 !! My Husband & I Truly Had an Amazing Experience & Truth be Told it was BEYOND OUR EXPECTATIONS!! So Many "Moments" Happened that was Truly Incredible. I'm In LOVE with Kenya, The People Their SMILES & Warmth!! We Can't Wait to Return!!

Emma was a real pleasure to work with and from the House of Waine to the safari's was truly amazing. She will be a friend for life and I HIGHLY recommend her if you are planning a trip to Africa.

perfect planning

This is our second trip to Botswana (March 2014) both organised by Stuart Parker (get ready Stuart going back in 2016) can not compliment the company enough,every single arrangement went like clockwork.Desert and Delta camps are superb all aspects exceeded our expectations.Thank you so much,would highly recommend Go2Africa.

Olonana is 7Star

So Anja at Go2Africa was set a brief of getting us the Kenyan experience of a lifetime and she delivered. The way in which it was delivered was over and above our expectations, from the faultless transfers and travel arrangements to the simply superb accommodation.

We stayed at the Olonana Sanctuary in the Masai Mara and it was breath taking. Excellent location on the river where a family of hippo resided. Tented accommodation that a king or queen would have been proud of. Main game lodge that had more style that the Paris fashion week but what really set this place apart was the service of all that worked there.

Being picked up by a friendly informative guide in Niarobi (provided by gamewatchers) and transferred to Wilson Airstrip for our SafariLink flight to the Mara was seamless, which in light of events in Kenya was what we really wanted.

The flight was a tremendous hopper that flew around 8000ft giving awe inspiring views of what lay ahead for our 4 day Easter Weekend.

Upon arriving in the Mara we were met by Benson and one of our Toyota Land Cruisers to be used throughout the Safari. Benson took a great deal of pride and attentiveness from the get go. This is where the 7 star status really took off.

Our short transfer to the lodge was brilliant, Beson informed us of everything thing around us and stopped for the first of 64gb of photos I took in 4 days.

Arriving into the Olonana Sanctuary, we were greeted by Richard, a Masai Elder who played traditional music as he lead us into the camp and to the main game lodge. This place is sublime. Furnished to within an inch of its life to ensure only the highest standards, my hat goes off to the interior decorator, architect, location finder, as these people did good.

Walking through the large open plan dinning and 1 of 2 living spaces you got a real sense of pride of the staff working there. You also got the sense of just how spectacular this was going to be.

Stepping out on to the multi level veranda we were given a welcome drink and introduction to the Olonana and the time we were spending there. The view from the veranda along the river to the hippos and beyond was great. The noise of the running water brought a sense of calm and serenity to the whole proceedings.

We were then allocated a helper per tent, that would take of our ever need, not that I ever needed for anything as the Olonana team had beat me to the thinking.

We were also allocated a guide, Lucas was ours for the next 4 days and boy did this guy know his stuff. Not only that but he knew how to have fun, he knew his guests and fitted in. Every drive he catered for our needs and wants and delivered the big 5 against all odds (as other groups weren't as lucky)

Lucas was the real star as most of our days were with him...his friendly natural way was truly epic customer service.

The food and drink at the Olonana was incredible, Big John (the chef) would make whatever the customers would want but the food on his menu never left need to question. He has such a skill at understanding flavours and combinations that we thought he had been classically trained in Europe only to find out no he was a local lad from Nairobi.

Top tip try the pinotage
Try and get room 2 through 6 (best view of the Hippos in my opinion)
If you get assigned Lucas... Epic!!!
Dollars are preferred as tipping currency or buying currency at the Masai village

Amazing safari, absolutely wonderful holiday

We are just back from our honeymoon in South Africa. We arrived at King Shaka airport, Durban and headed for the Bidvest car rental agency. The process was easy and stress free and we were soon on route to Lalaria Lodge, Salt Rock.
The guest house was amazing, lovely gated accommodation with amazing views from the terrace over the Indian Ocean. The room was lovely with a sliding door out to the pool area. We stayed one night before setting off on the 4 hour drive to Makuze Falls Private Game Reserve.
If we had been wowed the first night then Makuze Falls Game Reserve wowed us even more. A beautiful complex in traditional Zulu style set in the bush just an unfenced step away from the wild animals. The game drives were amazing. With Jonathan our driver and guide, and Elliott our spotter (I was determined to spot something he hadn't - he was amazing!) we set of on a really comfortable and well equipped open Toyota Jeep. We saw a pride of lions on our first drive, no further that 10 m from us, lazing in the sun after a kill. Then it was Buffalo, Zebra, Elephants, Croc's, Warthogs and Giraffe, not to mention the antelope, birds and spiders. On each drive we stopped and had some hospitality- Biltong and drinks in afternoon and Tea, coffee and snacks morning drive at 7am. When we arrived back from the first afternoon drive around 6pm, we found a bottle of Champagne, flowers on the four poster bed, and a hot bath (again with beautiful flowers floating on the bubbles). All in all, the whole safari experience was amazing, the surroundings and staff at Makuze were absolutely brilliant.
After 3 days of game drives, we drove 4 hours to Canelands Beach and Spa Resort, Salt Rock. A very clean, airy but modern building. The ocean view room offered the most amazing views of the beach and ocean literally 50m away. The location was lovely but there were one or two things that let our stay down. The main problem was that our room (room 4) was above the open plan lounge, reception and were the coffee machine was. Every morning at 6.45am we were woken by staff making tea and coffee. I've never noticed how much noise real coffee machines make before. The stairs to our room was also open plan, not closed in, so it sounded as if they were actually making coffee in our room. The other problem was two couples that had young children who allowed them to play football amongst the tables whilst other guests were having breakfast or sitting having a drink. They did nothing even when the ball hit people eating breakfast.
Other than that, Canelands was a lovely spot as close to the ocean you could get. The staff were really good and friendly.
All in all, I would recommend Lalaria Lodge and Makuze Falls Private Game Reserve and say 11 out of 10, Canelands an 7.5 out of 10.
Go2Africa's Rikke Williams was brilliant from start to finish with advice and timely emails, she dealt with my initial doubts about the safety aspect of holidaying in SA.. thank you Rikki for a wonderful itinery.

Beyond Amazing!

The communication and service was excellent! Go2Africa exceeded my expectations. The safari tour was so very exciting and I have to say, my tour guide was very knowledgable. In addition, I had the best day / night drives and saw various animals. I saw my favorite animal (lions) every day. Hiking deeply connected me to even the smallest things. Lunch in the open and that was the most incredible experience. I also went to a village and met a chief and his family. The greatest experience was listening to animals at night and taking it all in. This is the way a real safari should be. Thank you Go2Africa for the excellent service and experience. I will be back next year.

Flawless, hassle free, friendly service

Hello,

We had the most amazing time at Anantara in Bazaruto. Everything was organised and went without a hitch. We felt like royalty, in no small part I am sure, thanks to Mary Keet's "behind the scenes" organising. The service was so good, we could not fault any part of the trip.

There were special surprises everywhere for us and we were spoilt to the point where we were almost considering not going home :-)

I would recommend your excellent service to anyone that wants to travel within Africa. It was a delight working with you.

experience of a lifetime

from the first contact which was just to check into whether this would be the year to go, it was professional and comfortable, and not a hard or up sell on any level. lisa was AMAZING. everything was clear and covered and we never felt like we were alone or on our own while traveling. she was even supportive and helpful for the loss of our luggage on flights that were not in our package. i would recommend them to anyone traveling to that part of the world. we will definitely use them again on our next trip to south africa. top notch.

Incredible Dream Honeymoon

My husband and I were beginning our search for the most incredible honeymoon when we came across go2africa. Being Canadians, we had little advice in our area to set up the perfect getaway. We were out in touch with Monique Roden quite quickly into our search and she put together a flawless honeymoon that far exceeded our expectations. We tell people at home, until you've travelled to Africa, been on a safari, or felt that feeling when you touch down on African soil, we truly cannot explain to you in words how incredible of an experience it is. Our pictures and videos do not do it justice. The quality of service everywhere you go, the knowledge on the tours and the exceptional standards whether it be food, decor, spa service, movie night (tambo airport hotel), it far exceeds the rest of the world as we have seen. We have travelled all over Canada, the United states, the Caribbean and Europe and truly believe they set the bar the highest.

Although we talk about it everyday and look back on our travels with such fond memories, we really want go2africa to know how much their support and guidance meant in planning our trip. Monique's suggestions and tips were so knowledgeable and she made all of our big to do's happen. It may have meant moving tours or bookings around but she made it work. Every single part of our trip was perfect, not one error. In fact, our luggage was lost in Chicago, Illinois on our way down. Which was the airline we booked, not go2africa's fault. A gentleman (our porter) in Zambia took our personal information and looked into it and hand delivered our bags to us the next day. This was the only (and very minor) mishap of the trip, which in our view was no problem at all. In fact, it made us realize how much more the folks involved in our travels went the extra mile to help us out, truly leaving an everlasting positive impact on our view of Africans (South Africans, Zambians and Mauritians to be specific). Every single person we met whether they were a porter, tracker, butler, chef, flight attendant, server in Nelson Mandela square, luggage carrier, they were absolutely fabulous people. We know it's a late review, but we had to tell you all how incredible you are at go2africa. We love following the updates on tours, new baby Cubs, and all the excitement back in Africa on Facebook and Instagram and still get email updates. We think Monique was truly incredible and would love to plan a trip for her in Canada one day if she ever wants to come visit. We are saving up for our next trip to Africa and cannot wait. We will definitely be calling Monique for help again!

Anja Naude and Go2Africa made our safari trip a reality and a wonderful and memorable experience

We are just back from an incredible 10-days in South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. We wanted to thank Anja Naude and Go2Africa for making this dream safari a reality. The trip was a year in planning and from the first contact, which was a general inquiry on a trip to Kruger, to its conclusion, it was a delight to work on the details with Anja. After looking at the itineraries on offer, we decided on creating our own. Anja listened and gave us realistic options. We appreciated having access to her knowledge, expertise and connections. Any and all communications and questions had a reply from her within 24 hours. We were able to book our lodge early enough to avail of the 2014 rates. The payment system made was efficient and trouble-free. All the choices -- from flights, accommodations and activities -- were superb with the group loathe to leave each stop as they could not believe it could get better.

The Residence Lodge was the perfect welcome stop for the long trip to Johannesburg. It quickly got us into vacation mode. Leadwood Lodge was over-the-top. We will review this separately but let me say that this probably should be the last stop on the itinerary as anything after it will suffer in comparison. The kids were "homesick" the first day of our next stop and they didn't mean the USA. They wanted to go home to Martha, Chris, Justin, John, Isaac and Patricia at Leadwood Lodge. The activities in Livingstone and Victoria Falls (segway, quad biking, zipline, Angel Pool and Vic Falls, cruising) were the perfect complement to our safari adventures.

All the flights -- international from the UK and USA and all regional flights -- worked very well. We were very glad we opted for the air transfers to and from the lodge as it maximized our time there. The air transfer to Ulusaba got us there before lunch and we went on our first drive that evening. Booking the flight from Ulusaba to Mpumalanga allowed us to fit in a morning game drive -- a fitting farewell to the safari leg of our trip.

The connections and transfer arrangements to and from the airports were punctual, reliable and worked flawlessly, i.e., Ilios in Johannesburg, the staff at Leadwood and Wild Horizons for our Livingstone leg. These were very welcome after a long trip into unfamiliar territory. Knowing our transfers were reliably sorted allowed us to focus on the trip activities. We appreciated the assistance at the Zambia/Zimbabwe border. It made our activities in the Zim side so much more enjoyable.

I wanted to thank Anja especially for the special touches and surprises that made my sister's 50th birthday so special for her and for us. I joined in on the delight at the special surprise cake and champagne celebration under the Merula tree at Leadwood. Our last activity was the Ultimate River Cruise on the Zambezi. They sang Happy Birthday once we boarded the African Queen and led us to the Captain's table. This was truly special and a perfect ending to our dream trip.

Anja and Go2Africa made our safari trip a reality and a wonderful and memorable experience. We are going back and we will do so with Anja and Go2Africa as our indispensable partners. Thank you once again from Marissa, Ellen, Beci, Mark, James & Sabrina.