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Soul of East Africa Safaris (Uhuru Travel)
- Located In:
- Size:
- 20-50 employees (Founded in 2007)
- Member Of:
- TATO, ZATO & ZATI
- Tour Types:
- Small & medium group tours (Mid-range & luxury)
- Destinations:
- Price Range:
- $150 to $400 per person per day (USD, excl. int'l flights)
Reviews
IT
Email Eugenio and Elena | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Dangerous Dishonest Agency
We booked and partially paid in advance a 7-day safari with Uhuru Travel & Tours. When we arrived in Arusha, we met Mr. Loi, who, after asking us to literally "make him rich" with the final payment, put us on a jeep.
After few hours on the car we realized that we were supposed to go back to Arusha after a 4-day safari, against the written schedule we paid for.
We contacted Mr. Loi and the kind secretary of Uhuru Travel & Tours, Margareth, that answered Hakuna Matata, everything would have been fixed and never tried to fix the situation
When we arrived in Serengeti, where we should have spent three entire days, we were told that the next morning we would have left the next morning.
We had to spend hours at the telephone to get what we paid for, since, at the beginning, the agency did not offer compensation for the change of program, then they offered some days in Arusha park. Definitely not what we wanted and we had to receive. At the end, we were abondoned in Serengeti public camp wating an entire day for a driver to pick us up. Finally, the next day a broken and unsafe vehicle showed up without spare tyres and with a leaking tank, which had several mechanical failures and literally fell down while driving, exposing us to the risk to overnight in the middle of the Serengeti.
Once dropped in Ngorongoro we had to wait for another driver, but the authorization papers for the park disappeared with the previous driver.
So, we had an overall bad experience and we would like to advise other people who want to discover the beautiful Tanzania avoiding this dishonest agency.
Reply from Soul of East Africa Safaris (Uhuru Travel)
Posted on Oct 26, 2019“Difficulty, misunderstanding & discontent clients”
Eugenio and Elena booked with us 7 Days Camping sharing budget group safari but unfortunately their group canceled at last minute and changed the dates of travel, but we decided not to cancel their trip instead we decided to let them join a different existing 4 days group with itinerary of Tarangire NP, Serengeti NP & Ngorongoro Crater with One Night at the Camp Site near Lake Manyara, One in Seronera Camp Site at Serengeti and Last Night at Simba Camp Site in Ngorongoro Crater!
We explained the situation before departure to safari, since they have 6 days for safari they will do each park a night that is, Tanagire, Serengeti, Ngorongoro, Lake Manyara and finish with Arusha National park. They agreed! A big Mistake my Operations Manager did was not to have a written agreement with them.
First day for safari they started with Tarangire overnight Camp Site near Lake Manyara and second day proceed to Serengeti via Ngorongoro. Third day they were superpose to travel to Ngorongoro Crater with the group but refuse to co-operate and decided not to join the others and choose to remain behind at the Camp site. As per our driver guides he had a “Chick” she was the one driving him crazy, whenever we asked him why he do not want co-operate he was saying he want to make her “chick” happy!!!
After long negotiation and telephone calls we decided to send another Private Jeep for only 2 of them, Due to those changes, we sacrificed ourselves as a company and added extra cost from our company account to offer them a private trip for the remaining 4 days and never wanted to disappoint them by asking them to pay any extra money for
the private trip we offered. We changed the Jeeps due high demand of them since was peak season. The arguments was to have 2 nights in Serengeti National Park and in deed they had them.
We decided to go at a loss by paying extra costs of more than $800/USD so as to satisfy them as our clients. They were very difficulty, misunderstanding & discontent clients even our drivers had hard time driving them around.
Last day of their safari at Lake Manyara we had our 2 clients supposed to be doing Lake Manyara National Park. They were also doing Camping sharing budget safari, we arranged the two to join Eugenio and Elena going game drive together to be four in total but they refused the others to join them. Then we arranged alternative Jeep hence we loss another $200.00. All in all with them was very hard and stressful but we managed to give them safari as planned with
difficulties. We do not deserve such hash review for the hard work we did for them. Despite any difficulties we promise and committed to deliver best services to our esteemed clients.
UHURU TRAVEL & TOURS LTD TEAM
SE
Email Magnus Midander | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
5 day safari became 4 days...
We pre-booked a 5 day safari in November 2019 with Uhuru and Mr Abdallah. Good reviews on Tripadvisar and SafariBookings.com together with a fair pricing made us choose this company.
This review is only for the company of Uhuru Travel & Tours Ltd and the owner Mr Abdallah and not for the safari and our guide Zabron which were both great!
We prepaid 60% of $4400 in November and the rest was supposed to be paid 10 days prior safari start. When trying to pay the rest (40% of $4400) the link sent by Mr Abdallah didn't work. I quickly responded and two days later I got a new link which worked and now 100% of the safari was paid. We had a conversation on WhatsApp and Mr Abdallah responded fairly quick that everything was fine and that we should enjoy our safari. When we asked for a pickup time the day before departure he responded "Pick up can be 0730am or 0800am or 0900am."
We waited. At 0747am we sent a message that we were ready for take off and Mr Abdallah responded: "My Opertion manager will arrive there in time." He did not.
5 minutes later he replied: "We have a small problem with credit card payments... please pay $1300 for park fees". " We have cash flow problems".
We responded that we already paid $4400 and did not trust him on paying an extra $1300.
3 hrs later a van came and picked us up and drove us to Mr Abdallahs hotel McEllys in Arusha were we had lunch on his account. That's when we realized that there won't be a 5 day safari. Several hours in the hotel restaurant and no response from Mr Abdallah on WhatsApp made us choose to stay one night at the hotel on his account. He now promised through his local manager Mr Roy to arrange a 4 day safari starting at 10am tomorrow.
Even after we started our now 4 day long safari Mr Abdallah did not communicate with us and we demanded to have some sort of compensation after missing an entire day of safari. It ended up with an upgrade to Acacia Luxury tent worth about $500 but this was not near our expectations of a compensation.
Please be aware of Uhuru Travels & Tours Ltd since their owner Mr Abdallah is not trustworthy nor reliable.
Since Mr Abdallah is replying on many reviews on both Tripadvisor and SafariBookings.com I hope yo understand that we had a horrible experience with him and his company regardless of what he replies.
Our safari ended well with a good view of the big 5 and many many more animals. Our driver and guide Mr Zabron was super!
FR
Email Antoine Humbert | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Bad experience
Still waiting for a $ 1250 refund since 2020
At each reminder, we always receive a response that the balance will be refunded quickly. To date, we have not received the amount due to us.
CH
Email Sylvie | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Very bad experience
We are still waiting for a refund regarding our last scheduled travel.