Baboon Budget Safaris
- Located In:
- Size:
- 10-20 employees (Founded in 2006)
- Member Of:
- KATO, KTB & Ministry Of Tourism
- Tour Types:
- Custom budget & mid-range tours that can start every day
- Destinations:
- Price Range:
- $100 to $700 per person per day (USD, excl. int'l flights)
Reviews
Email Steve Jones | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Magnificent wildlife adventure
Amazing. Joseph your a star. The experience of seeing African willdlife so close in such iconic surroundings is an experience you can never forget. Given the value for money it’s hard to complain, campsites were of a good standard although the one at Amboseli could have been cleaner. Baboon let us down by not picking me up at hotel to meet my wife at the airport and worse did not pick my wife up at the airport, so she landed at Nairobi early hours of the morning to a strange place without baboon there to meet her. Emails & phone calls went unanswered as to why they failed. Would have been 5* because of this.
Our driver/guide Joseph made the whole experience memeroble with extensive knowledge & good humour. Thank you so much.
AE
Email Empire L | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
A Budget Tour - Similar to More Expensive Tours for Half the Cost
3.5 Stars
We booked a 9-day tour with Budget Baboon Safari. The process was relatively easy. Emails were responded to quickly. A deposit of 20% was needed through a wire transfer or via African PayPal (forgot what they call it). I did a wire transfer after reading about the possible challenges and pitfalls of African PayPal.
PROS:
Good drivers. We had Mike in Kenya, and he went out of his way to ensure that you saw animals, and that you could see animals up close. The vehicle didn't break down (you'll see or hear stories). We were upgraded to a newer campsite, which was nice. It had running water, albiet no hot water, it had WiFi although spotty (what do you expect in the middle of nature). Food was decent. We went in October and saw many animals in a short period of time.
Tanzania, we were contracted out to 7 Wonders, then to 3 Wonders. Frank was our second driver, he was excellent. Not a lot of info, but good driver, took you to see what you wanted. Set up camps. Food was decent. Fun to camp out in the wilderness with the animals. Serengeti is much larger than Masai Mara in Kenya, and therefore, in October, we spent more time driving to find the animals.
CONS
We were picked up from the airport, but ended up waiting for hours for another couple's delayed flight, who didn't even come on our tour anyway. We were only 20 minutes from our hotel, but the driver said it would take hours "due to traffic," to take us to the hotel. Google Maps did not indicate this. Locals confirmed there is not hours of traffic at night. Furthermore, looking on the other side of the road driving into town, at night, showed no traffic at all.
One more con, has to do with us booking Tanzania through this company. So you understand, they do contract out for Tanzania. We were forgotten at our hotel and had to text, email, then call to get a response.
I will say this, they did correct the mistake by: taking us to the museum and paying for entry. They also upgraded our hotel in Tanzania. The owner, Dennis, also came and apologized personally. You can tell he cares about the business and his reputation and customer experience.
There was poor communication from there-on-out. We were originally told we'd be met at Tanzania-Kenya border heading south. We were not. We were told we'd then be met at bus stop in Arusha. No one was there. We had to text again to tour operator in Tanzania, 7 Wonder Tours, to get picked up. We waited about 20-30 minutes, not too bad.
In Tanzania the vehicle broke down twice, once we waited over two hours for them to "fix," it. It was a broken brake cylinder, but instead the replaced the break drums, which were completely shot.
First driver we had, we only had for part about 4 hours, for a short drive, and he demanded a tip of at least $10/person. When we offered him less, he refused, got angry and walked off.
OVERALL: Remember, you are on a budget tour, and you are in a developing country. Things will not always run on time. If you do Kenya/Tanzania, the company will farm you out to another company to get you into a vehicle and on safari. Don't worry, this is normal. Your vehicle may break down, we heard this from others as well. Makes sense, they drive these vehicles daily over rough terrain, part of the experience. Last, we did ask other tourists how much they paid...we were paying less for the same trip! You can't beat cheaper. In the end we saw what we wanted to see.
PT
Email Mariana Cancela | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
The best tour, our guide Ambrose is great!
The tour is the best, I enjoyed all. Our guide, Ambrose, did everything for us to make the most of the park and see all the animals, I saw everyone! The food is also good! The hotel and camp accommodation it's confortable and all the staff it's friendly and helpfull. The massai mara Park it's amazing. I really recommend to go with Baboon, they are efficient, fun, and the most important thing is that you are safe with them, definitely going back one day!
US
Email Katie | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
The director Dennis Solomon is a incompetent and is only worried about money. No respect.
I was super excited about the safari, and the lady who helped us book was so nice, even our driver to the safari was so nice. The issue was on the second day ( we did only two days one night), logistics was awful. We were told to meet the tour guide at 6 am only to find out, the tour we were suppose to be on left. We spent the next 45 mins in the safari searching for that said group, only to find out they were finished in the park, so we parted the park to return to Nairobi. We were suppose to spend three hours in the safari. All while my husband did not have a seat in the van ( over crowded) so he sat on the floor- literally where you put your feet. When we discussed this with the direct of baboon budget his response was; “ who told you you would have a seat, you can stand”, which was not of course what we paid for. After some time explaining his only response to our cristicms was, “ oh you people- I know people like you- you are just never sastified, you just want to complain and get money”. We were of course only relaying our complaints. We ( my husband and I) spent 520.00 usd ( 240 a person, plus surcharge for using debit machine), and spent less than three hours actually touring the safari. Logistics are awful and the director does not care about the costumer.
NL
Email Mark | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Great value for money
We've had a wonderful three day safari in the Maasai Mara, although we ended up with eight people instead of four (which they said before). Also the pickup on our first day was 1,5 hours too late but the group was fun and it all worked out well. Our guide Ambrose worked hard to provide an amazing experience. Accommodation was fine. Not super fancy but hey, it's called Budget Safaris for a reason. Great value for money!
CA
Email Kathy | 65+ years of age | Experience level: first safari
It exceeded my expectations.
Booking online can be a bit scary because you’re not sure if you’re dealing with a reputable company or not. I was so happy to find that the Baboon Budget Safari staff were everything you could possibly hope for, even though the cost was very reasonable. Our guide, Stanley, was an excellent driver and shared with us so many interesting facts about the animals we saw. He was also very good at spotting animals from a considerable distance, and I couldn’t believe how many species we were fortunate enough to see. Stanley’s work days on safari were long and demanding, yet he handled it all like it was easy. 5 stars for Stanley!! Our accommodations at Mara Sopa and Lake Nakuru Lodge were wonderful - attractive, clean, and the food was delicious and varied. I would highly recommend this safari company to everyone. They go out of their way to ensure that their customers have a happy and memorable safari experience. Thank you so much Stanley & Teddy.
NL
Email Dick Panneman | 65+ years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Well done job mosses goe
Goed service some beter then the other mosses made my safari he is a man with a mision he let me sie thing that others do not even see or care to look at i send jou a mail
And look at my fb
Email Muireann | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Cheap price but overall a pretty average, stressful experience
We had a very mixed experience on our 11 day Kenya/Tanzania safari. We booked with Explore Africa Holidays but never met anyone from that company – seems to be another trading name for Baboon Budget Safaris. In Tanzania they contract out to 7 Wonders Safaris.
Pros:
- Overall we had a great time - got to all the parks we had planned and saw incredible wildlife. All the Big 5 in both Kenya and Tanzania; views of elephant families in front of Kilimanjaro a definite highlight at Amboseli!
- One of our guides in Kenya was fantastic – Isaac. He was from a different company called Jocky Safaris that we’d been handed over to for the day
- We really appreciated the opportunity to stay at Masaai-run camps in Kenya & chat with the guys working there (Miti Mingi Eco Camp & Kimana Amboseli Camp)
- In Tanzania the camps were extremely basic (more below) but on the plus side was really cool to stay right inside/very near the national parks, with visits from elephants, hyenas and zebras in the night
- Kenya/Tanzania border crossing was managed pretty smoothly, though communication could have been better. We just trusted the random people who presented themselves to us which might be stressful if travelling by yourself.
- Price is very cheap compared to other operators
Cons:
- In Kenya we had 2 different guides for the 3 parks we visited (Masai Mara, Lake Nakuru & Amboseli), plus another driver at various points. This meant changing vans every single day & a lot of time spent on logistics that often felt very disorganised, sometimes chaotic. On our third day we waited 2.5 hours for our pick up to go to Lake Nakuru. We hadn’t expected to be with a different group and different guide almost every day & ended up feeling like cargo being passed around impersonally. The constant change made it hard to relax into the trip as we were never sure who we’d be passed to next, what our group would be like, if they were going to deliver or we'd miss out on something.
- For the third Kenyan park we were placed in a car that wasn’t a safari vehicle. The windows didn’t wind down and were tinted so it was completely unsuitable for game drives (I’m not a tall person and would have had to sit on cushions to see out! :-)) When we asked about this it was resolved and we were able to do the game drive with another company (Isaac with Jocky), which we appreciated.
- Our first guide in Kenya, Josef, didn’t volunteer any information on our first game drive and talked the group out of doing an early morning game drive in Masai Mara on the main day there. Thumbs down.
- We were told we’d be met off the bus in Arusha and dropped off at our hotel however the person (Sayid) didn’t show up. Luckily the lovely bus driver seemed familiar with 7 Wonders way of (not) doing things and dropped us at their office. There we were quickly briefed by the manager of 7 Wonders, Evelyn, who informed us of multiple changes to our itinerary including a different Arusha hotel (Stereo – absolutely fine), reversing the order of parks & a different campsite for Ngorongoro. When I asked why we hadn’t been met off the bus as arranged Evelyn dismissively said she didn’t know anything about it. Very poor first impression.
- In Tanzania we again had 2 different guides for the 3 parks we visited but much less chopping and changing. Had one of the guides for 3 days in a row, Florian.
- During the whole time with Florian we felt there was a lot of cutting corners and general lack of service/professionalism. To his credit he made sure we saw lots of amazing animals in the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater and was mostly happy to answer questions when we asked. However the biggest negative for us was that he rushed through every single game drive – our group was always first back to camp (by an hour or more), a couple of times we saw male lions or elephants he told us there was no time to stop, but each time we passed through a park gate we had to wait 45-60 minutes (we could see there were no queues at the ticket offices; we suspected it was to make it seem we’d spent longer at each park than the actual allotted 24 hours). Florian and the chef Ibrahim also spent a fair amount of their free time flirting with the one single woman in our group.
- The Land Cruiser safari vehicles in Tanzania were far more comfortable that the converted Toyota vans used in Kenya, however on our second last day the safari vehicle stalled on the steep road out of Ngorongoro & we had an uncomfortable 10 minutes while Florian tried to stop it rolling backwards and get it started again. Luckily another vehicle came along and gave our group of 6 a ride to the top while Florian drove up ahead & park rangers had also arrived quickly. We imagine this is probably a common enough occurrence as the road out of Ngorongoro is very steep. Having said that, our guide didn’t seem very familiar with driving on mountain roads.
- The camps in Tanzania were not of an acceptable standard. We were fully aware we’d booked a budget safari and are not precious, but if you’ve paid for a tour we think basics like drinking water and toilet paper should be provided (or at the very least a heads up from the guide to remind everyone to stock up before leaving a town). We stayed at Jambo Lodge near Manyara, Pimbi in the Serengeti and Simba near Ngorongoro.
Couple of other pieces of info that might be helpful: in Kenya fixed camps are large canvas tents, often with a private bathroom at the back (though very basic we had decent mosquito nets in each place); in Tanzania camping is actual tents with bed rolls and sleeping bags, you are expected to help set up your own tent and the overall experience is fun. Food in Tanzania was much nicer than in Kenya (except for the lunches which were all pretty awful). Kenya/Tanzania crossing: you get driven to Namanga, met at Immigration office & helped to navigate the departure/entry process (very simple), directed to public bus that then drives you on to Arusha (we had to wait about an hour).
We hope this is useful information if you are thinking of booking with Explore Africa Holidays or Baboon Budget Safaris. Overall we had a fantastic time in terms of unbelievable wildlife but would not recommend either Kenyan safari company, and definitely wouldn’t recommend 7 Wonders. We completely understand this is a budget tour at budget prices, but for us it was still a fair amount of money to spend on 10/11 days of our trip and we felt that basic service was totally overlooked. If you can afford to spend a little more we think it’d be worth it to feel looked after, have one guide & one group for the duration of your safari, and generally be able to relax and fully enjoy the experience!
CA
Email Larisa and Clint | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Experience of a lifetime! Knowledgeable, fun, and hard working drivers above and beyond expectations
My husband and I booked an 11 day custom private safari tour in Kenya and Tanzania for our honeymoon and the experiences we had were above and beyond our expectations all the way from initial airport pick up to drop off! We chose baboon budget because they were recommend by my cousin that used them for his family’s safari in 2017.
From the start, they did not miss a single detail, and even arranged to have a trail of rose petals in our room in our first hotel to celebrate our honeymoon!
The Game parks in Kenya included Maasai Mara, lake Nakuru, Naivasha, and Amboseli. Each one was a very unique experience, all were beautiful. scenic, and filled with a variety of animals. The Lodges we stayed at were high end despite being a budget trip, and beautiful and all had incredible views and great service and the dinner and breakfast menus were delicious.
Anthony, our driver in Kenya was great to talk to, extremely knowledgeable, seemed to have lots of experience in each game park. He was very pleasant and easy going despite having to drive us around for many hours each day sometimes on very bumpy roads. He always took us where we wanted to go quickly and would surprise us with animals we were hoping to see but thought would be too difficult to find. He was always able to spot animals that were hiding and he educated us on animals facts and Kenyan culture. I would definitely request Anthony if we were to return to Kenya.
After Kenya we were transferred to Tanzania by bus. Once again everything was organized and we did not have to worry about getting a ride to our next destination since the drivers found us. Our driver in Tanzania (Godfrey - from Seven wonders - but also organized through baboon budget) was fantastic as well. We had a great time talking to him on our safaris and asking him questions. We visited Lake Manyara, Serengeti and Ngorongoro crater. All were very different and I recommend all three. He also took us to a remote hot springs in Moshi that was a bit out of the way on a road that was very hard to find. Every request we had when booking a month before from canada was met and exceeded our expectations.
On our last day in Africa we had a 10 hour layover in Nairobi. Boniferas was our driver and he spent all day driving us around to the giraffe centre, various markets, malls, parks, and carnivore restaurant for dinner before finally dropping us off at the airport with great timing! He was very personable and professional. He made our last day fantastic as well.
I highly recommend this tour company for any safaris in Kenya or Kenya and Tanzania. I have so many great things to say about our time in Africa and baboon budget safaris played a vital role in making our honeymoon perfect! We had just come from Uganda and Rwanda, and although we saw amazing things in those two beautiful countries, the tour company there did not even compare to baboon budget safaris.
CL
Email Ignacio Barrios | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Best Safari and best guide/driver ever in our honeymoon!
We chose a 3 day safari to Masai Mara for our honeymoon and it was perfect! Ambrose (our guide and driver) was excellent: a four by four driver!
He tried hard to make us see all the animals and we did it: in one day we were able to see all big five and many other great animals.
It was an unforgettable experience on our honeymoon.