Beacon Safaris Team in Masai Mara
Beacon Safaris
- Located In:
- Size:
- 10-20 employees (Founded in 2010)
- Tour Types:
- Custom budget & mid-range tours that can start every day
- Destinations:
- Price Range:
- $50 to $120 per person per day (USD, excl. int'l flights)
Reviews
TR
Email Ata | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Everyone should experience this journey
In our Kenya safari trip, Beacon Safaris was our agency. All services that we had were excellent. Our game drive operator was Kenneth. He is a professional, decent and informative tour operator. Everything was well organised especially in Masai Mara. I strongly recommend beacon to everybody who are seeking for a well planned safari tour.
CN
Email Ding and Rong | 65+ years of age | Experience level: first safari
Exotic Safari Tour and Excellent Service
My wife and I took 7 Day Taste safari tour in Kenya in September 2016, which was offered by Beacon Safaris. In Masai Mana, Lake Lakuru, Amboseli and Tsavo West we saw a lot of different wild animals and stayed in very good lodges.
Our guide, Eustus, is a friendly guy and an experienced wildlife traceboy. We felt happy with him in the 7 days. I would like to appreciate Robert also, he always replyed to my email immediately before our departure for Kenya.
A little bit of regret is that September might be late and therefore we had not got the scene of wildbeest crossing Massai Mana River. June, July and August shoul be best for safari tour if you want to see the scene.
Email Suren Perera | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Better than we could have ever imagined
We came across Beacon safaris while going through the Safaribookings website and decided to use them based on the multiple positive reviews the company had. I'm very glad we did. From the first email I sent, Robert was very responsive and very very helpful. It was our first trip to Kenya so we were very appreciative of his guidance and recommendations. All we had to then do was finalise and provide the confirmation and Robert organised everything for us. When we arrived in Kenya we were met by our safari guide John. It is very important that you have a good guide and John is one of the best. His manner, his knowledge and his humour were brilliant and our safari was made so much better because of him. All in all I highly recommend Beacon Safaris if you are thinking of visiting Kenya and I can guarantee that you will get excellent service. We loved it so much that we are already planning our next trip their and will be asking specifically for John as our guide.
NZ
Email Ross McMillan | 65+ years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Company very flexible and accommodating to make a very enjoyable trip.
The company responded promptly to inquiries and organised a very good safari for us.
US
Email Sheila and Tim | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Our safari adventure was a great memory maker for my husband and I.
I would recommend Safari Bookings to my friends. While booking our reservations Roberts kept us well informed and answered any questions we had promptly. Our driver John was prompt, friendly and courteous He gave his best to give us a great safari, which he did. The Sopa Lodge was a quiet, beautiful, out of the was place with staff who were ready to accommodate us with our every need. The safari was everything I hoped for. It was amazing being able to watch the wildebeests cross the Mara River, the big five and all the other animals roam the beautiful African country. The only animal we were unable to spot was a rhino, otherwise we were able to see all the wonderful animals which Africa has to amaze us with. Thanks for helping us to make lifetime memories.
BE
Email Koen | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Amazing 10-Day Magical Kenya Highlights Safari
First of all I want to thank Robert for his friendliness and especially the help with my medical issues during our magnificant safari. Thx Robert, electricity has been arranged in all the lodges/tented camps we visited. Thx as well to our driver/guide John who did his best to give us the best spots, the best angles to take pictures/movies. After visiting Tanzania and Botswana, Kenia is farout the most beautifull African country I have ever visited. We have seen so much amazing sceneries, animals, birds ... overwelming experience. Thx guys for everything, it has been our most beautifull experience ever. Only one minor negatif point, why didn't we do the safari as programmed on the last day, knowing our plane was only late at night. But that's just a detail, as said, this holiday was super! To end, my neighbour (remember John) asked if I would do it all over, as he is very intrested after all my stories. So perhaps ... next year ... ?
BE
Email Patrick | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Amazing 10-Day Magical Kenya Highlights Safari
Booked with Beacon after reading all the reviews. Robert responds very quickly, usually within a few hours, even during the weekend. He was extremely helpful and we enjoyed a perfect organisation of the whole safari trip. So lucky we had John as our driver/guide. He is an amazing driver/guide and we enjoyed his sense of humor as well. On the third day, we had seen already the Big Five. This safari trip was the best I have already experienced. Kenya is truly an amazing country. Thank you Robert and John!!!
Email Benjamin | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
4 Days Masai Mara - Lake Nakuru Tour
We had a great time on a 4 day safari for two with Beacon Safaris and would definitely recommend to others. Robert was always very quick to reply and helpful with responses to our questions during the arranging of the tour. Being able to pay by PayPal was also a big plus for us. Eustus was our guide for the tour and we thought he was excellent, always on time, always helpful and knowledgeable in answering our questions and a lovely guy. He was brilliant at spotting the wildlife and working our way around the park on our own rather than with lots of other vehicles meaning we saw a lot of the wildlife without other vehicles around. The accommodation and food was very nice and everything went very smoothly. Overall we were very happy with our experience with Beacon Safaris.
ES
Email Dario & Elena | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Great first safari experience thanks to Beacon Safaris and specially to John, our guide!
I discovered this company in safarybookings.com, I booked with them because of the good reviews I read, and I'm so happy I did it. Since the first email, Robert perfectly adapted the 4 day Massai Mara - Lake Nakuru safari to our needs and acted all the time in a really professional way. And when we arrived we were so lucky to have John as a guide, friendly, informative and so skilled! It was amazing his knwoledge of the parks and the animals, when we asked him to find some animal he always managed to do it, and the best moment was when he took us to the place where we were going to see the great wildeebeest migration crossing the Mara river... We couldn''t know how, he already knew the place were the animals were going to cross, and we were the first ones in the spot, in the best place to see it and take photos...increcible! A experience we won't forget, and we are sure it would not have been the same without John. Thank you Beacon Safaris!
CA
Email Vinay Sarin | 65+ years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Excellent experience (with couple of exceptions)
I had booked on behalf of a party of 7 (3 couples and an adult child). Pre-trip communications were good. The safari was mostly as expected and our driver/guide, Antony, was excellent. He was especially good at finding out about places where things were happening and getting us there quickly, and into a good viewing spot - most of the things that make up a good safari tour. Sadly, but through no fault of his, we did not sight a leopard but did run into the other big 5, and plenty of zebras and wildebeest, including a river crossing by a herd of the latter - a spectacular sight.
I would note two exceptions, both of which relate to the central office and not to our driver/Guide, but which led me to rate less than "Excellent":
- When our itinerary had us setting out in the morning to arrive at our destination for lunch, we did not expect the ride to be almost 7 hours, i.e. a very late lunch. This was entirely the result of the fact that the road into and out of Masai Mara turned from paved to a dirt road (very bumpy) well before the reserve, which was the only thing in the itinerary that surprised us. It would be helpful to note the major transit times in the itinerary. If this had been our only gripe, I would have given the excellent rating.
- More serious was our baggage situation. Prior to arriving for the tour, the group had visited Cape Town and Victoria Falls. I had advised the tour office that we would be travelling with one checked bag and one carry-on each and could consider leaving some bags in Nairobi to be picked up on our way to departure from Nairobi airport, but was assured that the LandCruiser had ample room to accommodate that. And that is precisely what we arrived with. Unfortunately, there was not sufficient space for all the luggage nor sufficient time to rearrange our packing (we arrived Nairobi very late night preparatory to a 7 a.m. departure). The matter appeared to be resolved by the fact that a smaller group was undertaking a similar tour with what we were told were two minor differences - at Lake Nakuru they were staying in a different place but not far and they were leaving from Nairobi on a different flight, but in a similar timeframe. Seemed like a simple solution for them to transport some of our bags. In reality, further differences emerged - the other group had some other excursions also planned so our departure/arrival times were not perfectly coordinated. It also appeared that they were unhappy having to carry our bags and having to make some timing accommodations for that. Finally, we learnt that they were not in fact flying out of Nairobi the same day as us. As a result, we spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to arrange for the bags to arrive at the airport with us, without risk of any delay. This preyed on our minds and the time spent on this detracted from our enjoyment of the tour. On the last day, we agreed that we would take with us the bags of 5 of us who were leaving on an earlier flight and that the remaining 2 of us leaving on a later flight would pick up our bags from the other vehicle once it arrived to the other group's hotel in Nairobi. Well, even that plan got changed as we were advised, at the eleventh hour, that the other driver had some other engagement as a result of which we met on the roadside somewhere and transferred our other bags into our vehicle - making our last hour pretty uncomfortable. It seems that the other group's itinerary and the other driver's schedule should have been known by the tour company in advance and that we were misled as to what the true situation was. It also seemed to us that any solutions they proposed were to their convenience and not ours. Hence, the reduced rating.
Antony, thanks for your service. Despite the issues noted, we did enjoy.