Hallmark Travel Planners
- Located In:
- Size:
- 10-20 employees (Founded in 2006)
- Member Of:
- ASTA & KATO
- Tour Types:
- Custom mid-range & luxury tours that can start every day
- Destinations:
- Price Range:
- $150 to $800 per person per day (USD, excl. int'l flights)
Reviews
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Email Mike | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Poorly planned and did not refund fees we paid for them
Hallmark not only poorly planned and communicated our safari but failed to pay certain fees that we ended up having to pay with promise of reimbursement. It's been 6 months and now after multiple lies about the "check is in the mail" will not answer email regarding our payment. Basically stole from the 3 couples.
Reply from Hallmark Travel Planners
Posted on Mar 27, 2023Dear Mike,
Thank you for your feedback. I am sorry to hear that your safari experience did not meet your expectations. We have looked at all the issues that you mentioned and all that went through your 14 day trip hope to be able to deliver better experiences to any future customers. We certainly had some challenges with your particular trip and later on with mode of reimbursement of the amounts in question. Reimbursement of US$80 has since been made to all the 3 couples that were in your party. We still hope to serve you and others in the future.
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Email Josh | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Levis was amazing to work with from start to finish. Great attention to detail and timely responses.
We worked with Levis at Hallmark Travel Planners for a family vacation to Tanzania. He was very quick to respond and gave us several options to work with based on time, budget and location. We had an amazing experience and would highly recommend them.
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Email Chris Van Anne | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Hallmark Travel Planners is professional, knowledgeable, service oriented, friendly and world class
Levis from Hallmark Travel Planners was our key contact. We started our planning with Levis ~3 years ago and due to COVID, our trip was delayed. Levis (and his team) are truly world class, were timely with all our questions via email and were extremely friendly & service oriented. When you begin the daunting process of selecting the travel company you want to work with, it was not easy and after significant online research...my wife and I decided on Hallmark. We could not be more pleased! Our 3 week trip to Egypt, Rwanda and Kenya was truly magical. All small details were executed on flawlessly and we highly recommend Hallmark Travel Planner! If you are looking for a personalized experience with top notch attention to detail, Levis is your guy. Levis was always very open and honest with us, and shared all the needed details to assist our planning. He helped us better understand all the COVID policies for each country, process to follow to secure our visas and all other required travel documents. My wife and I really value the service Levis provided and his insight greatly brought us a "peace of mind" in knowing we had a true partner helping us plan our trip, not simply a vendor who was checking the box and taking our money. Levis proactively offered supplemental info to help us plan, listened to all our needs and then helped us design the trip that matched our "trip of a lifetime!". Simply a wonderful experience and we highly recommend Levis and Hallmark Travel Planners. Chris & Liz Van Anne from Colorado, USA
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Email Dorothy Smay | 65+ years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
A 50th Wedding Anniversary Dream Come True!
This was one of the best vacations we ever had and we have been on quite a few in our lives. The guides were excellent, the itineray was perfectly planned and the places we visited and stayed were memorable. The food was delicious and we have absolutely no complaints at all. We just have praise, praise, praise for such a remarkable experience. We were treated like royalty from the moment we stepped out of the airport. The skilled drivers always kept us safe and provided water for us daily. They even took us shopping, since we had trouble with our luggage, which was not at all any fault of this tour company. In fact, they went out of their way to keep checking the airport to see if our luggage ever arrived late. This tour company is so concerned about every detail and they make our journey so personal and private. We picked the dates and the length of time we wanted to spend in each country and they planned the rest. When you read the words....You dream it, They plan it, and You live it....that is the absolute truth. We cannot say enough about this vacation, but we know we will remember it, all the animals we saw, and the fantastic people we met for the rest of our lives. God bless all of you and thank you all from the bottom of our hearts. You all made our 50th anniversary the Best Ever!
NL
Email Iris | under20 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Nice view but poor guides.
We booked the Ndere Island Tour, of one day. Although the views were amazing, we had issues with the tour guides. We were on a boat for quite a long time and were very curious about Lake Victoria, but the guides seemed not interested in us and mostly kept to themselves, which was okay since it was early in the morning and not really part of the tour. However, we had to stop to pay parkfees to the Kenyan Wildlife Center, where our Hallmark guides started to argue with the employees about prices. We got a great but annoyed guide from the KWC and he showed all of us around on Ndere Island. Once again, nice views, but our own guides were having a vacation too: they made plenty of pictures of both the view and us, and seemed to be there for the first time. There seemed to be a rush and in high tempo we walked across the island at noon in full sun. Requests to rest or even look for more animals than the ones we bumped into were not taken seriously. Afterwards we asked to see hippos as they said they would do, but they laughed us off. Long story short, we paid a lot of money for our guides to basically have a tour too, next time we will just book at the Kenyan Wildlife Center and do without the Hallmark guides!
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Email Lloyd Haynie | 65+ years of age | Experience level: first safari
Our long tour was perfect!
Our trip through Africa was complicated by the Covid epidemic and had to be delayed by 14 months. Hallmark Travel arranged for all of our test (7 of them) to be taken and results provided. Our trip was amazing and our guides were equal to the task, the guides were at each port of entry on time with a name plate. Rwanda was the exception due to the country's requirement for a 24 hour isolation upon arrival. Our amazing trip was very long and included: Egypt, Rwanda, Tanzania, Nigeria, and Victoria Falls. Hotels were 5 star or historically significant (we got to stay in same room that the Gorilla lady used in Rwanda which was amazing.) In Egypt we saw old Cairo, sailed the Nile from Luxor to Aswan, got close the Pyramids and museums. In Rwanda we visited a large group of gorillas. In Tanzania we did an amazing river hike, saw the flamingos, toured the amazing crater, and had long journey through the Serengeti. In Nigeria we toured the Masai Mari and another Nat Park in Nairobi. Our final stop was the amazing Victoria Falls. All in all every part of our trip was a full 10 out of 10. Thank you Lewis and Hallmark travel!!!!
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Email Michael M | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Spectacular Honeymoon Trip!
Hallmark planned an unforgettable honeymoon for my wife and I this past September! We spent 5 days on Safari in Maasai Mara and Serengeti parks and a week at Diani Beach on the coast. Levis was incredibly helpful and easy to work with in designing the perfect itinerary for us and made sure that we were well taken care of during our trip. Both safari guides were super personable and friendly and the accommodations were fantastic. We even had the added bonus of seeing Nairobi during our layover on our way back and having dinner with Levis and his wife (a great personal touch!) I HIGHLY recommend Hallmark travel to anyone looking to plan their trip to eastern Africa!
Email Scott and Amanda | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Second amazing Safari courtesy of Hallmark
This was the second time choosing Hallmark to organise our Safari. After our first time in Febuary 2018 we were extremely happy with how it all went we had no hesitation for Levi's to organise our next safari to Tanzania. Once again Levi's did not disappoint, everything from the email correspondence to the actual safari went smoothly. We did have 1 last minute change of accommodation halfway into it but the replacement accommodation was very acceptable. Both our guides were brilliant once again. We requested to have one of the same guides(Freddy) as last time as we due to the great experience we had then.
Thanks Again Levis
CA
Email Erin | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Excellent service.
Leviis was very responsive when helping us plan our safari The safari guide was very friendly, knoledgeable and took great care of us. Everything turned out exactly as planned... actually it exceeded our expectations. Thank you!!
CA
Email Dian B | 65+ years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Levis, our contact was receptive, courteous and informative regarding our request. We felt confident
We booked a one day Birding Specific professionally guided tour, through Nairobi National Park prior to our 10 day safari. Levis interpreted our needs and wants and came up with a great plan including a land rover for optimum photography. We needed to alter our plan slightly and that was not a problem. We felt very confident. Patrick our guide was very knowledgeable about bird identification, migration, behaviour etc. He was so willing to move the land rover for the best photos etc. and it was evident that he wanted us to have the best birding experience possible. Patrick had all kinds of birding data he was willing to share with us but unfortunately his voice did not carry beyond the front seats, so those further back missed out on a lot of information. Our day was extremely full and Patrick kept trying to find us more birds. We ended up with an unofficial number of 63 birds but possibly 73 once photo ID's are made. That is a pretty fantastic day of birding. Also, we were able to sight and watch African mammals at leisure. Aslo, thank you to Patrick who knew that we wanted to see the elephant tusk sights and made that possible with photo ops available. All in all it was a great day provided by Hallmark Planning.
The box lunch was really tasty and very fulfilling cudos to the catering company. Thank you one and all for making our day so special!