African Habitat Safaris

No help in problematic situations with Tanzanian subcontractor. Poor!

We booked a 5 day Tanzania safari (lake manyara, Serengeti, ngorogoro) through African habitat safaris who ended up subcontracting to Sandland. We prepaid 25% and were supposed to pay the rest in cash on arrival which we did. We then started our tour in a completely old car with a driver for one day of the 5 day tour, since the other driver was not available on the day of departure.
We then took of to Make manyara where we were lucky seeing lots of animals, however not so lucky with our guide. He seemed utterly disinterested and at was constantly either talking on the phone or checking Facebook. Once when we stopped to look for elephants and looked down because we heard some weird noise from his phone we even caught him watching porn.
When we arrived at our lodge for that night (Manyara wildlife lodge- amazing place) the bill was not paid and we had to wait 90 minutes for the matter to be resolved. And thus began the nightmare...
Next morning we were picked up by our new driver, Deo, who was with us for the rest of the trip, and picked up another couple from GB.
When we arrived at Serengeti entrance it turned out, that Sandland had not paid for admission so the shady guy from Sandland, Abraham, had told the British couple to settle their outstanding balance by paying the park fees. Turned out they were paying for all four of us. Here again, we were facing considerable waiting time to resolve things. After game viewing we arrived at our 2 night accommodation Kenzan tented camp (lovely place!) Where after 2 nights it had turned out - surprise - that there was an outstanding balance (which Abraham probably did not pay until this day). Luckily they let us leave based on Abrahams hollow promises, however, we had gotten up super early to do sunrise early game drive which we then missed due to having to settle this open balance. 1000 thanks to the Kenzan people for their understanding!
We then drove direction Ngorogoro where, at Serengeti exit point we had an unsettled open fee again, however everyone had at this point in time fully paid off their safari. We spent 4! hours where Deo, and all of us tries to resolve this matter with all sorts of people - Abraham himself, Derrick/Simon/Rachel from African habitat, however Abraham was only making false promises (he probably had already spent all our money on other things) and the people from African habitat were completely useless and said it was not their fault and we should talk to Abraham. Honestly, if you subcontract someone you are still responsible for a service that YOU sell to someone!
After not being able to settle the issue, we decided to overpay in order to leave and get to Ngorogoro before nine. 600$ on top and we had to drive in the dark (not the nicest thing with all the animals around). We arrived at Rhino lodge and instantly asked whether accommodation had been paid. Surprise-it had not.
However, they let us leave the next morning to see Ngorogoro based on Abrahams false promises that it would be paid by 8 in the morning.
After game drive we drove direction Lake Manyara again, however, at Ngorogoro gate they had gotten word from Rhino lodge that the accommodation had not been paid and so they would not let us leave and even confiscated the car!!!
After 2 hours of more calls and discussions we convinced the people there that we would drive straight to the police in Arusha and they let us go.
People like Abraham and Sandlands should be in Prison for the way they operate and companies like African Habitat should have to take responsibility for who they are subcontracting.
Name of the Sandland guy is Abraham Shaidi in case he changes his name or anything. Stay clear of this guy!!! And should you still want to do safari with African habitat, make sure who they subcontract to since they will not take responsibility! Neither Rachel, nor Derrick, nor Simon were of any help. Whenever the situation got bad they stopped replying on WhatsApp or were suddenly offline... poor behaviour