We wish you a very warm welcome! Karibu!
Paradise & Wilderness
- Offices In:
-
Netherlands
- Size:
- 50-100 employees (Founded in 2006)
- Member Of:
- TATO, TALA & ZATI
- Tour Types:
- Mid-range & luxury tours that, when possible, use accommodations owned and operated by them
- Destinations:
- Price Range:
- $200 to $1,000 per person per day (USD, excl. int'l flights)
Your request will be sent directly to the operator
If preferred, you can contact the operator directly
Reviews
BE
Email Kimberley | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
As promised, we received Paradise & Wilderness, a memory for life!
We planned our Tanzanian road trip in 2020 ... as we all know, plans were rescheduled. We put together a nice trip with our tour operator contact and once we could travel again, communication continued as we never had a break. Before and during our vacation, the services were available. I was very surprised that even everybody from the hotels, guides, government, etc. were all acquainted of our coming and our planned tour. Very nice and comfortable feeling, surely for a non-experienced traveler. Overall I feel to have received value for the money and would recommend to travel in Tanzania and Zanzibar with Paradise & Wilderness for sure! Also the hotels from this group are very comfortable, very friendly staff, great food and drinks; all I could dream off!
US
Email Mateusz | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Excellent expirence from start to finsh.
The Beach & Safari Holiday Zanzibar package was perfect for us, the timing between each destination was just right, and P&W customer service was amazing – not only they were able to accommodate extra nights for our cancelled & delayed flights, but they also arranged a cake for my wife’s birthday in between our Safari extrusions.
Our trip started from arriving in Stone City where a driver with our name picked us up and took to the Shaba Boutique Hotel. We stayed there for 2 days (just 1.5 days if counting early departure and recovery time from our flights) but it was enough to take a walking tour of the city to see Slave market among other interesting points, visit Freddie Mercury Museum, and eat at local restaurants (highly recommend Cape Town Fish Market). We did use a 3rd party website to book the walking tour so I can’t comment on the in-house extrusion services. The flight to Arusha for Safari was early in the morning but our driver already was waiting for us with our plane tickets to take us to the airport.
Safari 1st day:
When we arrived in Arusha, Ed our tour guide and driver was already waiting. He took us to Tarangire park for our 1st Safari drive. The drive from the airport was pretty long, about 2 hours or so but was well worth it. Tarangire park was amazing, we got to see all of the animals in that park including a sleeping leopard. The park drive was about 4 hours or so and then another 1.5 hours to get to our accommodations in Lake Manyara.
Safari 2nd day:
This was a “slow day” – it only included a visit to Maasai Boma village that lasted about 2hrs. You can book another day trip or just relax at the campsite. We wish we knew this early as by the time we wanted to book an excursion later that day it was tool late for any tours that would interest us.
We enjoyed the camp site – we stayed in a tent with full bathroom/shower. They also have a bar, pool and restaurant but the most amazing view is the animals walking all over the place, zebras and baboons were everywhere you looked, including running on our tents in the morning. The restaurant offered good dinner options, but breakfast could be a bit better – it was the same thing without a choice every morning. The lunch boxes were ok but it did seem that the main food consisted of left overs from the last night’s dinner. The staff was nice and accommodating.
Safari 3rd day
Ngorongoro Crater Safari Drive - about 2hrs drive from the camp site, we spent about 5-6 hours at the park which was even better than Tarangire in my view. We also got lucky and saw all the animals the park has to offer including lions, hyenas and rhinos.
Safari 4th Day:
Lake Manyara drive – which is the same park the camp site is located. It is a very small park with not a lot of tourists but we also got lucky and saw a bunch of lions, families of elephants among the usual zebras and baboons. The drive was fairly short about 2.5hrs as our flight to Zanzibar was in the early afternoon.
Zanzibar Reef and Beach Resort:
We stayed at the villa right at the beach with ocean view and private hammock and beach chairs. The place is very well kept and has the “paradise” vibe. Every night they had some form of entertainment and during the day you could either stay at the pool or book an excursion to explore the island. Breakfast and Dinner options were good, but the snack bar could have a better variety of snacks since the restaurant is only open during specific time frames for dinner and breakfast.
The beach is pretty non existing especially during low tides. The Jetty Bar can somewhat compensate with their beach chairs and places to relax but if you are the type to just lay in the sand by the ocean, this might not be the place for you.
We did end up going to Paje Beach which is a short taxi ride - the beach there is amazing and there are plenty of restaurants along the way - highly recommend Mr. Kahawa Restaurant and Bar for a refreshing drink and great food.
Overall, a picture-perfect paradise resort with great customer service. It appears to tend to customers 40 years or older (or at least that was the crowd when we were there) where you can relax but also gives you some options if you want to be a bit more active. If you are used to Mexico or Caribbean All-inclusive experiences, it is a very similar experience.
All in all - we were very happy with Paradise & Wilderness as our travel booking company, they took good care of us, everything was arranged as promised including all the transfers, and the customer service was simply amazing. I highly recommend them for your Tanzania travels.
Additional information for first time travelers to Tanzania:
US Dollar and credit cards are also accepted in most of the touristy places, but Tanzanians are good negotiators, and you will end up paying way more in US Dollars vs local Tanzanian Schillings currency. You can get shillings from an ATM and use that to negotiate prices – you need to negotiate prices everywhere including taxi before you get in the car – for example, our first offer for a taxi from Reef and Beach to Paja was $20 and we negotiated to 20,000 shillings which was about $8 ad the end. Gift and souvenir shows are the same way - you are better off paying in Shillings and you should be able to negotiate to at least 50-70% off the initial price (we learned towards the end of our trip that starting at 25% of initial given price gives us the best outcomes, and if you start to walk away, you will get that price)
Maasai people – you will see them at the Beach and obviously in the Maasai Villages, they will try to sell you something and be prepare to either spend 15-30 minutes every time they start conversation with you or just say no thank you and keep walking. They are also great negotiators and the above applies.
The tour drivers & guides – they are 3rd party contractors(and there is yet another company that owns the car itself) that every company uses, they just put the sign of whichever operator you buy the trip from on their cars. Our guide Ed was great, his English was very good, and he was very accommodating and knowledgeable.
Airports – you have to scan you baggage when entering and leaving the airport but we had a feeling no one was paying attention to any of the scanners, at one point the guard was just sleeping when we put our bag on the belt and picked it after the x-ray machine. The service is very very slow – see below. Do get a visa ahead of time online - it will save you a lot of time.
Pole Pole (slowly, slowly) – I might be a bit biased since we have lived in a fast paced area for the last 20 years but be prepare to wait everywhere especially at the airports – to give you an idea – there were two people in front of us for the passport control and still took almost 2 hours to get thru it. Restaurants, stores etc outside the resorts are similar too.
Generally, we felt very safe when exploring Zanzibar and Stone Town on our own, and the people are very nice. Zanzibar is Muslim Island but the tourists are free to drink alcohol and dress however they want.
BE
Email Filip Callens | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Fantastic experience!
Fantastic experience with Paradise & Wilderness. Everything tailor-made for a fair price. Everything was also arranged in detail, from hotel to transfers!
Thank you for giving us this fun trip!
Especially the manager of Africa Selous and our driver were outstanding. Also Lisa from the customer service!
(automatic translation from Dutch)
We got far more and it was so much better than we expected! Every time again with JAMES !!
We had an amazing time in Tanzania, the best AFRIKA you can get, I would say!! And worth every EURO !! So wonderful Accomodations, best and deliciois food prepared for us, and ALWAYS fresh fruits nd WATER for us including!
It was so good, because our professional Drivers and TOUR guides
JAMES and Vincent had this outstanding feeling for all the people in the group, to make everbody feel comfortable and of course - THEY can DRIVE their vehicles - the land cruisers - in a special way in all this changing conditions rain and desert - they got o much respect for this capability from all of us !! ALWAYS felt so safe !
And the way they SCAN the area for the wild animals is outstanding, too! We got to see all the big WILD cats with babies, how amazing is that !!
And the final of our 2 weeks SAFARI in the National Parks was a very special highlight to me.
to be IN the big migration for like two hours.. ..imagine between 1000 of GNUS and ZEBRAS... just out of this world !!
Thanks you so much JAMES & Vincent, you made it possible !!
We hope to come back to Tanzania soon !
NO
Email Rakel Christina Granaas | 65+ years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Well organized with a friendly, knowledgeable and caring guide/chauffeur named Engelbert
Our guide could tell us all about the landscape and animals in Serengeti. He took good care of us and lead us to amazing experiences. Good value for money, safe and communicative.
Fantastic, all was perfect.
All was fantastic. Our guide was great. The people very friendly. The lodges very good and very clean. It was The perfect vacacion. Thank you very much for this dream.
AT
Email Susanna | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Very well organized and friendly operator
We very much enjoyed our trip. The lodges were all very nice, clean, comfortable, very friendly staff and good food - though some sligth deficits were noticed in the maintenance of the residences. Loose tabs etc. what could be easily avoidable with all the staff being around there. But these are tiny cosmetic things. We had different drivers and guides. Unfortunately the one doing the safari was the weakest of all. I would have wished for somebody with better english skills as well as more background information about Tanzania in general to learn a little about the country as well But overall - it was a breathtaking, memorable experience. Thank you!
FR
Email Hichem | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Wonderful stay
a wonderful site. a welcome and great kindness from the whole team.
AT
Email Peter | 65+ years of age | Experience level: first safari
very good very exactly
It was a fantastic experience. It was a wonderful trip. All was perfect also our guids Edward and James. two fantastic boys. !!!!!
NL
Email Koen | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Very good!
The trip was wonderful! We had such a nice guide, Khalid. He told us beautiful stories and we saw all the animals we’d hoped to see. The lodges are very clean and the service is perfect.