Falcon Safaris
- Located In:
- Size:
- 20-50 employees (Founded in 2002)
- Member Of:
- ZTA, ASATA, ZNTBS & MARS
- Tour Types:
- Custom mid-range & luxury tours that can start every day
- Destinations:
- Price Range:
- $100 to $600 per person per day (USD, excl. int'l flights)
Reviews
DK
Email Emma | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Rushed and impersonal safari
Went on an evening game drive with a bush dinner. It started off promising and good. However, we then spend over half an hour having a snack-stop and the driver seemed in no rush to continue the game drive. After the snack-stop it were finally beginning to be dark, so that the evening game drive could begin. However, the driver where rushing forward to get to the bush dinner so that we nor he could have any chance to spot any animals. We then ate and the same story continued after. A driver that rushed through the park where no one had any chance to spot any animals. Very rushing and impersonal experience. Would definitely not recommend.
Email Lilla Squire | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Still owe us over £1200 over a year in and you don't think this is robbery?
Dreadful. See previous entries. Shocking admin, shocking ability to follow up complaints and still owe us over £1200. Admitted at start of December that they HAD had the money we sent in December 2016. Over a month later from their admission they have still to repay it. So they have now had our money for over a year... Am now looking at contacting police as cannot see any other way to get the money back. Let alone any thought of an apology, compensation for lost interest etc. Such a beautiful country and with many great people Unfortunately this is not a company to trust at all.
Email Lilla Venning | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Dreadful
Thank you for your reply to my son Mathias regarding his review. In response, I have every email and communication between me and Falcon Safaris and am more than happy to go public with them.
1. When I booked the days at the hotel, Patrick Manyika confirmed the booking. Fact. I confirmed when I had paid and asked you for confirmation that you received payment. You did NOT request proof of payment at this time. Fact. You did not reply to my email of 12/12/17 that you confirm receipt of payment. Fact.
2. I recontacted you in July to check all was well. Fact. The first email I got back said that all was ok with the booking. It was 2 days after this you said that you could not find the payment. By this time we were in Zimbabwe with no ability to contact my bank in U.K. Fact.
3. We have been the ones that have done all the leg work in this. Gertrude has simply responded to emails. We have provided proof of payment, more than once. Fact. Our bank has contacted your bank, your bank has not responded.
4. I have more than once requested your formal complaints procedure details and these have not been provided. Fact. This is why we have gone public because Falcon Safaris have made no proactive effort to resolve this issue.
5. You have just hoped we would give up and go away and accept an over £1000 loss. Not going to happen. We paid once in full and then had to pay again to ensure a booking.
Awful service and stolen money
Warning! Do not use this company at all or risk losing a lot of money. They have stolen over £1000 of our money and refuse all forms of contact - and have done for the last 3 months. Do not trust or use them because our experience is truly awful and we are significantly out of pocket. They do not follow through on bookings after payment!
Reply from Falcon Safaris
Posted on Oct 26, 2017Dear Mathias,
We “Falcon Safaris” thank you for all your reviews that you posted. It would be very wrong of you to point out that Falcon Safaris robbed you of your money. When you sent an email to us advising that you made payment to us you did not forward the proof of payment which is our normal company policy. You then sent an email close to your travel dates checking if your booking is in order. We advised that the booking was in order but we did not receive the payment. We later asked you to forward the proof of payment to us, which you did and we sent the same to the bank who we asked to trace your payment. You mentioned that your bank was in comms with our bank but you never copied us in the emails between yourself and your bank. Falcon Safaris made sure that with each correspondence with our bank we would copy you in so that you are in the know that we are following up. Your last email sent to us was with a warning that you are going public but we forwarded the same to the bank and copied you in so that you remain in the know that we are still tracing your payment. If we get any responses or if the money is found, we will definitely send it back to you as we would always want to keep good relations with all our clients. We are sorry that this happened as it has caused a lot of inconvenience to you as also to us as it is painting us in a very bad picture. We hope that this issue will be resolved sooner.
Email Hannah | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Despicable. Taken double our money.
Falcon safaris are appalling. We booked with them months before we left for Zim. Whilst we were away, we received an email saying that they had not received our money. We then had to pay for another room in a different hotel so they would hold a room for us. They have offered no help in tracing the money, despite or bank being able to trace exactly where it has gone. They have offered us no help whatsoever. In addition, their tour operators tried to sell us mor experiences in our pick up from the airport - clearly trying to make more money from us. We have been changed double for our holiday and no one from this company will contact us. Absolutely shocking.
Do not use them.
Email Lilla | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Dreadful experience in Victoria Falls and dreadful customer service
In honesty, I would not touch this company with a barge pole. All they had to do was book three nights for us in Victoria Falls and they could not do that. We booked 6 months in advance, paid in advance, had the booking confirmed in advance and when I checked just before we left, the booking was confirmed... once we had left and were away from phones and home internet, we were contacted to say they apparently could not find a record of payment. In order to keep the booking for a bank holiday weekend, we had to pay again. After three months of trying to get our money back via formal routes, we are getting no response from Falcon Safaris. We had such a lovely time in Zimbabawe with other people and companies, until the final phase which should have been well managed by Falcon Safaris but it was not. Would never use them again and strongly say the same to any friends or family. Dreadful
SA
Email Gayle | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Extremely disappointing
I requested a quote from the company and received one. I then replied asking to book the offer they sent - 1 week later i am still waiting to hear from them. I have sent 3 emails now and no response.
Really disappointing and think its very unprofessional. I will not book with them again or recommend them.
35-50 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
We never got to experience our life long dream of visiting the Vic falls
Between the travel agent who booked our flights and Falcon Safaris who booked our night at The Royal livingstone neither of them informed us of yellow fever certificates to enter Zambia so we got turned away boarding our plane. Therefore we never got to experience our life long dream of visiting Vic Falls and still had to pay full price for our very experience night booked at Royal Livingstone. All in all a terrible let down and bad service.
Reply from Falcon Safaris
Posted on Jul 11, 2014Dear Kate,
Thank you for the feedback. It is unfortunate and we sincerely apologize you missed your one night stay at The Royal Livingstone since you were not aware of the yellow fever condition if coming into Zambia. When Falcon Safaris make hotel bookings in most cases clients are informed when purchasing flight tickets into Zambia or by the agents who process their tickets of the yellow fever certificate requirement when flying into Zambia. In most cases all clients arrange this prior to booking their flight tickets and when they come through to book the hotels in most cases they are already aware.
On the day of the incident the best we could do was offer alternative accommodation in any Sun International Hotel in Johannesburg for the night but since you indicated you had sorted that out Sun International went on to charge 100% cancellation fee.
Because of this incident we have since included a clause on all our emails to make sure this does not happen again.
PLEASE NOTE:
That anyone arriving at any Zambian Airport - including Livingstone - will be required to show a yellow Fever certificate. Similarly, anyone flying from Zambia - including Livingstone into any South African Airport will also be required to show the Yellow Fever Certificate.This new requirement only affects people traveling directly between Zambia and South Africa. We would strongly advise you to visit your Doctor or Travel Medical Center to obtain the vaccination, and accompanying certificate.
Once again we apologies for the inconvenience caused.
Patrick Manyika
For and on behalf of Falcon Safaris
50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Chaotic
We booked accommodation at the Royal Livingstone Hotel through Falcon Safaris. We received confirmation from them and were asked for payment details. We then booked our flights to Livingstone. We were then told that the Royal Livingstone did not have any rooms available after all but it was too late to change our flights. We landed in Zambia and had to pay $100US for visas even though we were going straight over the border to the Victoria Falls hotel. This would not have been necessary if we knew we would be staying at the Victoria Falls Hotel as we would have flown straight into Zimbabwe. We also needed Yellow Fever injections which cost R575 each because we were going through Zambia. We were not told by the company about this and only found out by accident the day before we were due to leave. Luckily we found someone to do them at 6.30pm the day before our departure or else we would have not been allowed on the plane. When we were dropped at the hotel we were told the company would phone our room or leave a message of the time we were going to be picked up on the day of our departure. This never happened.
Reply from Falcon Safaris
Posted on May 8, 2014Dear Paula,
We extend our sincere apologies for the unhappy experience you had with us. Please note that the issue with room unavailability was a system issue with Royal Livingstone reservation system. They canceled the provisional bookings without any notice. It is their right to do so for any provisional bookings. This could be due to immediate paid bookings that were received or availability updates. I also understand that you paid for Victoria Falls Hotel after you were advised that Royal Livingstone was not available. We are sorry that you were not able to reschedule your flight to Victoria Falls. There was nothing we could do as we are not in control flights.
We understand that re-booking you at Victoria Falls Hotel was a last resort option and had its disadvantages because you had to pay for visa into Zimbabwe as well. Our apologies for the unplanned payments you paid. If we knew that your booking was unsuccessful in time we would have advised you in time as well to give you time to reschedule your flight to Victoria Falls. I also learnt that our consultant, Patrick came to meet you at the border on your transfer to Victoria Falls Hotel to offer apologies for the whole ordeal. Unfortunately he was not able to refund you VISA payments since they are gazetted by the government and are a requirement beyond our control.
Please note that a phone call was made to your hotel room while you were out. The message was left with guest services. The phone call was meant to advise you of any changes in regards to your transfer. Fortunately there were no changes and you were transferred to Kazungula border as scheduled.
We hope other travelers will understand that we were victims of the hotel system, flight schedules and stipulated visa requirements which was beyond our control.
Regards.
Benedict Nyathi
For and on Behalf of Falcon Safaris Team