Tanzania's Celebrity Guide Hamza Nyelo On Safari
World Escapes & Adventure Travel
- Located In:
- Size:
- 20-50 employees (Founded in 2008)
- Member Of:
- IATA & ASTA
- Tour Types:
- Customizable private tours and fixed group tours
- Destinations:
- Price Range:
- $50 to $800 per person per day (USD, excl. int'l flights)
Reviews
IN
Email Ranjit | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Cancelled trip on the day of the Safari. Please avoid.
Was looking for a Tsavo 3 day trip and booked with World Escape.
Response usually was slow, but would get a reply to queries eventually.
The day of the safari, I call the number and am told that there was a problem with the safari van, and they will update me.
Am told an hour later, the van can't be fixed, and hiring one from another partner will vost more. They offerred to refund my money. I asked them to defer the trip to another date. They said they'll try, and post that the person I was speaking to stopped answering my calls and messages.
Got my money back thankfully.
No apology.
Had to pay to change my flight dates, and had a stressful morning trying to make alternate arrangements.
Please avoid them at all costs.
Reply from World Escapes & Adventure Travel
Posted on Aug 21, 2018Dear Sir,
Our sincere apologies for the miscommunication that happened with your safari booking. We have never had a situation like the one you experienced and it has been a learning curve for our future dealings with clients who are solo travelers. Since you were arriving in Mombasa, we had sent vehicle to pick you from the Mombasa airport to the hotel that you had directly booked in Mombasa. However the Nairobi-Mombasa road had a gridlock estimated to have started at around 10pm had not been cleared by 1pm the following day.
Trucks, buses, matatus and personal vehicles switched off engines on the strethcd from Athi – River to Chumvi junction that branches off to Machakos town. In the meantime we organized with a partner in Mombasa to provide you with a courtesy transport to your hotel as our guide navigated his way through the gridlock which was done.
Unfortunately by the time our guide was getting to Mombasa he was naturally too tired having been on the road for 16 hours. We also had to make sure that the Safari vehicle was checked before he could embark on another safari.
It is at this moment that we called you and explained the situation. As much as we wanted your business, it would have been wrong for us to jeopardize your life and that of driver guide by having him drive in the same state without resting. For this reason only we offered to refund the $174 deposit payment. You mentioned that instead of us refunding you, you would like us to change the itinerary and take you to Salt lick lodge for two nights a suggestion we agreed to despite it being twice the price to that of the original destination. You mentioned that you were going to Ukunda for diving for two days and would be ready to depart in two days time. We went ahead ahead and made the reservations at Salt lick lodge as you had requested. Unfortunately the same evening you sent us an email saying that you had tried to call the guide's number and since it went unanswered you had decided to cancel and wanted a refund of your funds. We also tried to call the local line that you had provided but it went unanswered. We also tried to call the your international but it was off. We had no choice but to comply by refunding you. We want to take responsibility for the miscommunication and sincerely apologies for the miscommunication.
US
Email Dave | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
"World Escapes" nearly RUINED our Africa vacation
"World Escapes & Adventures" nearly RUINED our recent Africa vacation! We paid in full, months in advance, for a camping safari in southern Kenya, transfer to a second subcontracted tour operator in Tanzania, a night in a hotel in Arusha Tanzania, a second safari in Tanzania, then another hotel night in Arusha and transfer to Arusha airport for a few additional days of independent travel. The dates were for August 24th to September 10th 2018.
The first part, in Kenya, which they handled directly with their own staff, was fine. But everything after that was a disaster. They completely screwed up all of the arrangements with the subcontracted Tanzania company and with the Tanzania hotel reservations.
The 'transfer' was supposed to be our Kenya guide driving us to the Kenya/Tanzania border to hand us off to the second guide. But the guide drove us to a restaurant in Nairobi and left us with a second staff member, who then turned us over to a THIRD staff member after lunch, who then put us and our luggage on a PUBLIC BUS and then he LEFT US with no instructions! And once the bus left Nairobi we found out it wasn't stopping at the border, it was going all the way to Arusha! So apparently the plan had changed without us being informed. When we got to Arusha, the bus stopped at a hotel that was not the "Roika Inn" as stated in our written itinerary, and this new hotel didn't have reservations for us. They called the Roika Inn for us and - the Roika didn't have reservations for us either! We ran back to the bus stop and found the driver and he agreed to call "World Escapes" for us (our phone didn't work in Tanzania) and they told him we had reservations at a THIRD hotel, which we had never been told about, the 'Tourist Inn". And if the bus driver hadn't generously agreed to drive us there, we would have been on our own in the middle of the night trying to find a way to get to this hotel.
Then the next day, the new tour company informed us that World Escapes had never paid them for our tour! We got back on the phone with World Escapes and were told a strange story - they had put several hundred dollars of my full payment back onto my credit card on the previous day (I had no way to access my bank records and verify this), and it was now MY responsibility to pay the subcontracted tour company! Good luck accessing that amount of cash in the middle of the Serengeti...
I was able to work out arrangements with the second company whereby I paid for our Serengeti park entry fees using a credit card (the bulk of the amount in question) and then use an ATM to pay them the remaining smaller amount in cash. I would have to check my bank records when I got home and figure out what had really happened with this strange unauthorized "refund" onto my card...
Then World Escapes began avoiding calls from the subcontracted Tanzania company for the duration of the second safari, so the Tanzania company had no idea what hotel they were supposed to take us to after the safari. We called the "Tourist Inn" where we had been a few days earlier, and not only did they not have any new reservation, they told us World Escapes NEVER PAID THEM for the night we had already stayed there!
I was finally able to get World Escapes on the phone on the last day of the Tanzania tour and demand that they tell us the name of the hotel they had booked for us for the final night (and pointed out that I HAD ALREADY PAID FOR THIS!) and asked them to confirm they had paid for transfer to the airport the next day, and there was just a long silence.... and then they said "Let me get back to you". And of course, THEY NEVER CALLED US BACK.
Fortunately the Tanzania company came to the rescue. They own a small B&B in Arusha and had a spare room, and they let us stay for free, fed us breakfast the next morning, and even drove us to the airport for no charge.
The excellent service in Tanzania was from a company called "Hekima Safaris" and I can highly recommend them.
But - DO NOT USE WORLD ESCAPES AND ADVENTURES. The way they handled our tour plans was completely unprofessional, inept, irresponsible, and unethical. AVOID THEM. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
Reply from World Escapes & Adventure Travel
Posted on Sep 27, 2018Dear David,
Thank you very much for your review and for bringing forth your complain that you feel almost ruined a rather good holiday booked with our company.
We have taken a week and half to reply to your complain because we wanted to exhaust and address all the areas of inconvenience that you felt did not meet your expectations of us.
Thank you for acknowledging the Kenyan part of the safari that was executed to your satisfaction.
As you mentioned it is the Tanzania part of the joining a group safari that did not work out as you had expected.
We apologize sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.
All in all we want to sincerely thank you for traveling with us having confirmed that apart from the
1. Transfers from Nairobi with shared coach
2. Upgrade from Roika to Arusha Tourist Inn
3. Not being informed of the USD 600 that had been credited to your card so as to pay in Arusha for your park entry fees.
We realize that something went wrong on the Tanzanian side and we are getting to the bottom of it. we sincerely apologize for the inconveniences experienced during the safari.
Your Sincerely Ruth Oyugi
Customer service.
Email Masa | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
they did nothing for me, and not refund the money which i paid in adovance.
this company did nothing for me in Tanzania.
i had paied some money in adovance via internet.
i had to use 1 day to contact with someone who worked for this company.
and i needed to find another tour operator in Arusha because they did nothing.
no apology. no refund. no contact.
this is a thief company.