Adventure My Take
- Located In:
- Size:
- 5-10 employees (Founded in 2006)
- Member Of:
- Ministry Of Tourism & Kenya Association of Local Tour operator
- Tour Types:
- Custom budget & mid-range tours that can start every day
- Destinations:
- Price Range:
- $120 to $300 per person per day (USD, excl. int'l flights)
Reviews
Email Chanelle | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Dishonest and unprofessional
Firstly it is important to understand that Adventure My Take is not a tour operator, but a travel agent. No matter how much the owner of the company, Tamara, will try and convince you that they use their own vehicles and drivers/guides, this is not true. They have only 3 employees, of which one is a driver/guide and who make take guests on tour during the high season. They also handle airport transfers and city tours in-house, but otherwise they will pass you on to whichever company can squeeze you into their van. The other guests’ tour might look very different from yours, but at no point will you be able to get this information from the company, no matter how many times you ask.
But let me start at the beginning. I chose to book my 3-day Maasai Mara tour with this company, as they were very responsive and offered different options regarding accommodation. I did not want to stay in the most basic option, so paid extra to stay in a lodge rather than a tent.
I also arranged all my transfers through Adventure My Take, as it made sense to work with a single service provider while in Kenya. The confusion around my transfers as well as the lack of professionally by the owner raised some red flags long before I went on tour, but as I had already paid a deposit, there was nothing I could do but hope for the best. I had to keep reconfirming my arrival times, the owner of the company was late on both occasions that she transferred me to the airport, she drove erratically and played loud music and generally would not answer my questions about the Maasai Mara trip.
On the departure day I was not driven to their office to complete the payment as per the itinerary, but straight to the departure point, where Tamara proceeded to tell me that I needed to pay additional “service fees”. As this had not been communicated to me at any point during our many emails and discussions, I refused. It was an extremely uncomfortable start to the trip.
After a long day of driving to the Maasai Mara, the other passengers were dropped off at their accommodation. I was however told that my accommodation was another 80 km away! If you have ever been to this region, you will know how long it takes to drive just a few kilometers on the very bad roads and it was inconceivable that I would have to spend another couple of hours getting to my accommodation and then drive back those couple of hours in the early morning to be at the gate for the 6am game drive. I’m sure the hope had been that I would be so tired that I would just agree to stay in the cheaper accommodation, but I refused. The driver was kind enough to contact his boss, who arranged for me to stay at a camp nearby. The quality of the accommodation was still not what I had paid for and the food was not good, but the staff were incredibly kind and did their best to make my stay pleasant.
Although I have nothing but praise for Edgar and Jonathan who work for this company, I would strongly advise against booking a tour with Adventure My Take. Tamara will promise the earth, but she is not in a position to deliver on those promises. She is unprofessional and dishonest and does not care what happens to you once she has your money. Avoid Adventure My Take!
Reply from Adventure My Take
Posted on Oct 27, 2020We are sorry we might have not met your expectations but We will start by saying that we appreciate you booked with us, you booked on a budget safari and requested to sleep in a lodge which we organized the day of departure was on a Sunday whereby the building in which we have secured an office opens at 9:30 the more reason you never entered the office since you were to depart from Nairobi at 8:00 am ,,you were the only person travelling on that day from my company in such cases we have organization within our operators who pick clients from different companies on cases of one or two visitors that's why it's a budget joined safari we have this contracts with our guides operators in which if you still fill uncertified we can paste them here for everyone to see,,, everyone who have booked with us knows that the quote we give are not inclusive of bank charges because the charges varies from country to country and banks as well ,,,we explained to you when paying balance and if we're keen enough ofon your itinerary there is an indication of that,we explained but you complained too much we let it go and went into a loss ,,they say a customer is always right but honesty is also a great virtue,,you got to Masai mara all the other clients had booked a tent you had booked a lodge well as much as you feel we didn't deliver what we promised you slept in enkoro camp with the rest of the guest you had booked explore nature anyone who has a google map can check the distance between Enkoro camp and Explore Nature lodge then they will judge you insisted on sleeping at the camp because you were tired not even thinking about our loss of cancellation at last minute from the lodge which we had already paid and you never added any cash for the camp with these few points I don't feel it necessary to explain more.
US
Email Leon | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
We've traveled around the world, and this is the worst travel agency we've ever encountered.
We went on the 11-day Kenya and Tanzania Safari this August. The itinerary they give you can only be taken as a rough approximation of the actual trip. This company has no concept of contractual obligation whatsoever. We were promised on our contract that our van would carry no more than 7 people, but on the first day we were immediately put in a van with 8 people. Only after we made several calls back to the company did they put us on another van, and the Kenyan portion of our trip had to be completely rearranged. This incident left a bad taste, but when we arrived in Tanzania, things only got worse. Adventure My Take's tour operator in Tanzania is a company called Seven Wonders Safaris. According to our itinerary, we're supposed to visit Lake Manyara, then Ngorongoro Crater, and lastly Serengeti National Park. If you look at the map on our safari's web page (https://www.safaribookings.com/tours/t20766), this route allows the shortest travel time between parks, and it's one of the main reasons we chose Adventure My Take over other companies with similar-priced safaris. When we met with the representative from Seven Wonders, she told us that they don't offer that route and that they never have. When their representative called Adventure My Take to ask why our itinerary was incorrect, Adventure My Take agreed to send a van to take us on a private safari along the route given in our itinerary. Not half an hour later, our contact with Adventure My Take (the CEO of the company, actually) called back to say that she had changed her mind and that since we were unhappy with her company's dishonesty, she would cancel the rest of our safari and refund us for the remainder of our tour. She did not consult us about this decision whatsoever. This is extremely unprofessional and unethical behavior. Firstly, as a company, if you make a promise to do something, you should do it no matter what in order to maintain your credibility. Adventure My Take did not honor their promised itinerary. Secondly, dropping us in the middle of Tanzania in the middle of our trip is not a solution to our problems and in fact made it much worse. We now had to look for another company to complete our safari and still make it back to Nairobi in time for our flight. Thankfully, the representative from Seven Wonders was extremely helpful since she saw what Adventure My Take did to us, and we were able to rebook with them.
This was a horrible experience. Stay away from Adventure My Take at all costs!