Beasts Africa Safaris

You can find better.

We (a couple) booked a 5-days safari tour with Beasts Africa to begin last September.

We really enjoyed our experience: we got to see so much, our guides were so knowledgeable and made us feel safe and looked after. Our accommodations were nice, clean and hospitable. The transfers between each stop were long, but overall the rides were comfortable. We feel like we had the experience we were looking for and more.

However, there were also a number of issues:
- Our airport pickup was over an hour late. After a very long flight and without much internet connection, we had to phone the tour operator over and over: it took so long to get through and even longer to finally be picked up. No apology was offered for this massive inconvenience, nor explanation.
- Changes were made to our pre-agreed itinerary without our knowledge/approval, and only communicated to us few minutes before departure, without giving us the chance to amend or discuss.
- In regards to two different excursions (Masai village visit and boat trip), we specifically asked if there was going to be a surcharge, and we were told there would be none. However, both of these turned out to be at an extra cost once we got there.
- We had to insist to had a physical invoice given out to us, and the one we obtained had a different company's letterhead -an alleged "sister company".
- Included in the agreed fee, was a supply of bottled water for the duration of the tour. However, we for the first 2.5 days we were not provided this and our driver/guide stated that he had not been informed and he was not equipped to provide it. We had to therefore buy water at our own expense.
- We were not told that we would not travel with the same group and guide, but switch party depending on who was headed where next. We ended up switching twice and only finding out about the changes only a couple of hours beforehand. The second time we were assigned to the wrong group and ended up going in the wrong direction, which resulted more than 3h lost on our itinerary. Once again, we received no apology, in fact we were never even contacted to ensure the issue had been resolved.

All of the issues we experienced ultimately relate to how the tour was managed: the lack of communication, transparency and organisation. Even though we had a great trip, the merit goes to the guides and hospitality structures -both of which are not affiliated exclusively with this tour operator specifically.

Upon our return, we reached out to Beasts Africa to feedback all of the above: we were given contradictory justification for some points and dismissal for others, but no admission of responsibility nor apology.
Our advice is to definitely book a safari tour of Kenya, but with a different company.