Safari Soles

An overall good experience with room for improvement

What we liked
- Our main contact person (Boniface) was super quick at responding and always very friendly and informative.

- The lodge we mainly stayed at (Arusha Farm House) was beautifully constructed, had a nice garden with pool, bar and sofas and a well equipped gym

- Both the safaris at Tarangire National Park and Ngorongoro were absolutely amazing and we saw many of the animals that we hoped to see

- Between the two safari days we stayed at Suricata Boma Lodge, which blew our minds with its stunning views over Lake Manyara, friendly staff and authentically designed rooms

- Our guide on the Foothills of Mt Kilimanjaro tour (Balthazary) was happy and cheerful, and very knowledgeable. He shared lots of stories and facts about the places we visited, giving us insights into the life of the Tanzanian people today.
The coffee farm was also an incredible experience. We were given thorough insights into the production of coffee, from coffee berry to processing, and finally, to drinking it. It was the best coffee we have had in years, and the lunch we were given was the best food of our two weeks in Tanzania.

What could be improved
- The food was generally of a low quality. On the last day of our time with Safari Soles, one of us had a severe stomach infection (Campylobacter) because of the food. As we are writing, it has been two weeks since we came home and the infection has still not gone away. No guests should ever experience this again and we hope that this will be looked into.

- Although Arusha Farm House was beautiful on the outside, it was a terrible experience in. The acustics were awful, our entrance card had to be activated every day, the bed was hard, there was no hand soap, only half of the sockets worked, there were no bed lights and in the end, our toilet got clogged. Luckily, many of these things can be fixed quite easily and we really hope that this will be improved going forward.

- Our safari guide (Abouu) was mostly very quiet and did not communicate a lot with us. This was especially present on the first day in Tarangire National Park where he several times drove on, although we wanted to see the animals for longer, e.g. the giraffes, that we only saw once.

After we posted the above review, the owner of Safari Soles got back to us with a long and sincere response. He apologized for our inconveniences, promised to follow up with the relevant parties and offered us a partial refund, which we accepted. Although it does not change the mixed experiences we had with Safari Soles, we very much appreciated the sincerity in this response.