our company director
Kameraz of Afrika
- Located In:
- Size:
- 10-20 employees (Founded in 2013)
- Tour Types:
- Custom mid-range & luxury tours that can start every day
- Destinations:
- Price Range:
- $150 to $300 per person per day (USD, excl. int'l flights)
Reviews
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Email Sumit DasGupta | 65+ years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Customer driven provider, very helpful, and very courteous!
First the positives:
1. The owner, Carol Kendi, was very patient and helpful from the very beginning and worked with me to plan our trip. She is very customer-driven and it was a pleasure to meet her in person in Nairobi. I particularly like the name of company, Kameraz of Africa, to encourage safari visitors to shoot animals through camera lenses and not through the barrel of a gun! Great idea! Keep up your zeal in this effort!
2. The tour guide, Kioko, was OUTSTANDING. He was knowledgeable and thorough and went out of his way to ensure we had all the opportunities to see as many wild animals living free in their environment, including watching 3 cheetahs hunting a small antelope. I particularly appreciate the effort he put in so that we could observe and photograph Craig, the giant tusker, in the Tsavo Conservancy next to Amboseli National Park. We also appreciate the wonderful conversations we had on a variety of topics during the long drives between the different parks. He gave us a window into life as it exists in Kenya. And we also appreciate the extra driving he had to do to go back to Lake Nakuru National Park to collect our passports and money that we had left behind in our room.
3. Visits to Amboseli National Park (NP), Masai Mara NP, and Lake Nakuru NP were excellent. Loved every minute we spent there.
4. The lodges at Lake Naivasa, the Sawela Lodge, and Lake Nakuru, the Lake Nakuru Sopa Lodge, were SUPERB. Wish we could have spent an additional night at Nakuru. They had great scenery, great food, excellent staff, and very luxurious rooms. They were very peaceful places.
Now, the not so positive things:
1. The lodge at Amboseli, the Amboseli Sopa Lodge, was OVERALL good. The food service was very clean and the food very flavorful. The staff were very, very helpful. There was no pressure to tip anyone which made it easier to give tips where necessary. The area around the lodge was very peaceful with a view of Mt. Kilimanjaro. The only negative was that the room itself was very AVERAGE.
2. The lodge at Masai Mara, the Jambo Mara Safari Lodge, was very POOR. The room was small, the bathroom was tinier and there were large crawling insects coming in through the drain pipe every night that I had to collect and throw out. The food was quite poor and both of us got sick enough that we were less than well through the rest of our journey. The worst part of it was that there were so many Masai people who wanted to be tipped. There was so much pressure to give tips to people who just sat there and provided no service. Lastly, there were tour groups from Iran who made so much noise with their loud music that it was hard to sleep and yet the staff on duty did nothing to curb their behavior. Hope this lodge is never used by this fine company in future safaris.
3. We got no value out of Lake Naivasa NP and Aberdare NP. If we knew as much as we know now, we would have instead gone to Tsavo National Park.
IN
Email Anant | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
A Very Cost-effective, Professional and Efficient group of Safari Designers !!
This is the story of the Kenyan dream safari which we undertook in mid-May. It was an enchanting trip covering most of its wildlife where we covered Amboseli, Nakuru, Naivasha and Mara within 7-8 days. Being well aware of Kenyans' polite and gentle nature and after requisitioning many quotations and online searches, I struck Gold with ‘Kameraz of Afrika’. To our delight, we found their Director, Carol Kendi, to be a gem of a person both as an individual and in terms of safari management. She gave me the most competitive pricing for top-of-line 4.5 plus rated Lodges, Hotels and Camps to stay. (I had cross checked with many online sources, they had the lowest of prices for same Lodge/Camp) Their agency had the most convenient payment schedules and methods all the while maintaining complete transparency about planning and costing. Along with this, she coped with my 1000 queries ))) while giving genuine inputs and suggestions while making prompt changes and reverting.
I found their Landcruiser as described and as comfortable as it can be. Our driver Guide was Geff (not Jeff), he was a total professional with adequate knowledge and was prompt with planning and suggestions for daily Game Drives.
Overall, I would recommend you to try them, you would be more than happy that you did. If you have a general idea Or a specific idea about a safari with a suitable estimate of budget Or how you imagine it to be from scratch, from zero, just discuss it with her!! She has a tight-knit team who will ensure that the only thing that you will be bothered about is getting up early in the morning to maintain an appointment with the wildlife waiting on drives.
Even now when I look back, it still feels like a dream sequence as it was flawless. Of course, mid-May isn't the season for migration, even then we saw everything, the weather was cool and Carol has ensured that we will visit Kenya again and will be choosing them for the migration season next year.
MK
Email igor | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Not bad not terrible.
Too many added costs to the tour. The basically give a driver that knows bits and pieces about animals and he just drives you like a taxi driver from place A to place B. No value for money for some of the "attractions" we saw.
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Email Michael Gulbraa - M&M Photo Tours, Inc. | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Trying hard but not there yet
I've been on over 200 safaris to East Africa in the last 25+ years.
When my first 2 vendors were not able to assist me on this trip I turned to these guys.
I was told they worked with many photographers in the past and understood what was needed.
We struggled to get our guide to do what we wanted/needed for the right shot - all within the rules. He was nice enough and kind BUT he was often on his phone making it difficult to communicate with him as we had to repeat ourselves almost every question/statement.
The guide did not even have binoculars - how can you be a guide and not have binos?
The vehicle was not in great shape. It did what we needed but for only having 3 in the car it was tight, narrow, and the way the rear seat was positioned it meant that the person riding in the back often hit their head on the top of the interior - this was often with the way our guide drove - often going way too fast over certain parts of the roads.
The camps we stayed at were all fine - I'd stayed at them before so knew what to expect.
The value was OK as their price was very aggressive, but the overall level of service was not up to the standard I like.
I give Kameraz a 3.5 out of 5.
SE
Email Linnea Andersson | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
The Safari was absolutely amazing, but the company needs to work on some points still.
Kameraz of Africa was incredibly quick to respond to emails. They put together a package for us exactly according to our wishes. The safari was absolutely magical and the accommodations we had booked were very good. Our driver was nice and very good at his job. He knew what he was doing and where he was going. We wished he would have told us more and interacted more. He was more of a driver than a guide. He was unfortunately a lot on his phone and did not pay attention when we tried to talk to him and ask him to stop because we wanted to take pictures. We often had to stand and wait for the driver as he was late in the mornings. The first day he was late for over 1 hour.
We were very disappointed that we didn’t get informed about the new rules of the park that affected our schedule.
When we booked we were given a schedule of what our days would look like and after seeing the schedule we confirmed the booking and paid accordingly. On the evening before our last day, the driver told us that we would be heading back to Nairobi in the morning. While we thought we were going on our last game drive as it was the one we had in our schedule and booked.
Apparently, the park's fees have changed and we had not been informed about this before. So we were very disappointed. And when we took this up with the company, they just blamed "the government and park authorities". They didn't take responsibility for what they could have done for us, or apologize for not informing us. It felt like they couldn't understand our disappointment of missing a half day safari. Before this, we received a very good treatment.
The experience during the safari was so fantastic that it outweighed our vacation. Would give Kameraz of Africa a rating of 3,5.