Soul Of Madagascar Tours

terrible vehicle

We had worked for months with Soul of Madagascar for this holiday. We had quick and efficient responses from the office employees of Soul of Madagascar. We especially were impressed with Theresia. She was quick and efficient with her responses. We were expecting a wonderful holiday because of Theresia’s thoroughness. She sent us a picture of the Soul of Madagascar rep that was meeting us at the airport and a picture of the vehicle we would be using.

The lodges we requested were reserved by Soul of Madagascar. All were what we expected and met our needs. A few of the lodges exceeded our expectations. Bakuba Lodge was absolutely wonderful. It is a very unique lodge and would recommend this lodge. Bakuba Lodge and Le Soleil de Tsingy were the best lodges we stayed. We would not recommend Radisson Waterfront rooms 19, 20 or 21. They are in the basement. We would not recommend Gaspard Hotel in Ranomafana, the food was not good at all.

Our guide, Joushia, and the original driver, Rivo, were not very punctual. In fact, they were late over 95% of the time. We had to contact Theresia midway through our holiday because of Joushia’s attitude and the vehicle issues we had.

Oh, the vehicle issues we had!! Not one, not two, not even three, but five issues with the original vehicle. Then the second vehicle was a bit better but we still had no working air conditioning and ROACHES in the vehicle. We booked higher end hotels as we expected great service and a quality experience. Because of the service we received from Theresia, we thought we would receive excellent service from everyone at Soul of Madagascar. We also thought we would have had a higher end vehicle because of the higher end hotel choices we had made. Well, that was not the case. We had never experienced such bad service between the guide, driver and the vehicle like this. The best vehicle was the one that transported us to/from the hotel/airport and the one from Bekopaka to Morandava, which was not from Soul of Madagascar. Out of 14 days we have been with a vehicle, we had air condition for 4 days. Two of these days were transfer to/from the International Airport. Taking the total time we spent in a vehicle without air conditioning, it would be over 95% that we had NO air conditioning. We understand things happen. Maybe even twice, but five different things happened with the same vehicle. The first time, on the way to Kirindy Forest, the fan belt broke. It took about 2.5 hours to get back to where the fan belt broke. The next day, driving to Bekopa the air conditioner broke. We had to drive 5 hours on the dirt road with the windows down. It was SO hot and SO dusty. Our luggage, ourselves and everything was DIRTY. I mean DIRTY. Joushia and Rivo did not even seem to care that we were filthy. The next time the vehicle had an issue was on the way to Antsirabe. We stopped once for 15 minutes, then another time for 20 minutes and then an extra hour at lunch because the power steering pipe had a hole. And the air conditioning was not working. We had told Joushia we needed a different vehicle in Antsirabe. But he did NOT listen to us.


We were heading to Ranomafana the day after Antsirabe. We had told Joushia we absolutely wanted to do a night walk in Ranomafana as this was planned on our itinerary. Joushia said we had to insure we were on the road very early to arrive in Ranomafana for the night walk. We opted to not do Antsirabe city tour and the zebu factory to insure we had enough time to get to Ranomafana. We ended up paying the price for not getting a different vehicle in Antsirable as the vehicle broke down on the side of the road. We also noticed the power steering wasn't working, even though we were told everything was fine with the vehicle and of course the air conditioning was not work. That day the fan belt broke again, the same fan belt. We sat at least two hours at the side of the road while the vehicle was repaired. We repeated that we wanted to do one tonight but because of the vehicle breaking down for the fourth time, we could not. Rivo's reply was "This is life in Madagascar." WOW, what customer service is this?!?! We have not seen any other tourist's vehicles broken down on the side of the road. Obviously, it isn't life in Madagascar. We also have not seen any other tourist vehicles with their windows down! So many lies! Joushia lied to us! Finally, we got a different vehicle, but again, it had no air conditioning, and it had roaches crawling on the floor and on us!! This whole situation was unacceptable.

We travel the world as we have visited 95 different countries. Most of these travels has been on induvial tours such as this one. Never have had anything like this. We talked to other tourists while on our holiday in Madagascar; French, Hungarian, Dutch, English, Australian, Canadian, South African and Americans. None have experienced even one issue like we had. All we ever heard from Theresia was “Thank you for understanding”. Well, that is one thing, but it does not make the facts change. If we experienced any small issue on a previous holiday, we would have been compensated for any issues. It would have been a nice gesture, indicating these issues were understood, if a small refund or possibly including meals at several of the hotels. But no compensation was ever made. We paid a lot of money for this holiday and expected great service. Other than Theresia, we did not receive good service from Soul of Madagascar. We felt as if we were a nuisance and not a client.

We had communicated with Theresia during the trip for her to try to understand our situation. Her response was “my apologies” and she was grateful for our understanding. She also stated she did not know about all the issues with the vehicle until we had told her. Joushia did not tell her about the vehicle?? Upon our arrived home, we sent a lengthy email detailing all our issues we experienced on our trip to Theresia. This is her response, “I would like to apologize for the inconvenience you experienced during your trip. As a representative of our agency, I will take all your feedback seriously. I will take the time to carefully observe the people I will work with in the future. Once again, I offer you my most sincere apologies.” Apologies are one thing, but it is as if no one from Soul of Madagascar understood that we paid good money for a tour that was far below satisfactory conditions. We honestly cannot recommend Soul of Madagascar.