Mousebird Safaris Expert
Mousebird Safaris
- Located In:
- Size:
- 5-10 employees (Founded in 2020)
- Member Of:
- IATA, TATO & TALA
- Tour Types:
- Custom budget & mid-range tours that can start every day
- Destinations:
- Price Range:
- $180 to $460 per person per day (USD, excl. int'l flights)
Reviews
NL
Email Kate | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Had to report to police. Buyer beware.
To cut a long story short, the driver, who was subcontracted by Mousebird Safaris Mr. Lema, one night of 4 took us to the wrong hotel upon instructions of Mousebird Safaris. He was then not able to take us to the correct hotel (Ascertained after he called his boss) due to the park closing and him not wanting to as it was 1.5 hours away and he "would not have taken this job on had he known this before" (quote from driver.) Upshot was that we had to pay 350 USD on TOP of what we had already paid because the driver would/could not take us to the hotel Mousebird had booked. We called the owner at Mousebird several times and he did not pick up. All my messages were, funnily enough, ignored.
After this, I had wanted Mousebird to settle this directly with the driver who had paid the new (and horrible) hotel, but the driver strongarmed us to his office and forced us to pay his boss for this 350 Dollar hotel he had taken us to in error. Mousebird Safaris Mr. Lema is refusing to pay us back. We have reported it to the police and a case against Mousebird Safari is ongoing.
Mousebird basically contracts their services to a driver who is working for several agencies so you constantly have to wait until others have been picked up from other agencies. Our driver from a firm called Avocet Safaris Tanzania, was picking up several people and messed up this trip entirely. The whole thing was an organisational mess.
I would never ever recommend Mousebird Safaris as I believe that they are not honest. We will see Mr. Lema from Mousebird Safaris in court.
Email Daniel | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Absolutely perfect and full of knowledge.
We have just finished our ‘5-Day Mid Range Group Joining Tour’ for our Honeymoon. From the minute we booked we had great communication with Gift and Mousebird, every question was answered promptly and helped us feel more relaxed. Saidi was our driver for the first 4 days where we explored Tarangire National Park, Central Serengeti, Serengeti National Park and the Ngorongoro Crater. Saidi had abundance of knowledge and facts for us along the way, for example explaining the origin of the parks names and what they mean in English. He was also an excellent driver who didn’t drive as fast as some of the other vehicles, which meant you had a much higher chance of spotting the animals what were more hidden. On the final day we had Jonathan as our driver for the Lake Manyara National Park. Jonathan was exceptional as well as Saidi the only down side was we didn’t get to spend as much time with him. They are both amazing guides, full of experience and very good at spotting animals. We both felt like we got really good value for money. We had a hot lunch provided every day which was delicious, plenty of water and amazing accommodation. On our first and last night we stayed at the Kankari Lodge, located on the outskirts of Karatu town. This lodge was absolutely perfect with stunning views, amazing staff and great food. On the second night we stayed at the Kontiki camp located in Central Serengeti. This camp was pure luxurious and beautiful in every way, the food was amazing and it had excellent WiFi in all areas. On our third night we stayed at the Ang’ata Ngorongoro Crater again this camp was absolutely stunning, the staff went above and beyond for you. They even put hot water bottles under our quilt whilst we had our evening meal to make the bed nice and warm. On our 5 day Safari we managed to see 4 of the animals from the Big 5 the only one we didn’t mange to see was a Leopard. We did however come extremely close to spotting one on our last day in the Lake Manyara National Park, 2 other vehicles were parked up and the car to the side of us could see the leopard. Due to the amount of bushes and trees meant our vehicle couldn’t quite see it. However I managed to sneak a look through there camera as they photographed it. All in all it was an amazing experience and the perfect honeymoon we could of wished for. I have ask my sister who has a blog called She Might Be to post a more in depth review of our tour including what we we would recommend and any tips we found out. We both would highly recommend Mousebird Safaris. Once again we would like to thank all involved.
Email Libby | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
The worst organisation of any company I've ever worked with
First of all, we booked a shared safari with Mousebird safaris, and we ended up joining a convoy of around 6 safari vehicles, each with 6-7 people in them, with unmarked or or unmarketed cars (I.e. they didn't have the mousebird logos on them). After speaking to several people in our tour, we realised that every couple or individual had booked with a separate and different safari agent. And we were brought together to join this trip.
This meant that almost everyone on the trip were staying in different places. This lead to us being picked up very early every day and taken to a meeting destination, often to wait for several hours before starting the actual safari, and spending much less time enjoying the nice lodges we had booked to stay at. (The meeting places were often very basic and not that nice to hang out in). The same was true for the evening, we would drive around after the safari ended, often for several hours, to drop people at their respective lodges.
The major consequence of this (not even considering all the time we wasted just waiting) was that almost every day, after collecting people and waiting for those camping to pack up, we only ever started our safaris at around 9 or sometimes even later. A far cry from the stated "dawn/sunrise safari" we expected.
We also never did any night or evening safaris, or any safari walks, which I have done on other safaris around Africa. Overall it was very poorly planned.
The drivers didn't even know where we were supposed to be staying half of the time, and we had to tell them, or keep an eye on Google maps to make sure they didn't go the wrong way. We were taken to the wrong lodge 3 times on our trip. Which was very tiring in the end. And during the drives to and from the lodges, it was not so easy to look for animals, as almost all the drivers had clearly learned to drive by playing GTA (they drove INSANELY fast and recklessly).
Speaking of driving, since we were driving in a convoy, there were over 10 occasions where one of our party (including our car at least 3 times), got severely stuck in the mud and/or potholes, and in some cases it took over an hour to get the car free. All the time we were all just waiting, with no wildlife nearby. We didn't see any other safari jeeps get stuck the whole time, only our group, which led us to believe that our drivers were not so experienced or trained in driving the terrain.
The days were very long, and we had no snacks or suitable lunches provided either. We are both vegan and booked this trip because the description said caters for vegan. We were told on booking it would be "easy". Most days we were picked up at 6-7am, waited around til about 9.30am to start, but only stopped for lunch around 2-3pm. And on every day we were there, we were given something non-vegan. Or there were minimal options for us. For instance the group would get meat, rice and some steamed veg. So for us, it was just the veg (usually just green beans and carrot) and some mildly warm rice, which just felt like they didnt even think about us at all. And we never stopped anywhere to get any snacks.
One day they almost didn't provide us with any water, but after a long argument, the driver finally took us to a shop and suggested we buy it ourselves... despite "free unlimited water" being written in all the contracts. We didn't agree and eventually, the driver got us water.
To top it all off, the contact we were speaking to before leaving specifically asked us to bring cash to do a final payment to "pay for some in tour activities", such as national park entrance fees etc. So we paid half on card in advance and brought the rest in cash as agreed. But the night before the safari, the organiser came to out hotel to take the cash and we never saw him again. So it mustn't have been for the entrance fees, in fact we never saw our driver exchange cash with anyone once, we believe it was just so we would pay them in cash instead.
I would not go with this safari company again, even if you paid me, as the hours wasted waiting have aged me by a decade.
DE
Email Theresa | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
First impression good, then dissapointing
The first contact was quite good! We booked the trip in advance and had some few conversations via WhatsApp where all questions got answered.
The owner of the company picked us up from airport and told us that he proudly founded this company some month ago. We are also quite young and thought it is a good choice to support young companies.
What we booked and were aware about:
A shared safari for 6 days with lodges/ hotels and which Nationalparks we will visit
What we didn't know:
That all people who were sitting in the same car have booked different packages which caused the following negative facts:
1. Picking up people for 2 hours in the morning & dropping off people at the end of the day because every couple or single traveller was sleeping in another accommodation. This is not what you want when you do safari and pay for daily entrance fees in the national parks!
2. All people in the car have booked different trips (one day we visited a massai village because of two other people in our car who have booked just 1/2 day safari and afternoon massai village) The driver informed us about the afternoon plans at lunch the day itself. So there was no option to say "no" due to the fact that we were all sitting in one car. I liked the experience of the massai village and we had fun. But it is not the best experience when you don't have a choice! We paid originally for one day in the crater!
At the end of the trip the tour operator offered us to drop us off at the airport. We suggested a pick up time which was to early in his opinion so he picked us up 45 min later. The driver drove really slow and we needed to stop due to problems with the car. At the end we run into the airport and had no time left and has confirmed again how bad this company is organized!
We were really disappointed regarding communication and organization of Mousebird Safari. Its not about having the best cars or best food. Its about informing the customer in the best way so expectations are met.
One last sentence regarding the driver: Barton was excellent driving and explaining the wild life. I would recommend a trip with him (he is a freelancer) but not the safari company.
I hope this feedback helps the company to learn and improve!
NL
Email Martin | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
All you can ask for
Mousebird really went out of their way to provide a memorable experience. All requests and questions were handled very well, it seems as if no was not an option. Excellent selection of accomodations. Mousebird was checking in during the safari as well to check if everything was okay, which I felt was a nice touch. I would definitely book again.
JP
Email Toshi | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Very kind operator
They arranged my tour flexible.Regarding the price, where I want to go and accommodation.
I could spend wonderful and comfortable Travel.
I got to see the BIG FIVE!
AE
Email Neil | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Misleading and Bad Organisation
My experience of Mousebird Safaris is not great. I booked a shared - mid range safari package - 4 nights 5 days. After sending the deposit "to secure the accommodation" a month prior to the trip - I did not hear back from the company until I arrived in Arusha. Gift came to my home to collect the rest of the payment the night before being picked up by Samuel our driver the next morning. The other 5 in the vehicle I would find out later were on different itineraries. After the first day I was told my accommodation had changed as the other people were in different m and mine was too far away. I was put in a different vehicle at the gate of the first Park to be given a lift to the first nights accommodation. Next morning I was picked up and we made our way to Serengeti. I was again told that ,y accommodation for night 2 was again different to what I had booked due to the distances between the groups' accommodation. Night 3 was in the camp I had booked. However day 4 in Ngorongoro Crater was cut short and we were heading out of the park at noon as the rest of the group were on 3 night 4 day itineraries and were due back in Arusha (with a family of 3 flying from JRO that evening ) So I lost 1/2 a day of Safari ( not to mention the hours lost driving around on a morning to the other accommodations. ) The final night was in my booked lodge as advertised and Gift came to the Lodge with another driver for my last day in Manyara.
On return to Arusha I informed Gift about my displeasure at losing so much time - especially in Ngorongoro as it was wonderful there. No attempt to reimburse me was made for the lost time and changes to accommodation.
A hugely disappointing experience as it was my first time on Safari and first time in Africa.
The time in the vehicle with Samuel ( the driver ) and the other travellers was great and we saw lots of wildlife - but the whole experience was affected by the poor organisation.
NL
Email Olivia | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
The real deal!
Having so many touroperators to choose from and very much wanting to support local business, I had several conversations and video calls with Gift from Mousebird Safaris. He was very easy to communicate with, reliable, gave me lots of information and responded quickly. I can only confirm that this safari was everything I expected and more. The accommodations, transportation, food & beverage, but especially our incredible guide Lucas made this an adventure we'll never forget.
NL
Email Ivo Gijsberts | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Reliable local tour operator based in Arusha
It was a first time for me (solo traveller from the Netherlands) to book my joined up safari trip in the Northern Circuit of Tanzania with Mousebird, a local operator based in Arusha. Overall, the service provided was excellent value for money. I had opted for accommodation in lodges, and the accommodation provided in Serengeti and Ngorongoro (large safari tents with attached bathroom) was better than I had expected. One thing to ascertain when you book your safari, is to find out how lunch in the various National Parks will be provided. I was in the fortunate circumstance that a chef joined our party for part of the way to cook hot lunches. This, I learned later, is a signature Mousebird provision, that not all tour operators will provide. And indeed, I saw many other travellers eating their cold lunch from a cardboard box in the NP picnic sites. The other important feature is of course the quality of your driver/guide. With Augustine we were extremely fortunate. He is not only an excellent guide with an astonishing knowledge of the biodiversity and geological formations in this part of Africa, he is also a very nice person, courteous, client-focused, with excellent English. And man, could he drive that safari jeep over the bumpy roads getting us to and from the NP's. All in all, he made this one week safari trip visiting four NP's a true highlight.
Email Ally | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Wonderful experience
At first I was a little nervous booking from abroad. However, the tour company delivered on all counts! They also found a way to provide all the rental gear that I needed for a reasonable price.
communications: Gift was always contactable.
Service: The climb was a great success. Everything was provided for. The team - porters and guides - were absolutely amazing.
Value for money: I don't think I could have found a better deal.
Reliability: Everything checked out the way it was meant to.