Team in Tarangire National Park
Gecko Adventure Tanzania
- Located In:
- Size:
- 5-10 employees (Founded in 2005)
- Member Of:
- TATO & TATONA
- Tour Types:
- Custom mid-range & luxury tours that can start every day
- Destinations:
- Price Range:
- $195 to $950 per person per day (USD, excl. int'l flights)
Reviews
US
Email James | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
SCAM- avoid at all costs!!
Rama the owner is a very smooth communicator, and it’s easy to be very impressed with his handling of your booking and answering your questions, etc. But despite trusting him a lot, he completely scammed us.
First, take a look at the reviews he has on TripAdvisor, Google, and SafariBookings. Pretty impressive review scores. But take a closer look at the reviews themselves. Do many of them appear fake? Are they written mostly by reviewers with only one review, written by other local safari operators and/or have poor grammar? Are some of them written by “Rama Mo” himself pretending to be a customer?
Our first clue that something was amiss was when we tried to find the office that Rama claims to have. He told us specially what building his office was in (it’s also marked on Google maps in this prestigious location). The office does not exist.
Once we realized this, we asked to see the car that was “being repaired” as part of his story. This was the night before we were to leave on our trip. During the trip to see the car (which was honestly bring repaired as described, but based on its condition did not appear ready for departure the next day) we talked casually to him about our trip and how excited we were (that it was our honeymoon).
One hour after he returned us to our hotel, he sent a group WhatsApp text including an unknown person saying that his “business partner” (really just one of his drivers posing as his “partner”) was unsatisfied with the price Rama has agreed to and that the trip (which was to start the next day) would be 3x more expensive!! When I protested that we had agreed to a price weeks ago (Rama had gone so far as to specify what kind of USD bills to bring and I had sent him a picture of the bills laid out on a table), they refused to even acknowledge the deal they had agreed to. It was clear that they decided to take advantage of the information we had given them — that we were on our honeymoon- to try to extort us for 3x the price. How messed up is that?! The trip is now ruined and Rama has been increasingly dishonest in trying to justify this 3x price increase (we’re talking about thousands of dollars). It’s actually been quite embarrassing as Rama has repeatedly made new claims and I just keep responding with a screenshot of previous messages he sent contradicting his new lies. Avoid at all costs!!!
CN
Email Alya | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Extremely disappointed and will recommend not to use them
Communications:When he knows there is a problem he decided to avoid answering the phone, other than that he responds ok.
Service:Not good, we definitely didn't get a good place to stay nor the trip was done as discussed!
living up to expectations:We found ourselves in a deserted camp-not sure if it was a camp-one hut with a small dining area.No other customers were there even though it is the season.
The food(ad the waiter) was brought in the car with us-which by the way was apparently a frozen chicken and eggs and we lived off that till the next day's lunch when we finally had enough and wanted to move camp.Of course we had to pay for the new camp as well!!after we complained to Rama/Gecko and his response was it's not his fault!!!
The Safari tour:
We booked two nights and three days:
First day:
the plan was to drive us from the ferry, have lunch and head to the camp and catch the ferry.They came on time to pick us up, however the trip somehow took longer than they expected so we ended up not having lunch and running to catch the boat.
Second day:
We drove up to the game park no problems.
Third day:
We were supposed to have our walk in the game park , we ended up just walking around our camp cause Gecko-Rama-decided to not buy the entry ticket and save some money!!While it only costs about 130 dollars for two people and we paid him more than one thousand dollars for two nights and we ended up paying again for another camp because the camp he chose for us was terrible, even the waiter came with us to the camp and he was the only waitron top of that we were the only customers staying there and I couldn't sleep the whole night!
*We were looking forward for this holiday, and we paid well and discussed all the arrangements in advance, but still nothing was done according to plan.It is very unfortunate to be treated this way.I would not recommend nor wish this to happen to anyone else.