World Air Travel & Tours

Reply from World Air Travel & Tours

Hello Peter & Pytsje,
Thank you for taking your time to review us on safari bookings. Your feedback is highly appreciated.

First we would like to apologize once again for the unfortunate car break on your safari day one. The car broke in between Ngorongoro and Serengeti and as you realized, the condition of the road in between the two is in not even bad but terrible condition. The incident was unfortunate one and one that John your driver could not have avoided. On the same road incident like this one are very common. You will remember that right from the time the incident happened, the office in Arusha was on top of the situation and we acted with speed and did all the best to resolve the situation. We were on the phone with the group leader at most of the time updating the group on what we were doing to resolve the situation.

We apologize once again for the delayed wait at the Serengeti gate while we tried to look for an alternative transport. The break happened in the middle of almost nowhere and an instant response was a challenge since it was kilometers away. It was not easy to find a rescue vehicle and we got very lucky that the Serengeti park authorities were the only one that came to our rescue to help drive you to the camp for the night while we sent another vehicle from Arusha for the next part of the trip. We made calls to almost all lodges and camps but their vehicles were on duty. We paid for the rescue service and advised the driver to make stops at all points of interests to make sure you did not loose the whole day which according to your itinerary was just drive straight to Serengeti.

Secondly, yes there was a 14 hours wait until the second vehicle arrived and we were very concerned and troubled by it. As we explained to the group, we sent the vehicle after the breakdown happened but due to the long drive from Arusha, the second driver did not make on time to the Ngorongoro gate by 18.00hrs when they close the gate until the 6.00AM of the next day. This we explained to the group why the delay was long overnight. We made calls to Ngorongoro authorities to allow our vehicle to go past even after the 18.00hrs deadline but we were not allowed. They sighted security reasons which they are very strict on. Our rescue driver spent the night near Ngorongoro and we agreed with the park authorities that the next morning he would be allowed at 04.00AM so that he could make it to Serengeti to handover the vehicle for the next day game drive. At 4AM the driver was at the gate but there was no ranger, we again made calls at that night to wake them and when they came, again they sighted that we had to wait until the clerks came to make the necessary paper works. It was disturbing even to us and only at 6.00AM the clerks came to allow the driver go through.
The driver arrived at your camp at 9.30AM and you immediately started the game drive for the whole day contrary to your feedback that you lost half of the second day. The lost time was 3 hours on this day.
The driver did his best to extended the game drive hours on that evening to cover the lost hours the previous day. On that morning before the vehicle arrived we tried our best to find another vehicle to continue game drive while you waited for the vehicle to arrive but all our contacts had schedule's that morning. We were ready to pay an extra for it.
The next day you were to drive to Ngorongoro for game drive after breakfast but we offered an early game drive again to cover the lost hours.

From the second day everything went perfect as planned and apart from the delay on the first day and morning of the second day the trip was amazing and in terms of guiding and service the paper feedback from the group was very good.

We were very concerned with the incident from the first minute and if there was a quicker way to resolve the incident we would have done it to make sure you enjoy the adventure. It was long distance to send a another car on time and the challenges we encountered before the car arrived were beyond our control. The way we responded was the only prompt way we could have done it.
The extra game drives on the rest of the days were to cover the lost hours and the $30 we gave back was a show of how greatly the management was concerned.

I want to convey our sincere thanks to you for giving us an opportunity to serve you. It was a great pleasure hosting you for the adventures and exploration of Northern Tanzania.Thank you for letting us know about the negatives and positives on our service, it really help us serve you and others better.
By giving us feedback, you are providing us with valuable information that will help us improve our services. Your feedback was highly appreciated.

Regards,
World Air Travel and Tour team.