Review about Namibia by william guy
They have a huge array of species across the country and some spectacular landmarks such as the fish river canyon
US
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Kenya Walking Survivors Safari made our family trip an unforgettable adventure
Thank you KWSS for providing outstanding advice and service to our family throughout the planning process and during our 14 day safari. KWSS individualized our itinerary and their attention to our family made us feel like we were their only clients. They changed our itinerary mid-travel to give us more time at Masai Mara and organized two special birthday surprises for me and my son. Patrick was a wonderful guide/driver in Kenya and treated our family like his own. We were fortunate to see the big 5--including a family of endangered black rhinos, as well as many other fascinating birds and wildlife. We also visited Masai and Samburu villages while in Kenya. The Mgahinga Gorilla Park was an experience of a lifetime that we only chose due to the local expertise of KWSS. We will definitely use KWSS for all of our future trips to East Africa.
CO
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Excellent Service, good price,thanks Simon for al. All the time disponible for us!!
Excellent. The guide and conductor were great!! We could see all the animals, good food and the camping comfortable.
FR
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Great time witz the Benson team
The logistics , the logdge and camps were Beyond our expectations and mots of all our guide and driver and our Cook were great : verry professionnall and friendly
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Exceeded all our expectations
We were really impressed by how Outlook Safaris helped us plan our first family safari. Elsabe was brilliant and I felt her advice on where to stay was spot on. She answered all our questions promptly and in detail; we changed plans a couple of times and this was dealt with efficiently. We wanted to stay in a small affordable lodge (we are a family of 5) that gave us an extra special experience of the bush and her recommendation of Nkorho Bush Lodge was perfect. The safari experience and lodge exceeded our expectations and it was the absolute highlight of our 3 week holiday in South Africa. We had a fantastic ranger (Werner) and tracker (Chris) who were obviously passionate about their jobs and we felt that each drive was special; my husband is a really keen birder and I felt that Werner went out of his way to make sure that he spotted as many species as possible (several Ground Hornbills on our last game drive was a dream). We also saw leopards on nearly every game drive plus exciting views of lions, rhino, elephant, buffalo, hippo, jackal, hyenas............we are already starting to plan our next safari and would definitely use Outlook Safaris again.
US
20-35 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Incredible safari with an excellent guide
I have been on multiple safaris in Tanzania, and this was by far one of the best ones that I have ever experienced. Ernest was an incredible tour guide, and made sure that we saw everything that we expressed an interest in seeing at the beginning of the safari. We saw two different groups of lions, and even saw some lions mating! He took us close to a massive herd of buffalo, and we saw many elephants, giraffes, and even went looking for leopards. Ernest is extremely friendly, speaks English very well, and took us to great places for breakfast and lunch as well! I would HIGHLY recommend this safari to anyone who is looking to go on safari in Tanzania. No need to go to the Serengeti, Ruaha National Park has everything you need!!
IE
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
not what was advertised
Tanzania Safari Supremacy is a complete rip off. Simply put, what they advertise and what they set out in their itineraries are not what they will provide. I travelled with them in July 2015 and was utterly disappointed at the service they provided.
Firstly, when we were picked up from our hotel in the morning the operators demanded that we pay the balance in cash. This was never mentioned to us in any correspondence beforehand, which it clearly ought to have been given the size of our group and the amount of cash we would therefore need to have on hand. We had expected to be able to pay by card, but instead lost an hour that morning travelling to the airport to access an ATM – a terrible start to the trip, a waste of our time, and no apology from the company. Unfortunately this was only the beginning of our problems.
We had opted to use this tour operator as they claim in all their materials that the drive to the park is 4-4.5 hours from Dar es Salaam (there are other parks in the region but they are a longer drive so we chose Mikumi as we had limited time available to us and wanted to maximise our time in the park). The drive took 6 hours. This wasn’t due to traffic as there wasn’t any significant traffic and the journey time was the same on the way back to Dar from the park. This delayed not only our arrival on the first day but also meant we would not have time to make use of our final morning on safari as we had to ensure we would make it back to Dar in time to catch the ferry.
The itinerary for the first day was to arrive by midday and immediately start on a game drive. Instead, when we arrived the driver told us that the plan was not to go out on a drive until 4:30pm! This was a loss of over half a day of driving for absolutely no reason.
At this stage we were very annoyed by the situation. We asked the driver to take us out at 3pm so as not to lose so much time and, reluctantly, he agreed. We also asked at that stage for the driver to get the manager, Elvice, who we had corresponded with by email beforehand, on the phone so that we could discuss the issues that had arisen. The driver did not get him on the phone.
On the first evening the driver (allegedly) checked what time breakfast would be served at, told us it would be 6:30am and initially suggested picking us up at 7:30am to go on a drive. As anyone who has been on safari before will know, it is best to go out as early as possible as the animals move around most in the mornings before it gets too hot in the middle of the day. Thankfully, we knew this so insisted that the driver pick us up at 7am and he, again reluctantly, agreed.
Later that evening the catering staff (who are entirely separate to the safari company and did a fantastic job and were most helpful) told us that breakfast is not served until 7am (a fact I have no doubt the driver was fully aware of). They tried to contact the driver for us to tell him that we would instead go on a drive earlier and return for breakfast later in the morning but they were unable to get through to him.
The following morning the driver did not turn up until 7:25am. When we were eventually able to speak to Elvice much later that day he claimed that the driver was delayed as he had had a flat tire. The driver never mentioned this so I fully believe this was just a story concocted later on to try and cover himself. He didn’t apologise at all when he did arrive late and when we made it clear that we were very unhappy with how we were being treated he again offered no apology.
As an aside, the driver showed very little in the way of knowledge about the animals. If we had not asked him questions about the animals I don’t think he would have said a word the whole time and when he did answer questions it didn’t seem like he knew very much about the animals. When we did come across animals it seemed very much like just a matter of chance rather than any skill exercised by the driver. Even if all the other issues had not arisen, I think we would have left the tour feeling quite disappointed by the drives because of this apparent lack of knowledge.
Returning to the main issues. When the driver arrived late that morning I insisted that he call Elvice as the group was so appalled at the service. He instead got another middle man, Philbert, on the phone who refused to listen to our complaints (which were expressed in a calm fashion) and began to scream down the phone at me, called me crazy a number of times, and then hung up the phone on.
We asked the driver again to get Elvice on the phone as he was, as far as we knew, the person in charge. The driver claimed that he did not know who Elvice was, he only knew Philbert. We told him that we were not happy to speak to Philbert and insisted he get Elvice on the phone and the driver said he would.
We eventually went out on our morning drive and by the time we returned for lunch we still had not received a call from Elvice (although we are quite confident that the driver was speaking on his phone to someone from the main office, he denied it when asked about it). At that point we again insisted on him calling Elvice. Again he claimed he did not know who that was and that he only knew Philbert so he put Philbert on the phone again, who claimed that Elvice could not be contacted as he was ‘in the bush’. When I said that that wasn’t acceptable and that we must speak to someone in charge he again started to shout at me and ultimately hung up the phone.
We again explained to the driver that we had to speak to someone in charge and that we wanted that phone call to happen now. 10-20minutes later we eventually got a call from Elvice. Unfortunately, all Elvice offered us were excuses, such as the phantom flat tire. He refused to acknowledge that the itinerary he had sent us was very different to what was proposed when we arrived and ultimately could offer us no solution. I asked that he consider the situation and call me back within an hour to offer some solution to the problem but, unsurprisingly at this stage, the call never came.
That evening when the driver dropped us off, we asked him to call Elvice again. At first he tried again to claim that he didn’t know who that was or how to contact him, but, obviously, this didn’t stand up and he eventually got him back on the phone. This time Elvice was much more hostile. He tried to claim that we had caused very issues and that we had tried to not pay for the safari (absolutely baseless claims), he offered the same nonsense excuses, and ultimately, when I insisted that there was no excuse for providing a service so different to what was advertised, he became completely frustrated and (judging by the sounds) hurled his phone against the wall.
Do not use Tanzania Safari Supremacy. There are so many companies offering safaris in this region, try any of them other than this one. They don’t provide what they promise, their driver showed no expertise, and their customer service is despicable.
NL
50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Good advice up-front. All well prepared and good choice of safaris and lodges in line with budget.
We contacted Afroriginal in February of 2015 and Desiree offered us a good package which was very clear to us. It described the safaris well and what we could expect from the lodges which were well picked. During our visit we got a very open and known driver during the safaris. Desiree stayed in contact regularly and helped us if and when necessary. They were also flexible so we also could organize some of the days ourselves. We had a great time!
US
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Truly phenomenal. On a trip to see animals, the people at Bubezi were the most memorable
Everything from inquiring on a booking to dropping me off at the airport thoroughly exceeded my expectations. I sent requests to 7 different safari companies to help me book a 2 night trip at the last minute based on my work schedule – Andy was the only one to respond with a complete end-to-end itinerary, and he did so immediately. Quintin and Nikki guided my trip and treated me more like a friend than a customer. Not only that, they were as genuinely excited to see the animals as I was and never made me feel like just another tourist. I was so impressed that I used Bubezi Safaris as an example of what my team aspires to be in my presentation the following week to several of my customers in Johannesburg.
I cannot wait to come back with my entire family and chart out a longer adventure with my friends at Bubezi.
DE
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Nice balance of cost vs benefit
Booking through Wild Africa Travel Company was pretty easy, and Robert Francis was responsive. The only confusion was around our flights into the Okavango Delta. The process was not clear and it was difficult to get a hold of anyone to help us sort it out (In Botswana). However, In WATC's defense, we had a moderately unusual self-drive itinerary and everything ended up going off without a hitch once we figured it out.
We thought that the adventure we booked with WATC was adequate and fun. We very much enjoyed our stay at the Odd Balls camp, especially because the manager 'Doc' who really was delightful and made our stay there especially enjoyable.
We are rating this with 4 stars, or 'good', because we don't necessarily know what would constitute 'excellent'. We have no real complaints. The price was right and it was well within our expectations.
Thank you, Robert Francis! Tell Doc we said hello!