VE
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Super friendly!
Shikwaru 's staff not only is completely professional but they also comprehend that they work directly with people. It makes the trip more enjoyable which means more fun!
FR
35-50 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Simply fantastic!
The best tour guides you'll find!
Attentive, friendly and fun. If you want to experience an amazing tour these are the greatest. Let them take you in an adventure like no other can.
You guys rock!
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Professional, friendly and knowledgeable!
Federica and Ruan were great at organising a customised package to fit our likes and interests. They were very efficient, and quick to reply, and they provided a personal touch and friendly atmosphere the whole trip.
Thanks!
DE
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
12-Day Safari in Kenia and Tanzania plus 3 Days Zanzibar
The trip was truly amazing and I would recommend AMAZING MEMORIES SAFARIS (AMS) without reservation.
I found the company's name on the website and was intrigued by its strong reviews. I did more research and obtained quotes from 2 other providers, but they could not beat the price offered by AMS.
My husband and I booked a tour that we found on the website of AMS (the "honeymoon" tour), but customised it a bit with Anne's help, covering Amboseli, Lake Naivasha, Maasai Mara, Serengeti, Ngorongoro, and Zanzibar. We corresponded with Anne exclusively via email which was easy and productive, because her responses were always prompt and very clear. Anne also picked us up from the airport in Nairobi, and her colleagues delivered two heavy suitcases to us for the return flight, which we didn't need for the safari and were able to store in the office. That was super helpful!!
The tour itself was truly amazing. We saw so many animals and were able to take spectacular pictures thanks mainly to our great guides/drivers, Kennedy in Kenia and Ikamba in Tanzania. They were great in pointing out animals at far distances which we would have never seen without them, and both were very professional and likeable at the same time.
We were also very happy with our itinerary--though if you hate long drives, I would probably stick with either Kenia or Tanzania instead of going to both.
As to the accommodations, most of the hotels and lodges (Eka hotel in Nairobi, Kibo Safari Camp in Amboseli, Mara Sopa Lodge in Maasai Mara, and Next Paradise in Zanzibar) were very comfortable with excellent food, and we really liked the experience of the tented camps in the Serengeti (Katikati and Ang'ata). Only the Crescent Camp in Lake Naivasha and (to some extent) the Rhino Lodge in Ngorongoro were a bit in need of repair, but we only spent one night in each--so it was ok.
CA
65+ years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Affordable, organized and ALL the animals we hoped to see!
Kenya Budget Safaris provided a wide range of safari options at very reasonable rates. Our contact with KBS was a delightful woman named Esther, and her immediate kind responses to our numerous questions made us realize that we were in good hands for this big adventure. My husband and I were able to make changes to our departure date without a problem. Esther helped us find reasonable Nairobi accomodations and arranged transportation before & after our safari. She went above & beyond by securing SGR train tickets for us, and helping out with some hotel payment issues. We cannot say enough about how smoothly our safari experience ran due to Esther's expert guidance.
The safari accomodations & ample food were more than adequate. The game drives were the thrill of a lifetime. We saw the Big 5 in the wild....and so much more. All the parks we toured were fabulous, but our handsdown favourite was Maasai Mara. We also really enjoyed the optional Maasai Mara Village visit, and the Hell's Gate Gorge hike.
Be aware that the multiday safari groups are fluid....there may be some changing of your safari companions depending on length of each person's tour. This resulted in some time needed to meet up and collect or drop off participants. There was a fair amount of driving involved in getting to these meetings and the various parks. However, it did allow us to meet many interesting people and we did enjoy the experience. We would highly recommend Kenya Budget Safari!
FR
had a great 3 days safaris in murchison with Brian
the whole communication from day i sent a request from safaribookings at our hotel in Uganda after we had left France with my husband i brought an idea of us traveling to murchison falls we we sent a request to GoExplore Safaris and Brian responded to us with prompt email response coupled with whatsap call
we arrived in uganda and had 7 days free off our time and choose to go on safari we visited there office and in uganda and made payments then waited for our days fo safaris to begin but we cant tell you how much beautiful this country is the waterfalls in the park were the biggest highlight of the safaris and then seeing the leopards and lions coupled the whole experience to be the best we can recommend to to any one who is travelling to uganda to please use your services Brian will organise the best safari and he is the best safari planner i have found in uganda contact them for your safari in uganda and you wont regret it
we surely will come back for gorilla tracking mid year in august thank you so much
BE
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Amazing safari, great people and a warmst welcome in Africa
My boyfriend and I did a 3 day safari (4 nights in total) with Sky View Adventure. It was a wonderful experience from the first day to the last! Everything was really well organized and Paul and Emanuelle are amazing people. They really care about their clients and really want to make the best safari possible for you! And we had!! The three day safari was a fantastic trip! We had a good driver, food, campingspots and we saw the big 5! In our last night we had a local dinner with Paul to conclude the safari and it was really nice! I would DEFINITELY recommend this organisation! They are rather new, but sooo great! Thank you so much!
IE
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
9 day trip - 5 days in Kenya, 4 in Tanzania
We travelled from Ireland in December 2017.
We would be keen to stress that this is a review of the booking company - African Adventure Safari, not of the safari itself.
The safari was, for the most part, brilliant. It would be hard to travel to the Masai Mara and Serengeti and not be impressed.
It appeared to us (and several others we met) that essentially, for the budget trips you paid a tour company who booked your place on a safari trip. Safari guides/drivers seemed to receive their assigned tourists each trip or each day. So, whilst the drivers (who seemed to work for several various companies) were very good, we couldn't credit this to the tour companies as there seemed to be little relationship between the two.
So, onto reviewing the booking company;
It was arranged and confirmed that they would collect us from the airport in Nairobi around 7pm. Upon arrival, there was no sign of anyone. We waited and eventually opted to use the mobile phone of a taxi driver. We rang Mike, who we had been dealing with us over email. He advised us that he was parking the car and would be with us in five minutes. After ten minutes, the random taxi driver came over and told us that Mike had called back and had asked us to wait by the road. Another twenty minutes passed, with the taxi driver waving to us every so often to indicate that it would be another five minutes.
Nairobi has a reputation and we were growing increasingly uneasy.
Eventually the taxi driver came back with the phone and handed it to me. It was Mike advising us that his driver had gotten stuck in traffic (odd, given that Mike said he was parking the car) and told us the taxi driver would take us. Given that I had just been handed the phone, I made sure to make him confirm a few of our details before we hung up. We were very clear with the taxi driver that we wouldn't be paying him for the journey as the transfer was already paid for. He wasn't very happy about this and made another call to make sure he would get paid.
The taxi driver asked us to wait while he got his car. Two cars pulled up (neither particularly looked like a taxi), he sent the first car away and the driver of the second one got out and our "taxi driver" got in. The route we took (presumably to avoid traffic) went through some very rough areas, with several fires burning by the roadside, through the outskirts of the city. We have travelled a lot (including countries like Venezuela, Colombia and Indonesia) but this was the most uneasy we have ever felt whilst travelling. The combination of being unsure about the taxi driver and the route we had taken had made us feel very apprehensive. This wasn't the start to our trip we had hoped for. As it was our honeymoon, we had booked through a tour company in order to avoid these specific issues.
After 40 minutes we pulled up at our hotel. Mike was there to meet us, with one of the safari guides. He wasn't very apologetic, but seemed friendly enough and gave us his mobile number to contact him through Whatsapp. We had booked the hotel through Mike and he asked for cash to pay for the room. We handed over the cash and it was only when we went up to our room and was able to check my emails that I realised that it was double the price we were expecting to pay. We checked the price on booking.com (which was also cheaper than the price we had been quoted). We texted Mike and he told us that the price he had quoted was per night, so was double what we were expecting and double the cost on booking.com. We were unhappy but there was little we could do.
After our trip to the Masai Mara and Hells Gate, which were both brilliant, we were taken back to Nairobi for a transfer to Arusha (Tanzania). We missed our bus, but that wasn't a problem because we just caught another one. We were met in Arusha by a taxi driver and taken to our hotel, which all went well.
The next morning we were starting a trip to Tarangire, the Serengeti and Ngorongoro. We met the 'boss' and who asked us what our itinerary was (he didn't seem to know what we had planned). He asked about water, we told him it was included in our trip, he asked about our transfer to the airport at the end of our trip, we told him that was also included. We found out later that the 'boss' is the boss of all of the drivers/guides in Arusha, so manages all of the trips that leave from there.
There was clearly very little coordination between the tour companies in Kenya and Tanzania.
The first night of our trip we stayed in a really nice lodge, but one of the other groups (all of the vehicles will stop to eat and sleep in the same places, so you will see a lot of each other) had to stay somewhere else because there had been a mix up and the lodge was overbooked. The next morning, everyone was moved to different vehicles because there had been a mix up with the bookings. This wasn't really a problem for us, but did take a while to be sorted out and a couple of groups had to wait longer than us because people from Arusha were joining them.
Once on the trip, again it was amazing and the driver/guide in Tanzania (Estome) was brilliant. Estome had a couple of different books on the animals and answered every single question we had. He stopped when we wanted to take photos, spotted more animals and birds than you could imagine, and was a really nice guy. Overall we enjoyed the experience in Tanzania more than Kenya, although we saw more animals in Kenya.
Some people from the other groups had problems with their itineraries not being followed and accommodation not being what was expected (this seemed to be people who has asked for an additional stopover or to not be in a tent or a shared tent). When they were booking, they were told it was ok, but once they were on the trip, they were sent along with the rest of us. A vegetarian in our group had to remind them a few times. We hadn't made any special requests, so we didn't have any of these issues.
In Arusha, we had been booked in to the Cloud View Hotel for our last night. Our diver had asked us where we were staying and had been speaking to the 'boss' through the day. When we arrived at the hotel there was no booking for us. Apparently the 'boss' hadn't received the information or money from Mike so no booking was made (this hadn't been mentioned until we were at the hotel's check in desk though). We were taken back to Arusha Tourist Inn and stayed there for the night (this hotel seems to owned by the 'boss' so a booking wasn't needed).
We text Mike about this straight away, but didn't get a response until the following afternoon, by which time we were in Zanzibar. Again, there was no apology and Mike's response was that they are looking for a new partner in Tanzania.
Overall, the trip was amazing and the guides, particularly in Tanzania, were brilliant. The issues we had were with the organisation and, with the exception of the pick up from the airport, were annoying but had no lasting effect on us.
Whichever company you book with, our advice would be to reconfirm everything before you travel (dietary requirements, transfers etc), take printed copies of your itinerary, be prepared to stand your ground on what is already paid for and included as part of your trip, and unless you are booking a bespoke trip, stick to the basic itineraries because people who had special requests didn't seem to get them. And have a great trip.
CH
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Perfect wedding trip!
We took custom made 2 week trip to kenya. Trip incuded Diani beach, Lamu Island and Tsavo East NP for a safari. Eyasonafica made us travel plan on a mid range Budget just like we wanted. Also Staff is profesional! specially driver/guide Musa with whom we spent quite some time.He has great knowlege of kenya, on safari he s the best animal spotter , a good driver and a kind person! If you plan a trip to Kenya i Recommend Eyes on africa Adventure Safaris.
US
65+ years of age | Experience level: first safari
These people are completely dishonest. Both Maggie and driver Patrick are not honest or truthful.
The first 3 days of the safari was excellent. I thought our driver was excellent.
Then, the driver, Patrick, cancelled the last game drive on the last morning, cheating us out of the last game drive on the last day of the safari. The schedule called for a total of five game drives, we got four. I thought we had another game drive, but I never had a printed hard copy. I had the schedule on my computer, but internet access was bad at the lodge and the schedule was inaccessable.
I calculated the value of each of the drives at $220 each.
Patrick was in a bad mood on the last day. I could not get my seat belt fastened, and he impatiently got out and finally got it fastened. I then unfastened it to make sure it would reopen properly, and then I could not refasten it. He angrily asked why I had unfastened it. I said I wanted to make certain that it would open. I do not want to be stuck in a wrecked van and unable to get out. FIRE?? He could not get it working and I moved to another seat.
Also on that last day, he refused to stop and allow me to take a photo I wanted. He said no, that the locals did not want their picture taken, and wanted to be paid for it. I said ok, I will pay. He still would not stop.The photo I wanted was of a donkey pulling a very heavy loaded wagon.
It turned out to be an deadly silent return trip to Nairobi. Patrick had previously told us he was tired of the job. This day was totally unlike the first days.
I talked to Maggie about the trip and asked for a refund for the missed last game drive. She offered $20.00. I declined that offer.
Then, Maggie said she finally talked to Patrick. She said that he told her that I called him "shit" the entire trip. That was ridiculous. She also said something very strange, that I was "drinking" something. I hardly ever drink, and when I do, I am country western dancing and my natural limit is two, and there was no alcohol in the van. That was a very far out claim.
DO NOT PAY THESE PEOPLE CASH- THERE IS SOMETHING VERY BAD ABOUT THESE PEOPLE.
ALL THE SAFARI PEOPLE WANT CASH UP FRONT, WHERE IS THE PROTECTION FOR THE CUSTOMERS??
By all means, go on a safari! The animals are great! Just don't risk it on these people!