DE
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
A once-in-a-lifetime adventure
Firstly in a nutshell:
We have been to safaris in several African countries before, thus our expectations were pretty high. Earthlife expeditions and especially our guide really managed to exceed our expectations by far. A real outstanding once-in-a-lifetime adventure which we will never forget.
Now in detail:
We spent 15 days in Tanzania in January 2017. We found Earthlife expeditions on a website for safari providers and decided to ask for an individual offer for our safari from Earthlife expeditions. The owner, Deo, immediately replied and sent us a taylor-made offer with great value for money.
Our guide and a lady picked us up at the airport and from the first minute we felt very welcome and comfortable. On our way to our first lodge we got some general instructions, hints and even learned a few words in Swahili. This was extremely helpful and opened a lot of doors for our journey.
Our safari included Lake Manyara, Greater Serengeti, Nduto, Ngorogoro and Lake Eyasi and we finished our trip with some relaxing days in Zanzibar. A great selection recommended by Deo. We had a lot of adventure, experienced breathtaking wildlife, met and interacted with local people, had unforgettable nights in tents in the Greater Serengeti and Nduto. We stayed in tented camps and lodges and all accommodation was great. All this was really fantastic, but what really made this experience outstanding was our guide Gilbert. This guy is just fantastic, really well experienced with a great eager to find animals and a passion for his home country. Very soon we became much more than clients, we really became friends and this made the trip so special.
After our safari we flew to Zanzibar which was also organised by Earthlife. We expected a nice hotel at a nice beach but also here our expectations had been exceeded. Our hotel "Next paradise" was really worth its name, it was an amazing hotel at a great beach. Much, much more than anything we could have expected for the total price we paid.
Initially, we had a problem in transferring the money from Germany to Tanzania before we travelled to Tanzania, so we were a little nervous about this. However, Deo helped us to solve this problem and everything turned out very well.
For a better impression, please find some photos attached. Thank you Gilbert, Deo and the team, for this memorable tour:-)
Manuel & Stefanie
US
Great Experience with 4-Day Safari
I just returned from a 4-day safari with Viva Safaris, spending time at the Tremisana and Katekani Lodges. Overall, Viva did a great job. There were lots of drive and walk opportunities and I was always busy. Meals were great and staff was friendly and knowledgeable. The Katekani Lodge is especially wonderful and I highly recommend it.
RU
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Amazing emotions
I agreed all details about my trip with Mike, which have been recommended me by my friend. It included 4 days safari in Ngorongoro (Wildlife lodge, 1 night) and Serengeti (Serena camp and lodges, 2 nights). We started our adventure in Kili aeroport without luggage :) Agency did their best to take luggage day after from aeroport and take care about it till our return to Arusha. It is absolutely "must" to have some clothes in hand luggage)))
Safari was organised excellent, guid was outstanding, his name was Kosmos and we liked him! We saw Big 5, of course, and very close to the car)
Then we came back to Arusha, spent 1 night in very simple Grace Hotel and next day began our climbing to Meru Mountain (height is 4600m). It is not easy but absolutely worth to! Third day we had flight to Zanzibar at 5 pm, it was really a risk. However our guid Ali agreed for us a car from first camp, without the car it would had not been possible to catch the flight.
For climbing we rent sleeping bags and walking sticks. Paid 120$ for 2pax, the quality is not good, honestly.
I want to say great "thank you" to Mike, who made our dreams true. Moreover I couldn't imagine so incredible hospitality, quality, speed of reaction and care about us. It was really amazing and unforgetable!
IT
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
8 Day Safari to Northern Kenya - highly unprofessional management
Itinerary: Nairobi – Maralal – Loyiangalani (Lake Turkana) – Kalacha – Marsabit – Samburu
First of all, this itinerary is really worth following, especially if you don’t want to just follow the usual touristic path.
Unfortunately, during those 8 days we encountered several grave problems with the tour operator and the manager Mr. Dickson Wambugu. The organization and also the handling of occurring problems was highly unprofessional and therefore we do not advise future clients to book tours through this tour operator!
We booked the tour well in advance, and about a month before departure we transferred the total amount (about 4800$) to the tour operators bank account as requested. Apparently the money was needed in advance to book rooms and organize car, driver and cook.
Several problems occured during the journey :
-Money: The driver and guide were not provided with enough money for the package we had booked. So at some point we had to lend them money in order to proceed with our journey, because the tour manager Dickson Wambugu was not to be reached. Highly unprofessional handling of the whole situation and we had to fight really hard to get that money back! Voluntarily almost no communication with the client throughout this whole situation.
-No accommodation was booked in advance even though the tour operator clearly indicates that in the program. That always made us loose precious time.Some of the campsites do not even exist anymore.
-We booked fullboard. Apparently the driver and cook had not been informed and we had to fight to get it. The food cooked the cook was good, whereas the restaurants offered were very basic and sometimes not very proper.
-Old car with many security issues: no seatbelts, no equipment (e.g. shovel), broken battery (with no money left to fix it)
Overall, the organization and also the handling of occurring problems was highly unprofessional and therefore we do not advise future clients to book tours through this tour operator! Back in Nairobi we reached out to the tour operator to discuss all problems in person. It remained really unsatisfying, because nothing was really explained and no real apology was presented.
We had a good time during this safari because we tried to concentrate on the positive things, have a good time as family and learn about the beauty of this country. However, having chosen a different tour operator surely could have improved the experience and saved us a lot of stress!
PH
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Fantastic experience - once in a lifetime
We had an amazing experience with ACZ. We were not sure what we would expect when we arrived in Masai Mara in November 2016, but we got to see so much more than we could have hoped for with Martin our trusty driver. The highlights of our trip? Seeing one of only 26 black rhinos in over 1000 square kilometers; witnessing a huge migration of wildebeests and zebra from the Serengeti over to the Masai Mara side; seeing a pride of lions and cheetahs on the prowl; and spending a night in a Masai Mara village. And that is only the tip of the iceberg. Thank you to the amazing and super professional staff from ACZ for gifting us this incredible experience - they even learned some Filipino words to welcome us! Asante sana!
MX
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Nairobi. Nakuru. Masai Mara. Tanzania
We had a great time while we visited Kenya and Tanzania, John and team made a great job. They know every place and detail in safari, best guides to find animals explain exactly all information about escences of Africa.
We would repet it no doubts and for sure we repeat them (all team), especially John performance was amaizing.
Nice Experience
Lovely days in Kruger !
Outlooks Safaris Lodge is a well organized operator with top crew.
Thanks a lot
DE
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Amazing Safari
We had a great 5-day-Safari with Meru Slopes Tours & Safaris. The Communication with Geofrey was very good, he answered fast and organized the Safari very well. We had a good Driver who spotted every animal and the chef prepared everyday great Food. We would book Meru Slopes Tours & Safaris again!!!!
65+ years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Rob and his team at Tailormade Africa made this one of the best holidays we have ever had.
From initial discussions to getting off the plane when we arrived home, Tailormade Africa arranged everything we had requested in a most friendly and professional manner.
They advised on flights, accomodation, places of interest, car hire, driving routes and restaurants. They and their team obviously have a welath of knowledge which enabled us to get the very most out of this 3 week holiday.
We travelled by car for much of the time through the most dramatic and interesting countryside staying in fabulous accomodation and visiting several wildlife areas ending up ona 4 day safari before flying home. - Fabulous ! - highly recommended and would travel with them again without question.
Thanks Rob et al.
SE
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Overall a very good experience, a serious company at a fair price.
Despite some issues, we felt they wanted to give us a great experience. The rating is 4 and not 5 because of the logistic stuff mentioned below. The safari in itself was amazing, although that would have probably been the case with other companies as well. To get the highest rating they would need to improve on planning and information disclosure.
The good:
+ The safari was incredible with sightings of the Big 5 and other breathtaking scenes.
+ Our guide Stanley was knowledgeable but not very talkative without us asking the questions. It felt like we grew on him and towards the latter part of the 5-day safari he elaborated a bit more on the topics. He also knew all the parks very well and collaborated with other cars to find the animals.
+ Airport pickup/drop and hotel accommodation before/after the trip was great.
The bad:
- When we came to the hotel (which was also the office of Sayari Tano) we found out they were going to change the order of the park visits and do them “backwards”. This was because we were grouping up with another couple (we had ordered group safari) and the other couple started 2 days before. This was fine for us even though the info came very late. We also asked to be compensated with a half day Masaai tour afterwards which we got. In hindsight, it would probably have been nicer to start with Lake Manyara rather than finish with it (because there are less visible animals there), but this was a very minor issue.
- When arriving at the first camp site, we found out by the sticker on the car that we were actually going with a company called “World Tours & Safaris”. Apparently, they cooperate with other companies but not to tell us this felt very strange.
- When on the actual safari, we stayed in some different camps than those on the itinerary, which didn’t really matter to us because we didn’t know any of them anyway, but again this type of behavior felt very unprofessional. When talking about it afterwards, the management said that the campsites just had different nicknames and that we stayed in the correct ones, but it turned out that this was not true. We probably just followed the itinerary of the other couple travelling together with us.
- Because the park fees are paid per 24 hours, it does create some difficulties for the companies logistically to arrange the “full days” as per itinerary if they need to deviate from the original itinerary plan. Because we needed to drop off the other couple travelling in our car, we lost half a day on day 4 (of 5). We talked with management about this afterwards and they tried to defend themselves, blame the driver as well as the government for charging such high park entry fees, but we ended up getting a 5% refund (after asking for 10%). Before you book, try to ask them to be very specific about time frames to avoid this.
- The chef cooked “western” food for us like pasta etc. The food wasn’t that great and especially the lunches were super dry and tasteless (crackers, white bread, banana etc.). It would have been nicer to have some more authentic food and some love put into it.
- Sleeping bags were not very clean (probably never washed) but this was a very minor issue.