DE
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Maasai mara Kenya safari
Myself and fiance went on safari. We both are well travelled but never did safari. Information out there was overwhelming. We chose pam safaris from recommendation . 4 in maasai mara nights was fantastic . Great attention to our needs from first email.
US
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Four night package to Amboselli, Tsavo West and Tsavo East.
We booked our trip within 45 days of departing. While Vincent (the operator) was difficult to understand, he made up for with a stellar trip. I'm from America and I speak no other foreign language, and admire those that to. While not fluent in English, we decided emailing and texting would be best for both parties.
The company demanded only a wire transfer for a deposit. I think that in this day and age of credit cards, spending $80 wire fees is ridiculous, but I wanted to support a small business and begrudgingly wired the money and paid the fee. During our conversation, I clearly communicated that I will not be carrying $4,000 in cash and that my party would pay the balance with credit cards upon arrival. Upon arrival, this was met with reluctance by Vincent and mandated a trip back to Nairobi (out of the way by two hours with traffic) to meet his office manager that had a mobile unit for authorizing credit cards. Vincent could have had that with him when he met us, saving all of us two hours of our lives and more importantly, our vacation.
Once we got that out of the way, we met our driver and our guide, Lawi and we were on our way Amboseli. Lawi is a wonderful man and we enjoyed him immensely. After we checked into our accommodations at Amboseli, we went out on our first outing into the park. The first night we experienced an entire family of elephants near a small lake, that had a mother and baby hippo. We were delighted seeing that. We also experienced giraffe, impalas, gazelles, baboons and other exotic creatures. L
Lawi wanted to get us back to the lodge prior to dark, so we could eat dinner. Our group couldn't care less about eating timely or at all for that matter, if it meant sacrificing time looking for animals. That was met with resistance from Lawi. That issue also came up in the morning. We stayed 2o minutes from the park entrance and wanted to meet at 6:00. Lawi insisted we not leave prior to 6:30, but we settled on 6:15. The sun rose at 6:30 and by the time we got to the animals, the sun had been up for 30 minutes and we missed the best light of the day for our photography. However, once there we found a pride of lions coming across the savannah. Shortly after getting there, the lions continued coming directly toward us and we got amazing photographs of these magnificent animals. They crossed the road thirty feet in front of us and settle in a shadow with Mount Kilimanjaro directly behind them. It made an incredible photograph, when a lioness turned her head and looked directly at us with zebra and gazelles in the background.
Shortly after the lions went out of view, we saw a family of elephants again coming right at us. Lawi’s lack of understanding of photography became evident. While we could have easily stopped before the elephant and on the sunny side of them, Lawi continued past them and stopped the truck on the dark side of the animals. I was furious! Poor Lawi did not understand what he had done and after calming down, I conveyed the importance of being on the bright side of the animal, if at all possible, especially in hours immediately after dawn and before dusk. I’m not certain he understood why that was important, but he became vigilant at asking where he would like us to stop and that forged a great relationship with him for the rest of the trip.
After the magic of the morning resided, we went back to the lodge, cleaned up, ate breakfast and traveled on to Tsavo West. The drive there was remarkable with the scenery. It was hilly and heavily vegetated and while very scenic, it made seeing animals very difficult. We stayed at a phenomenal lodge at Tsavo West and it had a watering hole right of the back patio with a back drop of gorgeous landscapes. When we first arrived, an elephant was drinking water there along with many gazelles, waterbucks and zebra. We headed out that afternoon to view animals with little luck. The vegetation was just too thick to catch a glimpse of very many animals. Another outing in the morning yielded similar results, but it was breathtaking scenery. Then, it was on to Tsavo East after the morning drive.
Tsavo East is near the town of Voi and one must navigate its streets to arrive at the entrance to the national park. Voi was an interesting town where trash was simply thrown out and would land on public streets. It didn’t seem unusual at all to the people that lived there. Hundreds, maybe thousands of goats roamed the town and seemed to sanitize the trash as evidence of the fat goats, but I digress.
On our way to our lodge, there was no shortage of wildlife, we saw many bull elephants by themselves, many giraffes (twiga in Swahili). The accommodations were first rate again and we checked-in and then started our next drive. This time we went along a river where we witnessed many elephant families and all got great shots of them. We also experienced vervet monkies, baboons, along with many other species and witness babies as well.
After leaving Tsavo East, we took the highway to Mombasa where we said our goodbyes to Lawi and checked into a hotel there.
Overall, I thought Trip Advisor Africa Safaris served us well and I would book with them again.
DE
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
It's was lovely,we had great time .the game drive was awesome
Communications was good,the service was great. The Tourist camp we checked in was ok..the food was great ,only the Tent they gave was horrible ,i called the Triumph offices and complained and after some hours we were changed us to better Tent.I would recommend that you inform the person incharge of Majimingi Tourist Eco Camp should try see that the Tents are kept clean especially the Washrooms .
The game drive was Awesome the drivers were very kind and friendly we had alot of fun .Abig thanks to the drivers Godfrey (fred) and Raymond you did a good job keep it up.hoping that the next safari you will drive us again.
KY
Really well organized, but also allows flexibility
Jeff was incredibly responsive to all my queries. His flexibility allowed me to make my own plans, at the same time as he facilitated wider group excursions etc.
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Fantastic Safari and Beach Break
We chose to travel with Africa Flash Mc Tours because Peter was so open and willing to organise something exactly to our needs and that is exactly what the trip was. It was the holiday of a lifetime and we will definitely be returning to Africa on further safaris with Peter. He devised an itinerary to visit everywhere we wanted and more - Amboseli, Tsavo East and West as well as Watamu. Despite a few hiccups along the way all issues were sorted out in record time. The highlight for us was definitely our driver/guide Leonard. He was fantastic at spotting animals seemingly from nowhere and was lovely to get to know. When we return we will definitely be requesting him. All of the accommodations we stayed in were beautiful and for the length of the trip it was fantastic value for money. Keep up the good work!
DE
35-50 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
VERY good value for money with dedicated staff
we had a four day safari to the Maasai Mara and Lake Nakuru.
In particularly the Maasai Mara was most impressive - and our guide, Joshua, was super!
He stayed in constant communication with other guides and ensured we got the most of the game drives.
Options were a boat trip on Lake Naivasha and a visit to a genuine Maasai village - we did both and it truly enriched our experience!
The accommodation at Maasai Mara was good, whereas the hotel in Nakuru was very basic.
The package included food, which was ample and we enjoyed the local flavors very much!
overall a tour operator definitely to be recommend!
When back in Kenia we will use them again.
NL
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Wonderful area the Masai Mara, many animals, good tents, good people.
We had seen the pictures of the camp-place, tents, beds and bathroom were very good. The Masai people and employees were very friendly and protective during our stay. During the four days of safari we have seen many animals and there was time to observe them in peace. The breakfast, lunch (also the one we had for a picknick) and evening meal was good, not an overload of food, and we had the choice between vegetarian, meat or fish. The different kind of sounds from all the birds and animals in the park made that we really were on a safari. Especially in the morning the birds were singing lovely songs. We had a walking tour with a Masai and learned about the trees and bushes and how we could use the leaves and branches. We rested at the deck and saw from our chair more than 23 giraffes walking peacefully.
US
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Very positive experience
I had a great safari experience provided by Dana East Africa Safaris. The transportation, resort, tour guide, and meals were included for the 3-day event. The only down side was that I was in Kenya when I booked the event and they did not accept a credit card. I was able to work around the issue and had a great experience!
IN
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Comfortable arrangement to Serengeti!
We booked our 4 days safari with Trip Advisor Africa Safaris. Seth Vincent arranged everything as we had asked him to arrange and promptly replied to every email that was sent to him. The airport pick up to drop off was smooth and well arranged. The safari to Tarangire, Serengeti and Ngorongoro was really amazing and well organised. we had a very good driver Ziggy and chef Alifa, both very knowledgeable and amazing cook respectively. Special thanks to director Vincent for arranging a pick up of our lost luggage that arrived couple of days later. It was truly a great help for picking up our lost luggage and keeping it safe until we arrived back from our 4 days safari. Also special thanks to make sure all our requests were fulfilled, like arranging halal food, hotel pick up and drop off,etc. All in all, you can book these guys for your visit to African safari and they will make sure you have a memorable trip with them.
NO
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Very good service.
Everything was ok.Guide and cook in a camp site just amazing people!Highly Recommended!