65+ years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Excellent service from this young and up and coming Company
Communications with Sylvester right from the start were prompt, professional and he listened to what we wanted from our safari. We were very impressed with him. All accommodations were excellent and of a very high standard. Our driver/guide Nicholas was a friendly and knowledgable companion and his driving skills were excellent. Perhaps the vehicles could do with an upgrade but maybe I say this because we are both almost 70 years old and perhaps felt the bumpy roads more than younger people would! All in all we were happy with Seven by Far and felt we got good value for what we paid.
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Interesting tour guides
It's quite amazing and since it was my first time am hoping to be served again by Yala safaris Uganda.
50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Safari fun
We were very happy with our choice of Safari Company with Africa Safari Classics. Maurice was on the ball from the start, helpful and prepared to go the extra mile in transporting a box back to Nairobi by road when we had luggage restrictions.
The guides were knowledgeable, friendly and helpful. The Lodges comfortable with delicious buffet meals in 2 of them. While the other had a set menu but the food was just as good.
We didn't see as much wildlife as we had expected (not without our guides trying their best). As we had been on safaris before we put it down to the time of year. Tsavo West is a great place to get bird shots.
NL
50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
great!
Personal trip with guide Johnny. Nice travel from Lilongwe to Zomba. Stayed in beautiful lodge (casa rossa) .After that to Cape mc clear in beautiful lodge.
65+ years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Fantastic Trip to The National Parks, plus Chimpanzee and Gorilla Trekking
The service from Justus for the booking and assistance with Visa's, hotel reservations on arrival and departure from Entebbe and flights from Southern Uganda back to Entebbe was great. Jimmy was our driver/guide and he was very knowledgeable, helped us with everything we needed. He came up with some surprise stops including a walk with the Rhino's at a rehabilitation centre on the way to Murchison falls National Park. Would recommend Gorilla Bookings to travellers
ES
35-50 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Fully adapted for your request, about plannig, timing and selected liodges. Very vocational
We stayed a fantastic 10 nights traveling by road with adventure markers, guided by Stephen. Very vocational, pleasent and trustfull driver. We visited mikumi 3 n. Ruaha 3n. Morogoro 1 n. And Selous 3n.
Good 4x4 wheels car, perfect for a pair.
Whole our expectation has been done.
You can go there with this company, i trust them a lot.
BE
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Cheap safari for a veruy good quality
Safari always means spending a lot of money. However, when going to Tanzania, you cannot miss the occasion to to on a safari tour. I was surprised to see that you still could get 5 days safari for a decent price (875$/pers). I was afraid of the quality of the safari for this price but I was surprised in a good way. The price determines more the lodgement and maybe the food a bit; but that is all. If you do not mind sleeping in a Quechua tent (everything was foreseen: mattress, sleeping bag, cushion, etc.) and that you are not looking for a 5 stars meal neither (still, the food was good!), then definitely go for this tour with Meru Slope. We have seen everything (except a rhino, but that is the nature's rule; you are never sure you will see all animals) and our guide, Steven, was great! He knew all the good places and he was patient; he is working for 15 years I think, but still he is passionate (more than some other guides who stopped only 30 sec or even did not stop at all when passing by interesting animals or great landscapes). He also gave us plenty of explanations.
The only negative point was the fact the organization did not tell us in advance we needed to bring cash to pay the remaining amount (same for other people in our group), which led to quite some discussions. So do not forget to bring all the money with you because they do not take cards (unless you do not mind being charges for getting 5 times money at the ATM...because you can only withdraw like 140$ equivalent) This is the only reason why I do not give 5/5.
Thanks again for this great safari, especially to Steven, this was an amazing experience I will never forget! I would not change anything!
CN
Good company and contact
Edward is excellent, though we never met. He helped arrange all the safaris in Kenya with reasonable price and recommendations.
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.
Great experience
We had an amazing trip organised by PaperJet. We absolutely loved our time on safari at Arathusa lodge, Sabin sands. Justin was great at organising it all for us and suggesting where we could go. He kept in contact the whole time to keep us updated on our booking and even got in touch before we left to wish us well and provide us with contact details in case we needed anything.
All transfers went smoothly and our safari accommodation was gorgeous. As first time safari goers it really helped to have someone organise it all for us.