NL
50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
The best holiday ever!
Flash Safari's was recommended to us by friends and they were so right! Magda and her team gave us and our kids the holiday of our lives! She gave us perfect advise about the best time and the best route for our safari. As a result we have seen lots of wildlife (the entire big five and much more) and the accommodations were perfect. The entire program was perfectly balanced. We started out in the Arusha National Park - a beautiful park just north of Arusha. This is one of the very few places where you can do a walking safari accompanied by an experienced (armed) ranger. Great to get some exercise after sitting in an airplane for an entire day! It was an ideal day to acclimatize with lots to see. The next days we visited all the famous National Parks and Conservation area's. An absolutely unforgettable experience. Tarangire with its Baobabs and many elephants, The Ngorogoro conservation area with its very diverse landscape ranging from tropical rainforest to hills and grassy plains and off-course the endless grassy plains of the Serengetti filled with all sorts of wildlife. We ended our safari in a luxury hotel (Acacia Lounge) which was great! After eight days on dusty bumpy roads it feels so good to clear off the dust, have a long luxurious shower and a swim in the pool.
The absolute highlight of our safari was our driver Adam Mtiro! He was a very experienced and very knowledgable game-spotter, catered for our every wish and gave us all the time we wanted to observe the wildlife. Without him we would not have seen half as much! Thanks again Adam - you have really made our safari unforgettable!
The second part of our holiday was on the east coast of Zanzibar. We spent three nights in the Sunshine Hotel and four nights in the Marine Lodge - both beautiful accommodations under the same management with very nice swimming pools. The Sunshine Hotel has a lovely beach with very warm seawater (around 37 degrees centigrade!) Swimming is very good when the tide is high. When the tide is low you must wear reef-shoes and be careful, not to step on the many sea urchins. The Marine Lodge is more isolated and does not have a beach. It does have a very good diving school however and the Mnemba Atoll right in front of the hotel, provides numerous lovely diving and snorkeling spots. You can spot many tropical fish, sea turtles and dolphins there.
If you want a beach.....go to the Sunshine Hotel. If you want to go diving and enjoy peaceful and quite surroundings......go to the Marine Lodge. If you like a bit of both.......use the special offer to stay a couple of nights in each hotel (including two dive or snorkeling trips). Both places are highly recommended.
We ended our holiday with one day/night in the Zanzibar Coffee House, a very good old, authentic hotel in Stonetown, the historic centre of Zanzibar City. Stonetown is a must see experience. It gives you a good impression of the daily live on the island. Most buildings are old and dilapidated - even those on the world heritage list - but they are still a sight to see! Also the local market was an unforgettable experience. You can make some lovely pictures there, although in some places (like the fish and the chicken market) you must be able to hold your breath for quite some time ;-).
All in all we have had the time of our lives in Tanzania and on Zanzibar and we can highly recommend Flash Safari's! Its strong point are:
* The personal approach and personal assistance - both before departure and during travel
* Knowledgeable , highly committed staff and very good travel advise
* A perfectly balanced program with very good accommodations
* Very good, patient and knowledgeable drivers - they are the key to a perfect safari experience!
We highly recommend Flash Safari's without any reservations!
BY
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Great service
We had a very nice safari with Meru Slopes Tours! Saw big 5 and much more.
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Perfect!
They were very professional. I loved how fast and well they organized everything and they resolved all the obstacles in the way. All the members of First Choice, from the director to the driver were amazing with us.
Booking our trip was hassle free and consideration was given to our specific needs.
We stayed at The Lodge in Thendele in Royal Natal National Park. Loved the setting, which is stunningly beautiful and the gardens and verges well maintained. Road has quite a few potholes leading up to the Thendele car park. The fact that the Lodge was big, spacious, and was very eco friendly with the grass growing on the roof was really lovely. Sipho, our cook was very good, pleasant and helpful in every way. Only complaint was the carpets badly need cleaning or replacing, very badly stained. The bathrooms need renovating, there is only one shower in one bathroom, the rest have baths, and although clean on the surface the bathrooms are old and not water conservation friendly...
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Stop looking start booking!
Thank you so much to Ilse and Matoke tours for providing such outstanding service, recommendations, tours and guides. From the first email I received after requesting details about a safari and gorilla trekking the information I received was so prompt and professional that I stopped looking at any other tour companies and booked with Matoke tours. From the booking process, being welcomed at the airport and accommodations the staff were professional, welcoming, friendly and incredibly helpful to ensure our stay was perfect.
The gorillas were absolutely incredible and one of our all time favourite life experiences. The gorillas are magnificent and I couldn't believe how close we were able to get. We had a guide called Francois on the day who was absolutely fantastic - he has been a tour guide for 30 years and was so knowledgeable, funny and passionate about the gorillas he made the trip even more special.
Words can't describe how amazing this experience is we were just in awe of these majestic, magnificent animals, everything else faded away and nothing else in life seemed to matter except for that moment right there being in the Rwandan jungle sitting less than a few metres away from a magnificent silverback whose commanding presence and sheer beauty was breathtaking. Seeing a mother gently hugging and kissing her newborn baby with such tenderness and radiating so much love was absolutely heartwarming. The experience is life changing as it reminds you what is truly important in life. The conservation work being done by all the people involved in protecting these endangered gorillas is nothing short of outstanding.
The Serengeti was just amazing. Our driver from start to finish in Tanzania was Jackson and he was the best! He was always fun, friendly, incredibly knowledgeable not only about the Serengeti and all the animals and Masai but also about the local culture and history of Tanzania and was able to answer any question we asked. He was always on time and did his utmost to make sure that our experience was the best it could possibly be. He found the big 4 every day in the Serengeti for us and the black rhino in the Ngorogoro crater. It was all so beautiful it was surreal. Jackson was also so incredibly patient and happy to wait 10 minutes or an hour… he would stay anywhere for as long as we wanted in any area so that we could enjoy our experience to the full of watching the animals. He was passionate about making our trip as special as he could which he certainly did. The Tortillis camp in the Serengeti was fantastic, all the staff there were absolutely wonderful, there was nothing they wouldn't do to ensure our stay was as comfortable as possible.
We absolutely loved the safari and seen such an abundance of wildlife. I couldn't pick a favourite as everything was so spectacular to see. At one point Jackson had a radio call and he asked us to sit down and raced off down the road, he didn't say why but we knew we were about to see something amazing! Not long after we came around a bend and there were 3 lionesses in the distance walking towards us down the road! He stopped the car and I quickly started taking photos expecting the lionesses to take off in to the grass but they just kept coming toward us it was absolutely incredible as they continued down and right past our car!
I highly recommend this tour as it is a trip of a lifetime and Matoke Tours made it perfect from start to finish!
US
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
We had an excellent trip through Swift Travel.
Swift Travel was very professional, great in communication, timely, trustworthy, friendly and it was an overall very enjoyable expedience.
I highly recommend booking a tour with Swift.
NL
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Great safaripark for self drive with beautiful scenery
We went to Ithala game reserve as a part of a round trip along the elephant coast.
We stayed for two night's at one of the wonderfull chalets. They are clean en up to date.
We did a self drive safari, we took al de routes in the park. (also the 4x4 roads, we had a hyundai ix35, but it was dry, maybe in the wet season this wouldn't been possible)
The scenery was absolutely beautiful, within the park there are allot of viewpoints.
we saw zebra, kudu, impala, elephant,eland,waterbuck, giraff, wildebeest, rhino, baboons, busch baby's in the camp.
We would recommend this park especially if you enjoy scenery icombination with wild life.
35-50 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Another outstanding African trip with Encompass Africa
We cannot thank Jonathon and Danica Wilson at Encompass Africa enough for organising yet another fabulous trip to Africa for us! It has taken us a while to get around to visiting Tanzania but boy was it worth the wait! We were completely blown away by this amazing country, its beautiful landscapes, wonderful people, warm hospitality and incredible wildlife. The trip completely exceeded our expectations and I am sure that this had a lot to do with Jono and Danica's careful choices for us of what local companies to use, camps to go to, locations to visit and careful planning. Jono and Danica knew that one of our reservations about going to East Africa was the potential for lots of vehicles and especially lots of vehicles interfering with the wildlife and their behaviour. Their advice on when and where to go and with whom made all the difference. We had an absolutely amazing experience which was so far from the busy and touristy experience we had feared, even in the very popular Ngorogoro Crater, so we are so thankful to them for understanding our concerns and using their expertise to make sure we were not disappointed!
Mirko had an amazing climb up Kilimanjaro with Summits Africa. They were absolutely fantastic and took such great care of him, I was incredibly impressed! What an awesome experience it was and the care taken by all the team to make sure the climb went well contributed so much to the positivity of the experience.
The camps in the Serengeti we visited were all great, well situated, set up, appointed and managed with great teams of people in each who were warm, welcoming, kind, helpful and hospitable. I must make a particular mention of Rodger and Annabel at Sayari who were just the most wonderful managers, professional, warm, hands on, very respectful to their teams and they made such a huge effort to make our stay special, with amazing birthday treats for Mirko and even a celebratory private candle lit dinner and champagne the night we got there to celebrate Mirko's successful Kili summit!
Our guides were fantastic, very respectful of the wildlife, knowledgeable, passionate, and great company. Kevin, who was my guide for the week I was on my own was just wonderful and made sure I had an absolutely fabulous time.
I also want to especially mention Joseph who was our guide at Sayari - he was such a lovely young man, intelligent, professional, knowledgeable, motivated, driven, with a great sense of humour, kind manner who was great to spend time with and very passionate about the bush.
Travelling on my own was not a problem at all, I felt safe, welcomed and cared for all the time, both out and about and in the camps. Everyone was incredibly friendly and kind to me.
Asilia is a fantastic company and I am so glad Jono and Danica recommended them to us. They really walk the walk, not just talk the talk! Eco-conscious and eco-friendly, great conservation and community initiatives, great guides, respect and care for the environment and wildlife, very supportive of their staff and providing great career progression opportunities, as well as great camps in great locations with wonderful wildlife.
We had so many amazing sightings that I cannot list them all but a few highlights were a cheetah and her 3 small and adorable cubs, lost of cheetah, 2 servals, an African Wild Cat, tree-climbing lions, seeing >100 lions, a pride of >25 lions all together, a female leopard and 2 playful young cubs, the migration, black rhino and calf, morning tea in a herd of 70,000 wildebeest and so so much more! Cant wait to share stories and photos!
We couldn't have asked for more and as always Jono and Danica and the Encompass Africa team have exceeded our wildest expectations! We are already thinking of returning to Tanzania.....as well as visiting some more countries on the beautiful African continent! Cant wait to book our next safari with Encompass Africa!
SE
20-35 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Tayiai Safaris did it again!!!
This was our third time we went on Safari with Tayiai Safaris and Lenny Koshal as a guide. As we did a long distance tour - Nairobi, Maasai Mara, Victoria Lake, Kakamega and back to Nairobi - Tayiai Safaris took us safely all the way. Lenny was, as always, a very good guide and showed that he knows a lot about many different places in Kenya. Superb knowledge and service. 100 % satisfaction!
US
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Great Safari experience. We saw so much wildlife!
Our driver was excellent, very knowledgeable of Tanzania, the Serengeti and of the animals. He was able to take us places to see every type of wildlife we hoped to see. I'd recommend Macho Halisi to anybody considering a safari in Tanzania. Our accommodations were also excellent. Everything exceeded our expectations.