RO
thanks for everything
Our Safarihub Tanzanian Safari was more than we ever expected it would be. Much of the success of this adventure must be attributed to our guide and driver, Endeny and to the choice of Lodges chosen for us by Safarihub .
He was very knowledgable about the animals, plants, and Tanzanian culture and history and also very courteous and responsive to our needs. Kudos to Endeny and Safarihub .
US
Congo Doscovery Safari / Barack - Best option out there
Barack and Congo Discovery Safari are hands down the best option for a tour in the Congo. On short notice, Barack was able to get us VISAs to the DRC, organized our tours, met us in Rwanda, assisted with border crossings both into and out of the DRC, and spent an afternoon taking us on a walking tour and having a couple of beers in Goma. Very knowledgeable, on time for everything, and an overall great guy. Would definitely use him again. Three recommendations - (1) if you will be staying in Goma overnight, discuss with Barack various options for hotels and what each price range gets you - we should have spent a little bit more, (2) while you can get US$ out of an ATM in Goma, you cannot get small bills. There will be numerous people to tip during the trip, and we wish we'd brought more small ($1 and $5) bills with us, and (3) take advantage of the amazing fruit, for example we binged on passion fruit... about five cents there versus ~$3 each at home.
IN
50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
nyiragongo active volcano
I am a world traveler visited more than 100 countries and all the 7 continents .My travel includes from bottom of the ocean to edge of space that is submarine to stratosphere. Congo was my 123rd country ,Mr. Barak arranged a lovely breath taking tour to the nyiragongo active volcano.it was well organized trip nice guide,security ,good English speaking, wonderful sleeping and food at the top of the mountain,hassle free visa and border crossing.just close your eyes and book.i have uploaded a wonderful video documentary of the tour .
goto google type:
1.The Great Indian traveller at Active Volcano in congo
2.just goto google type my name:t n suresh kumar
BR
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Good!
Good! I did a 4-day camping safari. Just be aware that if you go solo you might have to share a tent.
ES
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Very good experience
Great experience at a quite affordable price. They pick you up at the border. They are very responsible and help you with everything, from equipment rent to hotel booking. I strongly recommend to count with them!
US
Unbelievable nice
Unbelievable nice, everything was organised very well, the most beautifull hotels and service.Serengeti was the best for me, the big 5 seen on the first day.Zanzibar is so beautifull it looks like you are in heaven. Everybody should do this kind of trips.
NL
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Congo experience and getting there
Amazing experience in Congo, The Vulcanic crater was surreal, especially in the night, the vulcanic activity lightning up the skies as a huge lightbulb. We had to travel in a big group though, so its something you have to like. And, if youre healthy and if your condition is ok, you can carry your own bag by yourself so dont let yourself being fooled into something different.
Also it was super sweet to see the mountain Gorillas. I liked the way the rangers approached them, taking care that we didnt contaminate them and letting us witness them from real close and at the same time making sure both and our security were provided by making sure interaction between the human and gorillas was minimal, taking care of the future of Gorillas and tourism, hopefully protecting a safe future for the animals.
I didnt like how little information discovery safari offered though about the situation in Congo, prices, how things are organised, where to sleep etcetera.
Fortunately half by accident I met Barack Nari who works for this company, who made it all easy, he gave me explanation and took care of all the shitty parts, as transport to the national parks, information about cheap places, arranging visa in one day. Very trustworthy nice guy. So Id definetely recomend Barack Nari in this.
NO
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Highly recommended- excellent tour agent - easy customization of our tour!
All the way from our first inquiry till ended safari and follow-up, the communication was great. We initially asked for a couple of tour options for the days when we were in Kenya, primarily asking for Amboseli and Masai Mara. We got a detailed schedule in return, specifying the activity for each day/dates. We landed on a 6 day Hakuna Matata tour and paid a booking fee (the rest on arrival).
As we landed in Nairobi, the tour agent waited for us as promised. That was an hour after we arrived, as our luggage didn't arrive. As a result, we were only holding our cameras and the clothes we were standing in. The tour agent rearranged the tour on the spot, made the necessary rebooking and followed up the airline for us. Our guide helped us find a mall to do some emergency shopping that same evening. A couple of days later the lost luggage was flown in to Masai Mara.
Prepare for a lot of driving between the national parks, that means 4-6 hours in the car. It may be bumpy, but never uncomfortable. The vehicle is tough and the driver was nice and informative. He really wanted to show us what we wanted to see, asking us in the start of the safari. We got to see most of the Big Five, except the leopard. As we wanted to see the cheetahs, we were really happy to see them on many occasions.
March is a good month, as our guide said the grass would have been much higher by June and July. Then it would have been much harder to spot the animals. It is also not that many others out on safari, so the savannah is much more "yours".
We highly recommend this travel agent and will definitely use them again if we go back to Nairobi for safari!
AR
35-50 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Gorillas experience like nobody can do it!
We make a tour with this company. Its was amazing. The organization of tour was fantastic. We live a unique experience in Uganda and Rwanda. Hotel, guides, transport, safaris, trek, all was perfect! And the Gorilla Trek its a travel that you must do it in your life
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.