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.
BR
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Spectacular family trip
I report to thank and praise the services provided to my clients in January / 2017, the Rodrigues and Gomes family. It was a trip of enchantment. The services performed with promptness and competence, a trip with several hotels and transfer and timed with mastery. Thank you Andy and all your staff.
CN
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
amazing and fantastic safaris,and the guide is prifessional and able to find the animal in shortime
the whole team is professional, kind, easy going, efficient, high eq. I am sure I will go to east africa again. I love the animals and grassland, and the service this operator provide.
SG
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Professional scam artist, avoid Yoeni Japeth Mbonea at all costs. No stars!
My wife and I engaged Drive Tanzania for a 21 day safari covering Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania to celebrate our 10 year anniversary. With the benefit of hindsight, we should have not gone ahead with this when Yoeni, the director of Drive Tanzania was either very hard to connect with or he would hang the phone up on you mid conversation, as what occurred in the lead up to us engaging Drive Tanzania. There was a lot of miscommunication due to poor communication by Drive Tanzania around flights and commitments. I thought it is just a bad phone connection but really, that has nothing to do with it. All of these tour operators have multiple phone numbers and whatsapp. Tourists do not get the number they use most for all their communications with locals and to do their business.
Regardless, we commenced our tour. Things continued to go badly. In Uganda, when we arrived, our tour guide was more than an hour late, which is quite scary late at night in a foreign country with taxi drivers yelling at you at airports. There is a minimal standard of care and for a safari of this price, it was not being met. Eventually our driver came. We found out he didn't know who Yoeni was as all of the Uganda tour was outsourced and not provided by Drive Tanzania.
That said, Uganda is amazing. Seeing mountain gorillas in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest and getting so close to them is a life long memory. Further, the Maasai Mara in Kenya (our second country, guided by another outsourced tour guide) was also excellent. Seeing lions, cheetahs, leopards, elephants, hippos etc in the dry season was actually very worth while as we could get close to the animals as there are less tourists around.
Here is where the disaster with the fraudster Yoeni and Drive Tanzania really began. As we crossed into the border from Kenya to Tanzania our Kenyan tour guide told us he was unable to reach Yoeni and left us there, to drive back to Nairobi. I was able to contact Yoeni and he said the car had broken down and they were several hours away. We waited for them in a roadside hotel at the border as we had next to no money, afterall on safari all expenses are paid and in advance. Also, this is Africa… do you think they accept credit cards or know what an ATM is? The hours passed. We got worried and tried calling Yoeni...repeatedly… 110 times! He had turned his phone off. We got worried and started scrambling. Eventually we found out the name of our hotel in Tanzania in the Serengeti and when we called, we discovered there was no booking for us and we could not get into the Park.
Yoeni Japeth Mbonea and Drive Tanzania left us stranded and took $10,000s from us. We are still chasing him for an equitable refund for more than half of an unfulfilled trip. Be careful, he has done this before. He has many different tourism companies that have come and gone. He also has interests in mining companies and gem traders. His fees are also very expensive, particularly as he outsources everything, but really he makes money by scamming foreign tourists and making a couple of phone calls to other tourist providers. His company is actually really small and he uses the money he steals from others to support an affluent lifestyle in Norway. Avoid this person [remember his address in case he starts a new company!] for your own piece of mind. Use safaribookings.com to find another tour guide as there are 2000 more out there and you will save yourself from this horrible, potentially life threatening experience.
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Avoid these guys!
I have never written an online review but feel I should.
As soon as I paid my deposit communication suddenly went very quiet and I had to send several chaser emails to find out what was going on.
Finally a day before we were due to start I received an email 'Pick-up at 6.30am'. 6.30am came and went and at 7.30am I finally received an email response saying 'Call driver 07xxxxxxx'. Not even an apology. You can imagine how stressful this was morning was! When I spoke to the driver on the phone he explained that one of the guests on our safari had a delayed flight and was waiting at the airport. When I met the others they said they all arrived the previous day! Other than that, they hadn't prepared the vegetarian option for lunch which I had requested.
The second day brought more dramas. After being told to wake up at 7am for an 8am start we were all extremely frustrated to find the driver had disappeared. He eventually came back at 10am and explained that his boss hadn't put the funds on his company card. We missed out on 2 hours in the Ngorongoro crater because of this.
We were promised extra time in Serengeti to compensate for this but on the 3rd day exactly the same thing happened! The driver even asked if anyone could pay the balance on their card and that his boss would refund through the web!
I know they offer extremely cheap packages but no saving is worth the stress of waiting around to get into a park on a once in a life time trip. Pay a little bit more and avoid MJ Safaris."
CH
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Absolutely perfect!!
We were lucky enough to receive Meleck John as our guide. He is very competent, smart and fulfills every wish! His goal; Satisfied, happy customers. It all worked out perfectly, he is also a very careful and experienced driver. His horizon goes far beyond Tanzania. The lodges were beautiful, the food excellent. We can only recommend Parakuyo !!
NL
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
It was a great experience for us how Siya Phambile shown us South Africa.
It was an amazing trip. They did a perfect job. The service was perfect and the guide called Ben was really good. He made a nice breakfast in the morning, a good lunch in the afternoon and a good meal in the evening. He was great in finding all kinds of animals. He made out dream come true and even more...
CH
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Our wedding safari
- My emails were always answered immediately and very friendly. We were very happy with that.
- We were super informed about our trip.
- The accommodations were very nice and the food fantastic.
- Our guide was always on time. He had a great knowledge about the animal world and also told us a lot about the people and the culture.
- On the last day we went out to eat with Paul, the manager, and we could give him some feedback.
- Our honeymoon was just perfect. We thank Paul for the super organization and our guide James for the instructive and fascinating safari week.
NZ
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
I was very pleased with my experience with Congo Doscovery Safaris!
Great tour all round. Our guide Barack was exceptional - on time, friendly and reliable. Awesome experience that anyonel with an adventurous heart should take on!
IT
Amazing!
Trip to the volcano,was very much amazing.organised by Congo discovery safaris by Barack.everything went well.I highly recommend Congo discovery safaris.