20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Good plan, average delivery
Communication was generally quite good as we arranged everything by email and had quick and informative responses to our questions.
The overall safari route is a little different to the typical routes as it includes a few additional parks, which we found to be enjoyable but not essential. The route we thought could have been planned a little better as we had several days where we "doubled-up" on driving instead of viewing each game park in a more logical order.
We had several tour guides over our 12 day safari which ranged in quality from excellent to poor.
The only major issue we had with the whole safari was with accommodation whereby they showed us an example of the accommodation "or similar" for each night and found that when they changed to a "similar" place it was significantly worse than the example we had been showed. We had one night very early on in the trip where instead of staying in a nice guest house we were put in what I can only describe as a half-star motel inside a loud and bright garage. We had paid to upgrade from the basic accommodations to "mid-range" options based on what we saw on Tripadvisor which made this point very upsetting.
Overall we saw a lot of animals and went to a lot of locations which we were very happy with so my only word of advice would be to strongly critique the specific details of the accommodation.
50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Addo or Addon’t ?
After several trips to Kruger, Etosha and the KTP, I decided to give Addo a go.
I have to be honest, it was a disappointment . A small park with little real bush vibe due to the da t that you can see the surrounding farms, towns and wind farms from large parts of the park.
The vegetation isn’t the most attractive either, and the large open areas looked more like fields, giving a “safari park” feel.
There is no doubt that the elephant encounters are the highlight, but a day trip is probably enough, with maybe a night at the excellent Addo main camp to give the best chance of an early morning lion encounter.
But it’s not Kruger, a totally different experience and the 30 minute drive and access to boat trips are probably the only reason for choosing it.
DK
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Review about Serengeti National Park by Mette
Not many animals and bad roads. Beautiful nature though.
GH
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Not bad, but it doesn't feel like it is the trip of the life time
We had an OK time with our tour guide Anwar. He was good when we first meet him. He was explaining things while driving on the first day. From the 2nd day onward, our guide was more interested in looking at his phone . Instead of guiding, he would most just answer our questions.
The Olea Lodge and Kati Kati camps are the good choice for our 4 nights stay. We were delighted to see the Olea Lodge is actually a lot better than the photos. Kati kati camp was an interesting experience. They have a good crew to make sure the food is hot and good. Our guide changed one of the full day game drive to go back to camp for 3 hours lunch and then tried to drive fast to catch up in the afternoon. We were not impressed as we have a five year old girl in the car and would prefer steady driving.
We were there in the low season, so there are some animals here and there but didn't have the "Wow" factor.
We are not happy that we almost missed our flight on the last day as the guide was late for about 40 to 50 minutes to pick us up from the hotel. Maybe our experience would be better if our guide was more Enthusiastic and not focused so much on his phones.
US
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Review about Lake Manyara National Park by Inna and Danny
It rained all day on the day of visit, that limited our ability to fully explore the lake and roads were flooding, very limited ability to visit the park when it rains.
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Friendly on the time staff
Communications: This was great before our arrival. After that, we had no communications, we had to find out ourselves what time we would be picked up for transport to the airport on departure.
Safari could not give us the best prices for activities, we had to spend a lot of time looking for good prices.
50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Not the "walk in the park" that our itinerary had led us to believe!
The following is from my journal of our time in the Tsingy de Bemaraha National Park:-
Locals, with produce on tables, children playing and several dogs greeted us as we all got out of our vehicles at the meeting point for hikes in the Tsingy de Bemaraha National Park. Wandering around, I noticed that several people were wearing or putting on harnesses with carabiners, my first thought being they were generally younger than us so presumably they were rock climbing… Returning to our vehicle, our guide handed us ours much to my surprise! I was wondering how what had been on our itinerary as a “walking tour of Grand Tsingy” had become one that needed rock climbing equipment!!
It was very hot as we started our hike, first through forest where we spotted (Von der Decken's) sifakas high up in the trees. After a while, the scenery changed as we entered a massive limestone cave where we needed to hook our carabiners onto a metal cable as we edged along a very narrow ridge and then ascended a vertical metal ladder. So far, so good. But, as we continued to climb, often having to heave ourselves up using single foot ledges and becoming more and more aware of these spectacular but jagged limestone formations that we would fall onto if we slipped/our climbing equipment let us down, the fun for me stopped. Perhaps not helped by my heavy camera equipment/backpack, I wasn’t really enjoying the challenge despite the amazing vistas once we got up high.
The descent included crossing the very wobbly suspension bridge, hooked on via the carabiners, and squeezing through low-ceilinged caves.
It was a long walk back to the car but we were rewarded by seeing Giant Couas, large colourful birds, walking amongst the trees. We both felt challenged and exhausted after the climb so declined the chance to do the same in Little Tsingy even though we were assured it was less challenging!!
To put this into context, we had had no sleep the night before (an elder had died in the local village which was 'celebrated' by loud music playing from 9pm till 5am) - and I had caught a stomach bug and, although older, we are both regular sports players so consider ourselves quite fit! So, make of my review as you will but, whatever your circumstances, this is quite a challenging hike!
DE
Good and bad experiences during the trip but I will never forget it for sure
AfroLeisureTours made it possible for us to book our 3-days-safari-trip very spontaneously. That was pretty awesome. My boy-friend and me had a full safari van for ourselves with plenty of room.
The agency told us that we would arrive in our first camp in the late afternoon and start with our first game-drive afterwards. But our driver got lost or the calculation was wrong, am not pretty sure what was the problem but we arrived there at 11 p.m. when it was totally dark outside. So we missed our first game-drive and were pretty disappointed.
Thats why they upgraded us to a very nice and fancy Spa Resort to say sorry, which was pretty awesome again. But then the schedule didn't work out again because we had a driver change between the second and third (the last) day and the new driver arrived 1 1/2 hours too late in the morning for the game-drive. The game drive was very nice but because of lack of lunch packages we had to shorten our game-drive (everyone was too hungry to continue) but at least they paid a dinner in a small restaurant afterwards. All in all a lot went wrong but at least they tried to softened with extras like the resort on the second day.
IE
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Review about Lake Nakuru National Park by James Moran
Very few flamingos, apparently the water levels have increased over the last few seasons making it unattractive for the flamingo who have subsequently moved on.
CA
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Review about Tarangire National Park by Jim and Monica
Tarangire National Park might have great options for birders, but we found the other parks to have more wildlife, birds, and scenery to keep our attention and build our knowledge.