ES
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Thief
It is incredible how a thief like Kevin can be still working as nothing happened. Look for Petrichor Safaris, he took the money from a lot of people and never gave it back. Be a bit decent Kevin and pay back the money you stole from so many people.
50-65 years of age
DO NOT book with this company.
DO NOT book with this company. We paid a deposit for safari and had to cancel due to covid lockdown. 3 years on we have still not received our deposit refund and having to now take action to get our money back
CH
65+ years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Unfortunately cheating their customers
BEWARE
My wife and I travel a lot. Whenever possible we try to use local travel agencies to spend the money locally. This is what we did for our 2-week trip to Ruanda in January 2023. Mandrill African Safaris put together a great trip ticking all our boxes. Sam, our guide, was a very pleasant and helpful young man. He looked after us very well. It was all the more annoying and frustrating that we were told while doing our Gorilla trekking that the company could not draw money from its accounts due to some administrative hiccup and we should pay for petrol, park fees etc. as our guide could not draw the money to do so. We would be refunded at the end of the trip. Knowing Africa, we refused to do this but it quickly seemed as if our only chance to get back to Kigali and our flight home, was to pay an extra $500.- on top of our original fee of $11000.-. Needless to say that we never saw the money again and got nothing but a load of excuses. The whole thing is really sad as we would have liked to recommend Mandrill African Safaris to our friends due to the great tour we had otherwise. This way we can only say: BEWARE or be cheated!
US
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
do not use them
I paid this company for medical volunteer experience in Mozambique and while they found me a host that is all they managed to do. They where suppose to pay the host family for my accomidations and meals from the funds I paid to Go Volunteer Africa. After several months and several emails with an excuse as to why they are not able to pay the host in a reasonable amount of time, I ended up paying the host family myself. Several emails went unanswered and unprofessional. I would never use this terrible company again and suggest no one use them again.
US
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Don't use go touch down
Wow, what a waste. Go touch down leaves you in the dark and wastes your travel time. We had a tour the day we arrived in S. Africa and were never given a time or location. Come to find out they never scheduled it. We had to call at 11pm US time to get information. The guide never knew he was taking us, so luckily he checked his messages. None of the guides had information about any flights til the night before departure, and the tourists did not have their flight information either. The tour guides were great, but Go Touch Down is worthless when it comes to collecting information or getting problems fixed. Another huge issue was the flights to and from Victoria Falls. We were unable to schedule our own flights and we spent 2 of our last 4 days in an airport. They claimed there were no flights available any other time, that they were afraid a later flight would be cancelled, and that we were given options, all of which were false. They don't realize we were in a group we stayed in contact with and they had the flights we tried to change to. We had to stand around for several hours before we could even check our bags, then we were stuck in the airport for 4 hours. It was 9 hours total between when landing and catching our next flight, information they knew and requested. They attempted to fix it with a tour, but that's not what we got. Someone picked us up at the airport, drove us 45 min. and dropped us off at a mall in Johannesburg telling us to go find a place to eat. That is something we could have done at the airport. We were also misinformed about Victoria Falls and not informed about tours that were available. I have never had such a disorganized vacation with such unlimited information.
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
terrible
I am a seasoned traveller - I have never written a poor review - but this company has a lot to learn - poor communication - out sorsing trips - different group members every day - and being forgotten to be picked up on departure day to incur considerable cost to get a new flight with not even asorry - vague promise for reimbursement - nothing
US
50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Bad Experience
We compleleted Kilimanajro and Tanzania /Kenya Safari in Aug 2022 Paid Calvin Gibson of Safari Lift Africa the full amount . He failed to pay for some of the park fees, and the last 3 days of our hotel stay. He made a lot of excuses about failing to pay and asked us to pay ,with the promise he will return it later. We made mutilpe attempts to get back our money ..but have not receive it so far ..
DE
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Don’t go please with them! SCAMMERS !
Please skip this agency!! SCAMMERS !
My worst experience. I booked 5 days Masai Mara with Amboseli, and when i arrive in Nairobi they pick me up then said that they don’t have that tour now ( day before they said that they have).. and they didn’t care about that mistake, I didn't even get an apology, so I was forced to agree to go to something I didn't book , different 5 days trip. When we finish that conversation i sat in the car to start that tour, on the way to safari, after 1 hour i got weird messages and calls on my kenyan number from local numbers and messages like “f*ck yourself, stupid” they called me next two days when i was on my safari trip, and i block them, and just people from this agency know my number! Because i bought my sim card on airport on same date, when i arrived in Kenya! I felt unsafe as a tourist, because you don’t know who to ask because the same Agency organize that to me! When we finish that tour after 5 days they were supposed to drive me back to my hotel/airport for free. When we arrive back to Nairobi the girl who told me that “i have included transport, because if i book 5,6,7 days safari i have included transport” and now when we arrived she told me “no its not included (with laughing)” i have screenshots of our chat if someone don’t believe me. So i was very angry and i went alone back to my hotel with some street taxi because i saw that this agency is playing with tourist. Also for example “Naivasha” its just transport to the place, you have to pay 35-50$ for boat tour or walking, without paying that you cannot enter. Aware that they made a big mistake at the beginning (because i paid expensive ticket to kenya and i didnt see Amboseli what i wanted) and instead of correcting it, in the end they turn out to be even bigger scammers until the end , and I didn’t get a single apology for all of that. I really like Kenya and it was my dream place to visit but this is very sad, if you want to enjoy in beautiful Kenya skip them and find a serious agency who respect their guests.
(Driver James was very nice and kind and i recommend him) but agency is horrible, they don’t deserve more tourists. I have a proof for all of that what i wrote. I booked with this “Bienvenido tours” and when i text the number from email they said “Purity” is name of agency, so they are maybe connected. Be careful.
CH
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
WORST COMPANY EVER! STAY SAVE AND DON'T BOOK WITH THEM!
WORST COMPANY EVER! STAY SAVE AND DON'T BOOK WITH THEM!
It already started badly with no binoculars in the car, so everybody else could watch a leopard hunting close and l just saw some points moving far away, which is definitely not what l have paid for… but it came worse and we couldn't enter in parcs which we were supposed to and even if l paid for everything l had to pay again at the entrance fee after 1 hour of waiting in the bursting sun because my driver spent all the money... worst was, that he said he would not bring me to the hotel, till MORNINGSTAR pays him more.. so over all a nightmare which they don't take any responsibility. never ever book with MORNING STARS SAFARI! You won't be safe and it can get very dangerous!
US
50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
I got scammed out of my deposit by this company.
DO NOT BOOK. "Silas" scammed me. I communicated via the email initiated on safaribookings.com . He told me his credit card machine was down and to wire the money (not uncommon for African safaris to wire money). I double checked other people were satisfied with his safaris, everything seemed extremely legit (they also wired money)
When I wired it he said he never received it then said I should have sent it via credit card on his website. When I showed him the email thread, he confirmed that was indeed his email, but said the invoice never came from him. Yet he denied his email has been hacked.
I'm not sure what's going on with this company and I'm hoping my bank can stop the wire. I'm happy to share the screenshots of my conversation back and forth so you can protect yourself.
When I asked what had happened he immediately shut me down and told me he doesn't want my business. It seems odd to me that a legitimate business isn't concerned that their email has been hacked.
I will update this review once I have reached conclusion on this event. But I wanted this warning published ASAP so other people don't get scammed.