Disorganised, disappointing, and expensive
Whilst this is a review of a Natural World Safari holiday in Sri Lanka that we went on and not Africa, we have posted it here to inform others considering holidaying with this company.
We do not recommend booking a holiday with this company. Their online literature gives the impression of a professional organisation offering a wonderful opportunity to swim with blue whales but once out in Sri Lanka the organisation was nothing short of shambolic.
We paid £14k (excluding flights, food, and beverage) to go on a Sri Lankan blue whale safari trip that was without doubt the most disorganised, disappointing, and most expensive holiday we have ever experienced. We had accepted that a proportion of the cost went towards conservation and research, but the holiday was so substandard in every way that we feel totally conned by this. Aside from the trip being a strong contender for the world's worst honeymoon, we were misled to believe that the Picture Adventure Expeditions operation that Natural World Safaris commissioned for this holiday, would have permits to swim with blue whales in the Northeast of Sri Lanka. This was what sold us the holiday. The literature sent to us from Natural World Safaris in both selling us the trip and again after we had paid the first instalment for it, boasted that they work with the top blue whale scientist in Sri Lanka: Asha De Vos. By coincidence, we met two acquaintances of Asha's on a later part of our holiday in Sri Lanka whilst in Wilpattu. They were surprised that Asha would be involved with an operator that allowed tourists to swim with whales and contacted her to verify this claim. It turns out Natural World Safaris were falsely using Asha De Vos' name and she publicly denied all association with Natural World Safaris (which we confirmed by contacting her directly ourselves).
When we contacted Natural World Safaris (at the end of the trip) asking for proof of the permits to swim with whales in the Northeast of Sri Lanka, we were informed that although they had been requested by Natural World Safari's "partner", they had not been confirmed because Natural World Safaris had failed to provide our passport details to them despite them having had them for over a year or contacting us to check whether they had changed.
During our holiday, the incompetence and recklessness of the employed boat captain was truly alarming. This “personally taught” (by Natural World Safaris) captain had no idea how to safely drive a power boat and the tour leader from Picture World Safaris did nothing to intervene despite the distress of his three clients. As a qualified yachtsman and RYA powerboat driver myself, I had to intervene several times to curb his ‘joy riding’ style of driving a speed boat in high waves and at beaching it too. Our accommodation at one point in the trip was little more than a hostel and of the quality that even the cockroaches were trying to move out. On top of this, our guide and operator of Picture Adventure Expeditions, Josh, seemed to be concentrating more on running his printing business back in India than ensuring his guests, who had each forked out £7k were kept safe and received reasonable value for the holiday they paid for.
DE
50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Unscrupulous
We made a large down payment to the owner but we suspect that he never transferred it to his partner in Tanzania because they did not render us any service. Capture Tanzania Adventure did not provide a refund and we lost our money. As a result, it is our opinion that the owner does not care about the disappointment and the loss of family money.
US
50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Lying exploitive uncaring irresponsible
NSW tried to have my original review removed they said that my review would hurt Africa. They tried to victim blamed/Shane me. It’s the kidnapping that would hurt Africa!
So, This is a rebuttal to NSW response to the review I left regarding my kidnapping while on tour paid to them. Unbeknownst to me it was brokered out to wild frontiers I was not traveling with natural world safaris but I did pay them. There was no one to meet me at the airport when I arrived, by myself, in uganda but more importantly is their reply to my review. It is nothing short of blatant lies and trying to cover themselves. To date they have never once reached out to me, their statement is completely untrue. However an attorney for me did reach out to them and all they did was pass it onto their insurance company and wish me well. They weren’t even willing to refund my tour. The loss to My life has been inmeasurable both to me personally and professionally. So it’s highly insulting that they want to come on here and leave their untruths so that they don’t suffer. This company did not suffer with me or offer any help of any kind ever. The amount of therapy I’ve had to go to to help overcome not just the kidnapping but society‘s response to my kidnapping including this company has been lengthy and expensive .
Things go Wrong in life what matters is what do you do when they do go wrong as far as this his company is concerned they did nothing but insult on top of injury ,rub salt in a wound, and add to my complex PTSD. And as for not wanting to go into a social media thing now that’s just plain funny. But I do & will . I want to let society know exactly who you’re dealing with when you go into dangerous places were dangerous things can happen and what they did and how they handled it and that’s just the truth.
all you have to do is look at their Instagram page they’ve added Uganda back on the tours (they took it off after my kidnapping ) and David is there recently doing things that I missed out on because, well, I was kidnapped!
Shady & shameful I recommend going elsewhere.
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
DO NOT TRUST. SCAMMER. TRAVEL AGENT FROM HELL
•Cancelled tour 1 day before flight from London and we PAID OVER $1000 USD to reschedule flights and accommodation, because he did not disclose that he failed to get the permit
•Booked SUBPAR accommodation and transport, from what was agreed.
•Still OWES US MONEY (waiting 6 months) for the disorganisation and troubles.
•Lack of communication and updates
•CHANGED OUR INTERNAL FLIGHTS without telling us resulting in stopovers and delays.
I have email proof of all of this for anyone who still wants to book with them.
OVERALL A REALLY NEGATIVE AND HORRIBLE EXPERIENCE OF OUR FIRST IN UGANDA.
FR
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
No attention, bad material, bad hotel
We paid 1000 euros more than the price!!! No refund because Wecam safari and especially Mercy are not honest. They keep your money and give you bad hotels. Don’t take the bad company. Our vehicle was not able to do the trip, the driver was not French , as we paid and the hotel are so so fad, immigration people..they are not professionals and not honest.
FR
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Mistakes and delays, very bad experience
As an intro, I’d like to mention this is a copy paste of my comment on trip advisor.
I am not surprised after coming back from our trip there, to see the previous comment « Unprofessional experience », as it is exactly what we just lived too.
We chose the 2 days « memorable safari », between Tarangire and Ngorongoro.
On our first day, 30min delays at our hotel, and guide not reachable, you start to wonder if you haven’t just been scammed.
Then apparently out of nowhere, Widman was expecting us to have to full amount in cash to pay on the day for the parks entrance fees, even after our 10% deposit on his bank account, so we went withdrawing to our limit around 850$ in Tanzanian Shillings (TZS, their currency)
Then you’re supposed to wait for the lunch boxes somewhere but the guy did not show up so you go somewhere else and again you wait. While waiting, the guide is paying for Tarangire entrance, in US dollars ! So actually they had the money.. anyway we are nice people and decide to focus on the trip ahead.
That being said, we enter the park at 11:50 ! After leaving at 8 our hotel in Arusha. Maps says 3h drive, so we were (departure supposed to be 7:30), more than a good hour late.
Rest of the day goes quite normal in the park, even though another group saw a family of lions that we did not.
We reach our lodge at 7pm, not the one advised on the website, price half cheaper according to booking but we paid everything now so.. diner is at 7:30, so not much to relax, but people and food were nice though so ok we’ll see afterwards our overall satisfaction before complaining.
The next day, we are asked to be ready at 7 am, even though Ngorongoro is not far away from Karatu (our lodge city), to go pay for the Ngorongoro entrance, as it did not work the day before !
Then the mess begins :
We skip the breakfast, but have to wait the bank opening at 8, so we take breakfast, I am asked to help and try paying online about 450$ to enter there and there refund me, but it does not work (see our good faith again), so we go to the bank, it finally opens at 8:30, we wait, our guide goes to pay, we wait about 40min in the car, getting harassed by locals wanting to sell their objects, we finally are able to go there but the guide is feeling « dizzy » so we get one of his friends to pass the local police check (small doubts about legal but well..), we get to the gate late but surprise, paiement is not accepted yet because of a network issue, so we wait until 10:45 to go through, and after a bit less than 1h drive get into the crater around 11:30 ! And we were ready at 7 ! (1h drive for maps)
It’s not done, we enter the crater, and after 1h inside the car stops, technical issue, we cannot continue, it’s 12:30.
I did not mention above that on the first day we already realised that no gauge in the car was working, so not speed indicator, no fuel indicator since the beginning, all cars were overtaking us whenever a 50km/h limit panel was there as our guide did not know his own speed and went slower.
From there we wait 1h expecting our guide to find a solution and thank god a car with french people inside was nice enough to take us back for almost finishing the tour (1 small hour as they were on the way back). So we get out of the crater, after spending total 2h inside, only 1 with Widmans car.
Then our guide had paid for a bus to take us back to our hotel on the second day before our going back, even there, the price doubled when the bus arrived and we’ve been asked to help, to which we said no and the other company « Simba » actually paid for our return (they had to arrange themselves). It’s the least they had to do.
Now for two days we’ve been asking for a partial refund, explaining all this to Widman, and he only accepts to give 100$ back and begging for us not to post our experience, but that is clearly not enough for us.
So overall, delays, mistakes, very unprofessional people, and bad experience.
Not saying that the previous comments are false, but I imagine Widman is getting bigger with new guides and experiences, but he clearly does not know how run his business correctly. From other feedbacks on Tanzania, other companies were much more prepared and experiences were fantastic, so we strongly encourage anyone to look at other companies.
FR
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Thieves
Wecam is a bad company that scams its customers. We trusted Wecam for a 15-day safari, but Mercy, the director of Wecam, stole from us. She gave us a bad SUV that broke down. We paid for a French guide we never had and unacceptable accommodations worthy of squatters!!! Mercy was supposed to pay us back for an abusive night in Nairobi and finally, she kept all of the money back for the hotel.
Mercy is a thief and the company is an unreliable and thieving company. FLEE Wecam Safari. Thieves.
NG
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Underdelivery
Vehicle not up to expectation
Timelines of Itinerary violated
Important landmarks of the itinerary skipped
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Clueless
Do not use. Didn’t seem to know what was going on and felt unsafe.
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
We regret trusting the owner with our money
We feel that we have been scammed and we regret that we trusted the owner with our money.
We booked a safari back in mid-June and had paid for the whole safari (totaling GBP 2,110) in advance. In the days leading up to the safari we heard nothing from them and were getting concerned. Then, two days before the safari was due to start, we were told it was cancelled as the company was going into insolvency.
We were told at the time that the owner of Capture Tanzania Adventure had had an accident 3 weeks ago - we believe this is a lie as a review from 4 weeks before that mentions the same story.
Nothing had been booked for us so we would like to understand where our money went, but he has refused to provide an explanation which added further to our suspicions.
Due to the poor communications, lack of a reasonable explanation, and amount of people this has happened to we feel that we have been scammed by the owner and we suspect that he has zero intention of returning our money.
We’re going to have to pursue legal recourse. The Tanzanian police and tourist office have been useless at responding to our emails but thankfully there are other options.