US
35-50 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Unethical business practices
The director, Naphtally, accepted our payments in advance. Upon the very morning of the start of our safari, the local tour guide showed up with Naphtally on the phone. He claimed the government was slow in allowing bank transfers into the country, etc. He asked that we pay for the park fees in advance with our credit card and that he would in turn reimburse us for the different at the end of the tour. In fact, he has not paid the tour guide, the local operator, or us. It is unfortunate because he gives tourists a bad feeling about all local companies which is unfair and unethical. Do NOT give this company any of your money or business.
DE
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
A whole disaster and very terrible experience - watch out with this agency! Not trustful at all
We found Mercury Tours on Safari-Bookings and Ndamungu (tour operator) seemed to be nice and helpful. We were having email contact for about two weeks in which Mercury Tours explained the Program in detail and gave us all information etc. In November 2016 we booked the 7 day safari with him (Selous-Mikumi-Ruahu Safari) to start on January, 1st 2017. We transferred half of the money to Ndamungu in November (1330 Dollar) and agreed to pay the other half directly to the tourguide when the safari would start. Ndamungu confirmed that the tourguide would pick us up at 8.40AM in our Hotel. Well, we were all excited to start the Safari and on January, 1st we waited to be picked up in our hotel reception. Unfortunately, no one from Mercury Tours appeared, so after 30 minutes waiting, we called Ndamungu. He said, that the driver had an "accident" and would come within 20 minutes. Unfortunately, this was not true. We waited for hours, calling Mercury Tours several times and Ndamungu said the guide could come very soon and hung up on us with no more information. So, we ended up waiting for about 4,5 (!) with another disappointment. Ndamungu confirmed in November that our driver would be our guide at the same time and would speak English. The person who picked us up just spoke barely English and had no idea of our program and where to go, so he had to explain him everything. Above all, he forced us to pay him 200 dollar otherwise he wouldn't drive us and explained us the actual guide was waiting for us at the camp. Well, we were very angry at the time, but paid him and hoping that the real guide would actually speak English and we could finally start our safari without more stress and headache. When we arrived at the camp, unfortunately no guide was waiting for us. The driver and Ndamungu explained, the guide would come the next day but this was another lie. The next day, the driver was gone without saying a word, no guide appeared and we were left alone literally in the bush. The people at the camp were really helpful and called Ndamungu serval time, but he just switched off his phone. Nothing was organised, nothing was paid for us. So, we lost 1530 Dollar and didn't receive anything for it. We went for a game drive with another guide but had to pay all by ourselves. Our safari was a whole disaster and tomorrow we are heading to the police and embassy here in Tanzania to report on this. Luckily we have all confirmations made by Ndamungu. So be very careful with Mercury Tours and Ndamungu - they are criminals.
SG
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Not trustworthy!
Bad! Poor execution and under-delivery of what has been agreed and paid for are my two biggest pain-points with Tomodachi. Even if the company had provided as advertised, I would still not recommend it due to poor overall service (last-minute arrangement and changes), lack of tour briefing (we have to ask what's going on all the time) and the tour guides are not helpful. The Managing Director is Joseph Mwema, and co-partner: Jasper Kishari.
US
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Total disaster
I have travelled extensively for many years and this has been the worst experience by far. Departure to Amboseli was delayed by 8 hours which I had to spend hanging around in Nairobi because infamous Mr Rufus kept making up incongruous excuses every 10 minutes. Before paying, Mr Rufus categorically confirmed I would not be sleeping in tents. Instead, he said I would be sleeping in a lodge made with "local materials", "like a proper house". The reality was that I had to spend two horrible nights in the filthiest cheapest tent I have ever seen. Mr Rufus did not make arrangements for me to leave Amboseli. After making up loads of stories and delaying the agreed departure time by about two hours, he offered me the option to take a matatu (unsafe public bus) back to Nairobi by myself, which I had no choice but to accept since Amboseli is in the middle of nowhere. Do not trust the positive reviews because I suspect they are fake. Simply do not take the risk of going on a safari with this agency.
US
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Our private safari was ruined due to the incompetence of this company!
I booked a private 3-day safari in Amboseli National Park with a friend at the end of November. I spent six months arranging all the details of the safari via email with Michael, the owner of Ancient Wild Safaris. This was my fourth safari, so I was very clear about the services we wanted.
I was coming from Tanzania and met my friend Sergio and the driver Joseph at the Namanga border. 15 minutes on the road to Amboseli the car broke down. The driver was clueless how to fix the problem and didn't communicate any information to us. We waited for two hours on the dirt road until a taxi arrived to take us to the entrance gate of Amboseli, an hour away. The driver, Joseph stayed with the broken down car. Once at the park entrance, we waited another hour for a van to take us on our first "game drive". We booked a private safari, but were forced to join a Danish couple's tour. This game drive was really just driving across the park to our hotel, on the opposite side.
I contacted Michael several times during the first day, but he never communicated to me what the plan was for the next day. Eventually, Joseph told us that we would join the Danish couple's safari again the next morning. This became our second group game drive during the trip. Also, it was not our driver or tour company, so we had no choice in what we visited or where we stopped or for how long. We were just along for the ride.
After the morning game drive, we were dropped off at our hotel with no driver and no car. I had originally arranged an all-day game drive on the second day. Instead, we spent most of the morning and afternoon being bored around the camp. Eventually, Joseph contacted us to say he would pick us from the camp at 5pm! He arrived with the mechanic and we did a one-hour game drive before the park closed.
The next morning we did the only full, private game drive before returning to Nairobi. So we got 1 proper game drive out of the 4 we paid for. In Nairobi, Michael failed to show up at our hotel to discuss the poor service. He kept trying to make excuses instead of taking responsibility for the problems with the safari. I kindly requested a partial refund since we didn't get the private safari that we paid for and he refused. There was zero accountability!
I would never use this company again due to the lack of professionalism and costumer service. Throughout the entire ordeal, there was almost no communication and direction from the owner.
LU
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
rip off
To be clear: the rating is for the tour operator only. Botswana is a fantastic country for Safaris, just don't go with this gangster. He made me pay for 7 days but the tour turned out only to last for 5 and a half. The time spent on all our game drives combined during this time was less than that of serious companies on a single day.
DE
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Don't book!
The experience with this tour company was bad since the beginning. The communication by email didn't flow, and I always had to chase up Charles to get more information.
They offered me a good price for a 4 days camping safari, I accepted and rejected another tour operator (7wonderssafaris) that gave me a cheaper quote, because Charles seemed to have better reviews.
Charles asked me for a deposit a week earlier and the whole payment in cash the day before the safari, which I didn't feel comfortable to give because even the day before I had to chase up after him to communicate and he still didn't know who the guide will be or what time they would pick us up the next day.
Apparently Charles had another bigger group he would be guiding. This is understandable, but the guide we went with wasn't good. The other tourists complained that he didn't communicate anything with them. I was always talking to the guide and then passing the information to the rest of the tourists.
Even worst, to my surprise, it turned out that this guide was actually from 7WondersSafari !!!
So at the end I paid more to go with the company I rejected because they didn't have good reviews.
The safari itself was good, but the communication and service was deplorable. You can check what we saw here: https://ubuntutravelblog.wordpress.com/2016/10/07/safari-in-tanzania/
ES
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Don´t believe the prices. It´s a Claim
I asked for a tour in Safari Bookings and elevated the price more than a 100%. Don´t believe the pices you see
50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Terrible safari with Tracks Berg Travel and KABS (kenyan adventures and beyond)
I am usually reluctant to give a poor review as sometimes circumstances arise that can make things difficult for tour operators, in this case though I have no qualms in writing this review on two companies that should quite frankly not be allowed to work in this industry. Below are the facts of what happened with our Safari, its long winded but I think it’s important to be accurate. The excuses and lies, the attempts to shift blame backwards and forwards were appalling. I don’t doubt the same excuses will be thrown up in response to my review.
We contacted Kenyan Adventures and Beyond (KABS) (owned by Doc Wilfred Omae) to organise our safari, we had used him 5 years ago, and things had gone pretty well. I paid Doc a 50% deposit several weeks before arriving in Kenya as requested so that he could secure and pay for all our accommodation. The remainder was to be paid on arrival in Kenya a few days before our safari started. Three days before the safari Doc sent Erick Muchai who introduced himself as our driver/guide for the safari to collect the remainder of our payment. Erick arrived with another man who he introduced as A###(not sure he was involved in this so will keep his name) . I paid Erick the balance in cash for the amount previously agreed, Erick had no means of giving a receipt so I had him hand write a receipt and he promised doc would send an official one (never received). Erick soon returned saying I was $50 short, on talking to Doc he told me he uses the KWS rate for exchange not the international rate, on this I did not agree but told him with a smooth safari I’d be happy to pay the $50 as a bonus.
On the day of our safari Erick arrived in a van again with A### . We were wondering whether we had a driver and guide or what, we loaded our gear and left our friends house. Around the corner about 500 meters from departure the van stopped at a Matatu stop and Erick got out of the Van and told us as he had a family emergency and could not take us on safari and that A### would be our driver(quite obviously Erick had no intention of being our guide, the first of many lies). As we had distance to make to our first park and afternoon game drive we decided to keep our questions till we got to the lodge. On arrival, I immediately sat down with the driver and asked him who Erick actually was, he produced a card for Tracks Berg Travel (owned by Erick Muchai) on asking the driver who he worked for he said Erick, clearly though the van had another companies name on it. It became apparent that Doc had subcontracted to Erick who had subcontracted to another company . The Driver had no idea of our program and had us returning a day earlier than what we had booked.
On the second night in Amboseli A### approached our dinner table with the news that the 2 nights’ accommodation had not been paid for, phone calls to Erick and Doc both came with assurances that it was sorted, when asked how it was sorted I continually got "don’t worry its sorted" over and over and was cut off several times, a complete loss of appetite and a sleepless night followed. As we were about to depart the lodge in the morning we were informed the accommodation bill still had not been paid. The lodge manager very kindly let us go and said he would pursue KABS for payment, at this time also A### informed us that he only had money for 1 more days’ park fees in Tsavo West. At this point we made the decision we would not dip into our pocket as we felt that we would never see that money again, and we would return to Nairobi if we had to and pursue the matter through the police.
Erick was blaming Doc for not sending money, Doc was blaming Erick for subcontracting further (I have the emails detailing all this). Erick also would not agree that as he had accepted the contract and a large pile of cash from us already that he was responsible for getting money from Doc and would not spend any of that money for our accommodation, neither taking any responsibility and blaming each other we had no way to turn, it reeked of a very well-orchestrated scam.
On arrival in Tsavo West I enquired if that accommodation there and the accom at Tsavo East had been paid for, I was told by lodge staff that it had been.
After leaving Tsavo west, the driver had no money for park fees so more phone calls were made and we waited in Voi for quite some time for money to come through to pay for our entry into Tsavo east. Eventually only enough money for 1 day’s entry not the 3 days came through. Each day the driver left the Park (thankfully the park left us in the lodge) and waited for money so that he could pay park fees.
After 3 nights in Tsavo East we went to leave the lodge at 9.15am for the drive back to Nairobi and were told we could not leave as 4 nights (tsavo east and west) had not been paid, on pointing out to the lodge manager that both lodges had assured me on enquiry that it had been paid I was told that parties involved had convinced them not to further upset the clients and that payment was forthcoming, also a further $120 US in Park fees was due at 11am. This was very clever in that it robbed us of 3 days in which to bring more pressure to bear on the operator and dumped us in a very stressful last morning situation where I believe we were expected to cave in and pay for our accommodation a second time just to get the hell out of the mess.
The lodge manager at this time whilst conferring with head office learned that KABS had done this previously and had still not paid that bill hence they had no choice but to hold the driver and us.
Thankfully during this entire process a very dear Kenyan friend in Nairobi had been battling for us on the phone for hours every day, cajoling and in the finish threatening police action to get money for park fees, (she was being lied to also about the accommodation). At 10.55am payment came through and we were allowed to leave. The final note was on the journey back I put petrol in the car as the driver claimed no money and that he had already been making up shortfalls all trip.
3 days prior to the finish of our safari Doc requested a meeting on return to Nairobi to explain the problems we were experiencing, I saw this as a delaying tactic to prevent us taking action and refused the meeting requesting only the remainder of the trip be trouble free, I was assured this would be the case, again another lie.
Erick also jumped up and down and said he would be reporting KABS to the tourist police but has not responded to our enquiry on how that complaint stands or to give us a reference that we can use in our own complaint, I believe confirming that these guys have worked this together before. Searches on the web since have revealed several very poor reports on their business practices.
Both Kenyan Adventures and Beyond safaris (based in Mombasa) and Tracks Berg Travel (based in Nairobi) should not be in business but will no doubt continue their dodgy ways, best I can do is tell people to avoid them like the plague or any business they may start or associate themselves with in the future.
IT
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Didn't get what I paid for!
I have booked a three days and two nights private safari to Amboseli National Park.
On our way to Amboseli the car broke down (I understand it happens). We waited for a taxi to take us to the park and then we finally joined a couple who was on a private safari and not so happy to have other people joining their safari.
For me it was my first safari and I ended up seeing a lot of wildlife and the car wasn't even stopping or explaining anything (it wasn't my safari of course).
The next day I had my own plan but since I had no car and no guide (that I very much paid for). I joined the same couple again and I had to comply with their plan. At 8am on the second day I returned to the hotel after a morning drive and until 5pm I had nothing to do! This day I wanted to do a full day game drive but again, no car and no guide and most of all no words from Michael. He didn't try to call me even once (despite he had my kenyan number or he could have contacted the hotel). I wasted a whole day and no apologies were presented nor different activities were planned for me. Simply nothing, just abandoned.
At 5pm Joseph the guide finally arrives after fixing the car and took me on a game drive (1 hour). The drive was awful as we only had 1 hour before the park closed. So we couldn't go deep inside the park.
On our last day we had finally one proper game drive (one out of the 4 we paid for).
Again we contacted Michael and tried to get him to meet us in Nairobi. He agreed and then once in nairobi, of course he was not available.
He apologized over the phone but I wanted a partial refund. I paid a very expensive private safari with a private guide. I didn't get what I paid for at all and then he tried to talk about religion and making excuses.
They don't don't how to deal with customers and I practically paid $540 for a 3 days private safari with 4 game drives (I got one real game drive). As my first safari experience it was awful and it was disrespectful to be treated this way.