65+ years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Booked a 4-night stay at Chobe Safari Lodge via Falcon and had no problems.
Firstly, the 4-night stay at Chobe Safari Lodge was absolutely fine - excellent accommodation, meals and facilities - no problems at all. Transfers to and from Kasane Airport on arrival and departure were smooth and well organised - not sure how much of this was attributable to Falcon Safaris or Chobe Safari Lodge itself.
The package included several Game Drives and River Cruises and all of these were well organised and thoroughly enjoyable. On arrival at Chobe, I also booked a 1-day Fly-In to the Okavango Delta (Pom-Pom Camp) via the Lodge's own Activities Centre. This also was well-organised and well worth doing, though I did feel the cost was a little on the high side.
As I had already booked my own flights from Johannesburg to and from Kasane, Falcon's main involvement was the accommodation package at Chobe Safari Lodge. The booking process was handled entirely via e-mail between myself in the UK and Falcon in Victoria Falls. Replies to my various questions in the early stages of booking were handled courteously and promptly and enabled me to reach a decision about the booking without hassle.
In my view, the weakest part of the booking process involved the rather slow responses after money had been transferred. On a couple of occasions, I had to send an email chasing confirmation that the money I had sent had been received and requesting an updated invoice recording the payment. Where money is involved, and particularly an International Transfer, I think Falcon should be more acutely aware of the importance of reassuring the client(s) that their payment(s) has been safely received. It should not be necessary for the client to chase confirmation. Closer liaison between the Admin and Accounts people would help to ensure that the client is kept fully informed of his/her booking's status.
In my case, nothing went wrong and there were no problems, but I still needed to know as soon as possible that the money had arrived safely, without having to chase a response.
Overall, falcon handled things well and my trip was a great success - the comments above are (hopefully) constructive and will enable Falcon to fine-tune its procedures to provide an even better service to its customers.
title Amazing safari with kenya safari bookings
The trip was exactly what we had wanted, a combination of history, culture and new experiences. This kenya safari bookings travel agency was not only extremely helpful in planning where to go and what to do, but also were seamless in on-the-ground exercution.
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Using African Ubuntu Safaris made a first time trip to Africa worry free and very enjoyable.
The communications and service provided by African Ubuntu Safaris were both excellent from the time of first contact. Queries were answered promptly and the itinerary offered fitted budget and what I had hoped for. Visited 3 camps in Botswana and finished at Victoria Falls. All the camps were very comfortable, terrain beautiful and the staff helpful and professional. Guides and trackers were excellent. Wildlife sightings were outstanding. Couldn't have enjoyed myself more, absolutely loved it. In Zimbabwe had a lovely room at the Vic Falls Hotel and the tour of the falls was definitely a highlight.
As this was my first overseas trip for many years (first time to Africa) and I was travelling solo, I was quite nervous. I needn't have been. African Ubuntu made it very easy, organising all the bookings (including an extra activity in Vic Falls) and transfers which all went very smoothly. I'll be using them again for the next trip and would recommend them to anyone else thinking of going on safari in Africa.
65+ years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Possibly the perfect operator
This is the second holiday we have booked with Tribes in under a year. Why Tribes? because of their total professionalism, attention to detail, understanding of our needs and in depth knowledge of the places we want to visit as well as their great enthusiasm - and patience.
Nothing is too much trouble, we even changed countries halfway through the booking process and they make all the time you need to discuss details and ideas by phone or email. They are sensitive to your desires but also to your pocket - safaris are not cheap..
They had visited all but one of the places we went to so could give us very good advice. They were well known and highly respected as a company wherever we went be it a camp or the landside agents.
Our latest holiday was in Botswana and Zimbabwe and involved 3 camps, a hotel, 3 small aircraft flights, a long drive and the international flights. My wife and I are not in the best of health and so were concerned that everything "worked" and we weren't stranded anywhere. We need not have worried everything including failsafe procedures worked perfectly and we were able to enjoy all of our holiday in a very relaxed fashion.
All the camps knew of our requirements (physical and dietary) and desire not just to see animals but also birds and other nature and did their very best to accommodate us.
The first holiday we had with Tribes was in Tanzania and was equally impressive in its organisation and delivery.
I have no hesitation in wholeheartedly recommending them as a company who will enhance your holiday and give you an experience of a lifetime.
Just thinking about the next holiday with them now...
Great trip, very good and kind driver, excellent places where we stayed, good wilderniss experience
All very satisfying, even the tirechanging! At time at the airport and places we visited, Very safe driving and easy.
CA
65+ years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Personalized service catering to my needs was great.
All the arrangements were made by Destination Jungle, which is based in Kampala. They laid on transport - a 4x4 private hire – arranged for one of the best guides to accompany me and even asked about my food preferences. Making the arrangements was a piece of cake: I just dropped in at the office to make the payment after arriving in Kampala. And I got personalized service, which always makes a huge difference.
MY
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Unforgettable memory
Gombe Safari provides a good deal for 3D2N in Mikumi National Park. Starting from deal until the end of the trip, they manage everything professionally. My safari guide, Roman, is a knowledgeable and punctual person. He willing to share the knowledge regarding the animals, and able to explain to my curiosity about animals. He even lead us found the female lion with two little cubs in firtst day! Overall, Gombe Safari did a good job and give me an unforgettable memory in Tanzania. Those who has little time at Dar es Salaam but planning to go for short safari, I would recommend Gombe Safari as one of your choice.
US
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Highly recommend--Amazing experience (from Minnesota,USA)
My daughter and I are from Rochester, Minnesota, USA and had an amazing experience with Bestday Safaris. We chose to do the 3 day and 2 night safari (Ngorongoro crater, Lake Manyara, and Tanganire), and Peter was very good at emailing with us and catering to our needs. We saw so many incredible animals (elephants--very close and we saw them bathing too--, zebras, baboons, wildebeest, lions, rhinos, giraffes, hippos, ostriches, warthogs, various colorful birds, and rodents too) and we got very close too. Being from a place with a climate very different than Africa's it was all very beautiful and interesting and our guide Godfrey was great at helping us learn about the climate. Godfrey had the best eye and would be able to spot an animal miles away; he was very friendly, knowledgeable, and a VERY GOOD driver. Our experience couldn't have been better with Bestday Safaris and we would recommend it to anyone and everyone; so if you are deciding between some, choose this one, you won't be disappointed.
US
35-50 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Excellent wildlife viewing at Hluhluwe-Imfolozi...elephants galore!
I've been to Hluhluwe-Imfolozi 2 years in a row while staying at a lodge nearby. It's a fantastic park with lots and lots of roads to explore. The traffic isn't light, but it's not super crowded, there's definitely places where you can find animals/birds on your own and feel like you're completely isolated.
I was able to watch the large herd of elephants moving through the park one morning for 30-45 minutes. I saw maybe 200+ elephants all together.
AR
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Elephants paradise
It was the first of 8 parks we visited in Africa, and also the first Safari we've done. We didn't know what to expect, but we knew that we weren't going to find any lions or rinohs. As we were newbies we found really exciting meeting a lot of monkeys from a really short range, then we came across diferent groups of hervibors such as Impalas, Topis and some other horned ones. But the best thing of this park are by far the Elephants. We got to see a lot of diferent groups, playing in the small rivers, walking from the water to the shadows of the baobabs, they don't seem to care about the few vehicles in the roads, they were walking just beside us, it was really beatifull.
Ah, watch out with the tsetse fly, they bite quite hard.