US
50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
lies, unsafe vehicle and thief owner
I have to give this one star since 0 stars is not an option. The one star is for the good guide that Travelust gave us for the first four days of our trip. The guide was very good but then abandoned our group in Bwindi when he left for a family emergency. We lost thousands of dollars to Travelust and owner James Kateeba, had to ride in an unsafe, rusty vehicle with broken seats, windows and missing seat belts. Travelust took our money but never purchased our gorilla and monkey permits. In addition, we had to come up with cash to leave Murchinson National park when Travelust's Uganda Wildlife card had no funds on it. We also had to pay for a new guide and vehicle when our original guide left us at our Bwindi hotel. Before our original guide abandoned us, he told us that he would not be able to take us over the border for the Rwanda portion of our trip since our vehicle was unsafe and we had a police report filed for James Kateeba/Travelust when he scammed us out of $6700 . Fortunately the eight of us on the safari are well traveled and made the best of a bad situation . Despite all the issues, we enjoyed Uganda and Rwanda and gorilla and chimp trekking but please use a reputable tour operator and NOT Travelust.
50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Arrangements for travel/transfers were very poor and (in retrospect) ridiculously expensive .
Advice provided by travel agent, Adelle, regarding travel/transfers was exceptionally poor in terms of logistics and cost. She was not worthy of our trust. We had already chosen Londolozi as our safari destination and found our experience there, and indeed for the remainder of our trip to South Africa, to be very positive. We will return to the southern coast of South Africa and Londolozi for further golfing/safari experiences but definitely will not use the same South African travel agent .
GR
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Dangerous situations with Zanzibar Cholo Tours.
Zanzibar Cholo tours trust it only for Zanzibar island,it was ok without problems,
but the Safari in Africa was terrible because they said many lies to our team and was very dangerous situations.
We had a scedule to follow but on the tour they change the program everyday without inform us and it was very unpleasant and we spend extra money for hotels ,safari and food.
I dont recommend to anyone this tour in Africa because at the end was very difficult also about our lifes!!!
The lies it was so many for that never trust Safari tour of them!!!
US
50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Find a reputable Ugandan or US Safari company
James Kateeba - the owner of Travelust- scammed us by taking our money for gorilla and golden monkey trekking permits and not buying them! Run from this company - DO NOT BOOK with Travelust or any company associated with James Kateeba. We are pursuing this with the Ugandan police, UWA and Ugandan travel authorities. He keeps promising repayment - but never follows through.
US
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Don't book with Travelust. Very bad experience with this company & it's owner. Read others' reviews.
Absolutely do not make the mistake of booking with Travelust. Not only has our group had significant issues with this travel company and it's owner James Kateeba but so have many others before us. We waited to initiate our social media review of this company, hoping that the owner James Kateeba would do the right thing and refund us the $6700 he stole from us. But we have now waited for 2 months and have received excuse after excuse for why our money has not been refunded. We will also be reviewing Travelust on multiple other travel sites so that other unsuspecting travelers are not taken advantage of as we were. You can read many other peoples' negative reviews of this company in addition to ours. Here is what happened to us in Feb 2016:
James Kateeba and his travel company, Travelust, almost ruined our entire trip to Africa because he did not secure our gorilla trekking permits nor our golden monkey permits. We payed him 6 months in advance and when we arrived in Uganda and Rwanda to trek with the mountain gorillas, he had stolen our money and never booked the permits. Only because one of the people in my travel group had close connections with the tourism board in Uganda were we able to trek. We had to pay the money a second time and wait for hours of phone calls and special accommodation so that we could trek. Had she not known the right people, Travelust would have been responsible for completely ruining our entire trip since the whole reason we traveled to Uganda and Rwanda was to trek with mountain gorillas. We waited to post on social media, giving James the owner of Travelust a chance to refund the $6700 he owes to our group. But after months of excuses and delays and continued fraud, we are now speaking up. We only wish we had read other similar posts before we booked with him. But by the time we saw the other negative posts on line about this company, we had already paid him in full. I hope no one uses this travel company after reading my review. We even filed police reports in both Uganda and Rwanda to try to help keep this horrible experience from happening to others.
US
Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Travelust are thieves!!
Worst tour operator ever! Don't use them under any circumstances. They never purchased our gorilla permits, so after traveling across the world, we were almost unable to trek in either Uganda or Rwanda - luckily we were able to but we had to spend even more money to re-buy the permits. Travelust gave us a vehicle with a broken seat, missing seat belts, a window that wouldn't open, and no air conditioning. We even had to fork over $300 just to get out of the national park since their money card wouldn't work. They never returned our calls or emails, just left us hanging and we had to involve the Ugandan police. Our group had to lay out $7,000 over and above what we had already paid!!! James stole our money and won't pay us back. He's done this before to other people!! Don't get taken like we were!
DE
do not book with amani tours!
We were supposed to do a 3 day Safari to Mikumi Nationalpark. We were picked up in DAR in the morning and arrived in Mikumi Nationalpark in the evening. When we were at the entrance of the Nationalpark, the driver did not have any money for the park entrance fee although we already paid the whole price for the trip that included park entry, accomodation, food, etc. So we needed to pay the entry by ourselves. Daniel, who we booked the trip with, did not answer his phone. The next day, we could not enter the park anymore since we only took a little amount of money with us because everything should be included in the price, that we already paid him and we drove back to DAR. So in the end, we had one afternoon safari (where we paid the extra entrance fee) and no safari on the other 2 days, that we had booked. He still does not answer his phone and we did not get any money back. Do not book with Amani tours, it's a trap.
US
20-35 years of age
Worst work ethic
My review might be the odd one among all the positive reviews. But I need to share my experience so others can avoid a similar experience with this tour operator. I booked a safari tour with Natural World Safari for Sept 2014 , paid all the advance, but had to cancel the tour in Aug 2014 for personal reasons. The experience and communications were fine until my cancellation but after that everything changed and was a nightmare. As per their terms and conditions, I was eligible for 80% refund. But every time I contacted them I was only getting false assurances that the refund shall be done shortly. This continued for the next 1 year 8months. After reporting this to KATO and other efforts from my side, I was finally able to get my refund in April 2016. I believe a good business should abide by their terms and conditions and also show professional ethics. Unfortunately this is not the case with this business once you cancel their service. I hope everyone booking safari with this tour operator understand these risks if you ever have to cancel.
US
20-35 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Swindled by this company--avoid!
I was slated to do a 4-day trip to Nogorongoro Crater and Lake Manyara with this company back in October 2015. A day after I made the payment in full ($410) via M-PESA, I was informed by a company representative that the safari was canceled because the company director (Kristen Hubert) had had a serious accident on her way to Diani. Completely understandable, and I asked them not to rush with my refund, given the circumstances involved.
Fast forward to November: the company director's husband (Georgette Hubert) gets in touch with me and tells me that he will make a refund ASAP. However, since November 19, I have heard nothing from him, in spite of several reminders. Since I did not wish to be insensitive, I was patient, realizing that there could have been medical complications associated with Kristen's accident. However, intriguingly, since then, the company has continued advertising for safaris on their Facebook page (since then taken down) and has actually organized safaris for clients, as vouched by one of their recent clients with whom I have been in touch. To me, this reeks of corruption and hints rather strongly that I have been swindled of my money, as they are quite obviously flat-out ignoring my emails and Facebook messages. Considering that we are now in April, I do not envision receiving my money back again. That being said, I wanted to post this cautionary message, so that other travelers are not swindled by this company.
DE
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Beware of this provider's rip off methods
Let's talk about the positive aspects first: The driver was nice and had practical knowledge of most animals and plants we were passing by. I sometimes wished he was a little more involved with us and our Safari rather than "doing business" on his mobile phone. So we did see all the animals we were expecting to see and also learned their names...
However I would not recommend booking any tour with this provider (Experience Kenya aka Bianka Investment aka Eric Nyankanga). Eric tried to rip us off several times and in the end he succeeded. Here's the story:
1.) Although the tours here on SafariBookings include "All Taxes/VAT", our first quote had the VAT listed on top of the initial price.
2.) After having booked and payed, one lodge (for two nights) was changed into a cheaper one (e.g. not having 24/7 electricity). The reason given was that the initially booked lodge could not cater vegetarian food, which is hard to believe since you get veggy meals everywhere in Kenya).
3.) "Park fees" listed as included on this site were silently removed in the quote, where these fees - according to Eric - are under "Any other item not mentioned". This did cost us additional 800 USD.
Conclusion: Pay a little bit more for your tour and avoid being screwed. We did so on our second Safari one week later and the experience was completely different.