US
Experience level: over 5 safaris
Extremely disappointing with a lack of respect and courtesy from driver-guide
Driver/guide Haron was rude to us, rolled his eyes if we asked to have the engine turned off to watch wildlife, and raised his voice at me when we chose not to visit a Maasai Village (perhaps he was not getting a cut of the $100). I trusted to go with this company as the Mt Kili guide had been recommended to me had set this tour up; this was a mistake and despite the Kili guide tipping Haron $100 in advance to take good care of me, the customer service was poor. Perhaps Haron was not expecting to be called out on Dec 31 New Year's Eve . . . regardless, the other couple and myself treated poorly.
BE
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Disgraceful agency. Don't use them at any cost.
We booked with Image Travel Ltd the following package : 4-Day Luxury Lionhill Camp & Mara Serena Lodge Safari with 4X4WD LandCruiser Jeep for 2 persons costing 3,996 $.
This is a highly negative review for this agency which surprisingly has otherwise very favorable reviews.
1) First of all, the booking process was good, I got several quotes from multiple agencies from safaribookings website and compared them, did a lot of research using different reviews websites and finally choose Image Travel. Booking was made in July 2024 for a safari in September 2024. Paid initially a deposit then full payment using wire transfer. Up until then all good with smooth communication.
2) As we are approaching the start day of our safari, there was no communication from the agency. They didn't know our hotel in Nairobi, neither did they have my phone number, nor did we know the pick up time. So 2 days before the start day I email them in the morning letting them know my hotel and to confirm pick up time. No reply. I send a WhatsApp message in the evening. No reply. 1 day before start of trip, still nothing. I was in Nairobi already so call them around 9 am to ask. A man picked up and when I asked about pick up time he said 8 am, and I told him I sent email with our hotel name, he said ok I will reply to you. It's now 2 pm and no acknowledgement or reply to my email. Having wire transfered 4000 $ and just hours before the safari start, I decided to go check out their office in Nairobi CBD area. There were 2 girls, and I told them I come here to confirm the trip, she is ok, took her dairy and noted the hotel name. When queried how would she have known our hotel if I didn't come, the answer given was "most our guests come the day before start so we send them email 5/6 pm the day before to confirm the hotel and time"... ok but that's not a reason to not reply to email or WhatsApp message. Poor communication. Red flag was raised here.
3) Next day luckily the safari driver is on time to pick us. We go to lake nakuru, but the agency hasn't paid the entrance fee. So we wait at the front entrance waiting for them to pay. That seems normal since other safari vehicles also stopped waiting for payment. But they waited at most 15 min. We waited almost 2 hours... the driver had to make several calls to them to get it done, with excuses such as "she is going to the bank make payment "... meanwhile dozens of cars entered the park. Arrived at park entrance 12 pm and entered at 2 pm. Due to this we missed lunch, no big deal but still, and it started raining. So we skipped the hotel and directly went for the game drive. The game ended being much shorter than planned due to this delay.
They also changed the hotel to sopa lodge and booked double room when I clearly asked twin bedroom and they confirmed it. Luckily the hotel was good enough and they gave us twin room.
4) Next day, going to Masai Mara, the driver and us made a clear plan to press Image Travel office to pay the entrance fee to masai mara early to avoid the same issue as Lake nakuru. We left Lake nakuru at 7 am. We arrived at Masai Mara entrance at 1.30 pm. And Serena park entrance at 3.30 pm. The driver told us it should take 5/6 hours. It took 8h30... the driver was driving slowly, he even made the following remark "I am driving slowly to buy us time so they can make the payment of the park"... that was so, so frustrating, so I paid 4000 $ and flew all the way to Kenya just to enjoy a slow ride in a jeep going to Masai Mara ? Seriously ? According to the safari plan, we were to supposed to arrive at Masai mara for lunch... completely wrong.
Now ofcourse despite the driver several calls, the fees was not paid when we arrived at Masai mara entrance, but the driver got a "transit pass" to go to the Mara triangle entrance. Then the agency told the driver due to "payment system issue " we should pay the entrance fee, which is 800$ for 2 persons for 2 days by ourselves and they will refund that amount later. I got an email from them stating that also, "promising" to refund the amount once "the issue is solved". Now I am no fool, and I don't believe I would ever see that amount back, living in Europe dealing with a Kenyan travel agency on basis of "promise" in an email. I flat out refused and told them to sort it out. I paid 4000$ and I am not expected to fork out another 800 $ because of their problem (or atleast that's what they say). I got a number from the email to call, and I told them I paid a full package, they are member of the KATO (Kenya Association Of Tour Operators), have good review and rankings and this is completely unacceptable and unprofessional. I told them I don't have 800 $, so either they pay the fee or we go back to Nairobi and next morning I register my complaint with KATO, the tourism police and Tourism regulatory authority, in addition to negative reviews. She said ok give me 30 min to find an alternative to solve issue. Keep in mind that it's approaching 4 pm and we are wasting time dealing with this instead of a game drive... 5 min later, the driver found a solution : his boss (who is a contractor working for Image Travel) will pay and Image Travel will reimburse him later. Because of this we once again only a short game drive lasting less than 2 hours.
5) On day 4, going back to Nairobi. Upon checkout at Mara Serana Hotel in Masai Mara, we were informed Image Travel did not pay the hotel. They will not release us and let us leave until it is paid. That was at 7 am. The driver made several calls to get it sorted, without success. I managed to directly call Image Travel, and they repeated the same excuses "payment system issue", which doesn't mean anything. I strongly objected to him about the handling of this situation and threatened to report to KATO and the TRA. I also argued with the hotel that they should pursue the matter with Image Travel Ltd directly and not keep us "hostages" here because I paid everything to them. They refused to let us go. At this point with the risk of missing our flight I was about to pay myself the 1100$ hotel invoice, since it was nearly 9 am, but at the same time the person from Image Travel Ltd wrote an email to the hotel and they let us go. I have been told that the email was once again just a "promise" to pay. Due to this the driver had to rush to the exit gate of Masai Mara before 10 am to avoid having pay extra fee which led us to miss the exit game drive.
All the issues led us to miss most of the time which should have been devoted to the game drives, in addition to headache, frustration and anger. This is completely unacceptable from a accredited tour operator in Kenya. Nothing in the schedule of the plan they gave us was respected. The driver told us 3 other vehicles of Image Travel were facing the same issue that day and not being released. Furthermore he said in his opinion the person in charge at Image Travel most likely run out of money and he is not paying anyone and just "promising" to pay everyone by email. This is completely unacceptable after having spent over 4000 $ for a safari and projects a very negative image of Kenyan tourism. I have submitted a complaint to the KATO and the TRA with appropriate documentation. Additionally it seems this issues are arising very frequently at this company based on recent online reviews.
Please save yourself the trouble and don't choose this agency at any cost.
IE
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Possible scam and fraud. We feel ripped off
Be aware, possible scam, fraud and very dishonest people!
Dream holiday turned into a nightmare!
First and foremost TouristLine safaris is not a tour operator but an agency within an office with numerous other seemingly fake agencies all under the names of Fiona, Lilian and some guy going only by the name of Daniel! Among others those agencies include tourist line safaris, absolute holiday safaris and big time safaris!
We be booked a 13 day safari tour through Kenya and Tanzania for 4000usd p.p and paid 30% deposit. After paying the deposit, communication abruptly stopped. We didn't think much of it yet but were already concerned. At no point they provided further instructions and/or asked for hotel name to pick us up etc. We contacted them instead twice to confirm the hotel name for pick up and they confirmed pick up time. When we arrived in Nairobi I again confirmed hotel name for pick up. Among day of pick up after 1h there were still nobody, I contacted them and they said someone just left the office. Half hour later, still nothing. Then apparently it turned out the driver went to a different hotel. Long story short we ended up already 3h late that morning. After paying the rest of the amount the problems started.
They started changing the plans and tried to cut off game drives.
The safari car was in a very bad condition. It was falling apart and my partner even hit her head the first day on one of the many loose nails/screws. She bleeded and got a big bump on the head. The car was filthy, almost all windows broken, no handles, no A/C and so on.
On the second day every 10-15min the driver started checking under the car. He told us apparently the brake oil was leaking.
On the third day in the middle of the road the breaks stopped working, and the driver was then driving only 10-20km/h because he couldn't use the breaks and was looking for a mechanic. We lost overall 3h that day. The next day without any communication or warning he drove into a mechanic shop again and put the car with us inside into the forklift so that the mechanics can check something. We didn't know what's going on. He didn't even ask us to leave the car in the meantime. We were literally left inside the car not knowing how long it might take or so. I was looking at all the other tour cars the vast majority were really good. Only a handful of cars were equally bad
Because of the car we lost multiple hours of game drive.
Also the driver/guide was constantly late in the morning and we were the last to leave the hotel and usually the first to come back. He literally the whole time on the phone, didn't communicate anything with us and even worse, was picking up people and doing some extra stuff despite having a private tour.
Until now we thought it's just bad service.
However, when we were about to go to Tanzania only then we were told that the Tanzania part will be with a different tour company. Something we were not aware of at any stage prior to paying full amount. Once we crossed the border the actual real and big problems started.
It turned out tourist line safari is not a tour company per se but hires different companies to do the safari.
The tour company that picked us up in Tanzania had a completely different plan and way worse hotels. E.g. instead of staying in nysa lodge, rhino lode or sangaiwe lodge which cost around 200-400usd a night, we stayed in octagon lodge and charity hotel in Arusha which costs only 30usd a night.
We immediately started calling TouristLine safaris and told them this is not what we booked and paid for. But they just said that they booked different accommodation as per availability. However this was never communicated with us before. They didn't inform us about all the changes and thus we completely overpaid. I asked for either doing the tour we actually paid for or get a refund for the Tanzania part because this was completely different and low budget. They first said that they will refund but then immediately said that its not possible etc.
The agency in Tanzania was also lying to us and was constantly contradicting themselves. First they said they told tourist line that they can't book the accomodations we paid for and blammed TouristLine. TouristLine safaris at this point stopped responding to us and just said this is now the tour and not their responsibility anymore, we can either do this safari with the changed program and accommodations or come back and loose all the money.
We were left with no choice but doing a low budget safari. We lost overall at least 2 days worth of game drives and stayed in accommodations worth much less.
We started doing some research and found out that numerous tourists were scammed this way. They suddenly change the plan and put tourists in cheaper accommodations blaming one and each other and nobody actually feels responsible. They sell tours and accommodations that they never actually booked or even had.
We also found out that they operate under several different tour agency names.
Unfortunately we feel scammed and our dream holiday became a nightmare. We were left with a tour that was not what we booked and the frustration and disappointment is huge.
We also overpaid by a big margin.
When we arrived back in Nairobi we went to the office and there were different people actually saying that TouristLine Safaris doesn't operate here but after they realized we won't get scammed so easily they started arguing and after 2 hours they agreed to refund us very little amount not even covering the difference of one accomodation. There were so many men in the office and we felt threatened and in danger. We were then forced to sign some paper that we agree not to sue them. It seems this is the way the silence people and keep scamming tourists.
Please guys be aware and don't book from this agency and any other one under the names of Lilian, Fiona or daniel. We are not even sure if those names are real or who we were actually talking with on the phone and in the office.
CH
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Horrible experience
We are of the opinion that we have been scammed by this company. We paid them but they never showed up to get us at the hotel. They said they will reimburse us but at the time of writing this review we still got no money back. I have all the proofs from the airlines companies and hotel where we were supposed to stay, that the bookings were never made. We advise against booking with Capture Tanzania. You can contact me for proofs.
20-35 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Liers
Made us pay for things that they never provided. Terrible service. Just do not use them.
SE
35-50 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
AVOID! AVOID! AVOID!
With this I am expressing my deepest disappointment regarding the 3-Day tour we received from Karibu Safaris in Kenya.
The communication with Robert and the tour planning was ok, I have no complaint about that.
The problem is the way the tour was guided and the attitude from the driver and tour guide HAMISI, it was a very strong disappointment and even humiliation towards us as visitors and customers.
- no drinking water for the guests. When I asked about the water, the tour guide HAMISI said "sorry, I forgot". But at the same time he had drinking water, even several bottles!!!, at the game drive and was drinking himself and keeping them in the cooler box. That was very very much humiliating. Very unprofessional conduct. Phaawww!
- on the 3rd day's morning we were supposed to have a game drive in Amboseli park till 10am in the morning (that was confirmed beforehand by Robert - the organiser), but we left the park at 8:40 already with no reason. So the driver cut us the pleasure of experiencing the park by one half (50%), as we spent there only about one and a half hours (90 minutes). Another hour and 20 minutes were stolen. It's a huge disappointment. Robbery!!!
- the choice of the roads. In order to maybe make a small fuel economy (6 to 10$), the driver chose rural roads that in parts were hardly passable and full of dust, all our clothes, bags, hair, bodies and electronic equipment was in dirt and dust. The driver, willing to save a few hundreds of shillings, was driving the roads that are no good for safari tours. We did not meet a single other Safari tour operator's vehicle while taking the rural roads, while there were many of them on paved roads. So the point is that the unprofessional driver/tour guide deliberately chose bad roads just to make some "shortcut" meanwhile breaking the company's vehicle and disappointing the customers that were on a private tour. That is soooo STUPID!!!! We made a remark on that before our return on which driver HAMISI only laughed at us - straight into our faces... Very very humiliating!!! Guys avoid this scam of an operator!!!
There are some more problems and negative remarks that I should point out like a lack of explanation about the parks, surroundings, eco-system, animals, history, etc.; - instead the driver is chatting by sending texts on his smartphone...
- the vehicle arrived to pick us up dusty and dirty inside (from outside was ok) - it's just a proof of to what extent this company is unprofessional and do not consider the comfort and needs of their customers. I have experienced over six different tours in Tanzania and Kenya and I can compare the services received by this incompetent company with others.
This operator should be AVOIDED!!!
I need to express that I deeply regret having chosen this company's services and I have to warn other visitors and possible clients to AVOID tours given by Karibu Safaris in Kenya.
AVOID! AVOID! AVOID!
OM
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Desperate customer service
Again I am waiting on a refund promised by the managing director to pay at the end of Feb, Jan and also December. So far having committed to payment and having submitted account details at their request I have not received anything. The airline refunded in 1 weeks, hotels within 2 weeks, and even the government refunded the visa fee due to us not being able to travel on account of an international travel ban. I feel like I have been robbed, with repeated requests to honour their word being ignored.
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
DO NOT BOOK WITH COMPANY !!!
After nearly a month of waiting to hear back from the 'CEO' we are finally told that they will not provide a refund even though the country is not letting us travel there. This was a honeymoon trip and our wedding is cancelled, so unhelpful. This was the only provider who we have encountered problems with, all other bookings in our trip were kindly refunded. Awful customer service. Silly company really as I imagine everyone who experiences this will not book with them in the future.
i wish i could forget it all!
Unprofessional and broad day light thief is what i can say about Kevin Naibei.My USD 3000 was pocketed by kevin and gave me a forged hotel reservation.on top of that he never bought my air ticket to bangkok where i had wanted to go on holiday in December 2019.So heartless that he didn't care what would happen to me in a foreign country had i presented that forged reservation.
FR
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
thieves...... stay well clear
i booked my safari in july and paid half up front over $3000 and then not even a couple weeks later i got the email on the 9th of aug that the company could not fulfill the tour and that it was cancelled, i will get a refund in 90-120 days..... fast forward we are not at 112 days later and still no money, no answer to e-mails, or calls. foolishly i paid by debit card via a link and now that the 120 days is almost up i can see what my bank can do but im not hopeful...... the amount of stories that are the same as mine is horrendous