CN
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Luxury Camp Became Ordinary Camp
Our contract says we stay in Matawi Serengeti Camp in Serengeti, however, when our driver took us to this hotel, the hotel manager said we did not book it. After 3 hours contacting the travel agency, we had to move to Kenzan Tented Camp at 9 p.m., which was horrible sitting in a car in a dark wilderness for an hour. Matawi Serengeti Camp is a very luxury camp, but Kenzan Tented Camp is just a 3-star camp. However, the travel agency said these hotels were the same and refused to compensate even if I showed the rating of the hotels.
Moreover, our car's brakes did not work and we hit a cow. Luckily we did not hurt, but we did not know about the cow because the driver did not stop.
50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Either the reviews are fake or I was the one very unlucky customer.
The 7 days Serengeti/Wildebeest migration/Ngorongoro crater/Foot of Kilimanjaro trip that never was.
It turned out to be a 5 day safari with game drives only, so I am short of 2 days of activities. During that time no communication from the company.
No accommodation was booked for me while in the Serengeti so it was 3 days of genuine stress wondering where I would sleep. The driver tried many times to be in contact with the company to no avail. I couldn’t join another group that actually wanted to see the famous crossing as I could not have bore the cost and could not be in contact with Ngekewa safaris anyway.
After initially denying any wrong doing on their part and being told I would have to pay for accommodation myself in the park, I was finally contacted one day after being dumped at a hotel in Arusha as my final destination. I had to arrange and pay for an extra night as my trip ended abruptly and before planned.
By the last communication, compensation was going to be offered but apparently only if we met in person. Which I find strange and couldn’t happen since I was not around. Now which compensation? I will never know. A refund? I doubt that. A voucher? …will I ever use them again? Nope.
Since then, not a peep. And zero communication from the company’s director either.
I am not going on a campaign against them and you can decide for yourself but as far as I am concerned, I have wasted a month’s salary, never saw what I paid for and did a very expensive bunch of game drives I could have paid for a fraction of the price in the neighbouring countries. A once in a lifetime experience they have totally ruined for me.
So maybe I was super unlucky but I certainly cannot recommend them.
IL
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
horrible experience with this company
I will detail here a lot of our horrible experience with this company but first of all do not book a safari trip from them they are not professional at all. Christian, who is the owner of the company we closed with, decided to do an experiment on us and group several people in one jeep from 3 other agencies, one of us even came only for one day on safari. And we booked a two-day trip. It started when at the entrance to the park we had to wait half an hour because he didn't pay for one of us to enter the park and after we entered around 12 noon we found out that they didn't take care of us for water. We realized that Christian doesn't know the "guide" at all after he promised that we would have someone professional who knows English and will give us information inside the park. A complete lie. He only brought us a driver who also drove like crazy (70 km/h inside the safari). When we were hungry, we opened the lunch boxes and discovered that Christian brought us meat after we asked for vegetarian food. So we were both hungry and thirsty. And the thing that broke us all and every traveler's nightmare came true. The jeep got stuck in the Safari, the clutch broke. Every time we had to help the jeep (to take pictures) the vehicle turned off and someone had to push us from behind. Needless to say, it was the worst experience of my life. We were only on safari for about two hours and we went to the garage to fix the jeep. When we met Christian he said sorry and did not take responsibility for anything. We asked for a refund and our requests were completely ignored. I would suggest you do yourself a favor and stay away from this company and Christian because everything he promised us was a lie.
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
She (Keisha) was a good person though later things didn't go to our expectations.
Sentas tours and travel is good and glad that we traveled with them. But later we were asked to make more money transfers because the initial money hadn't reflected on their account and they promised us a refund when it finally reflects. After they received the initial payments, it was so hard for them to make the refund as it was supposed to be done, giving alot of reasons 😔😔. We feel cheated and scammed.
IT
Take a different tour operator.
I would not recommend Focus in Africa and neither the tour we did.
We did the budget safari and as one can immagine, the accomodation was budget (mostly tents), the food was basic, and the car was not of high quality (the door kept on opening and our cook had to hold it the whole drive). Sometimes our lunch boxes had no cutlery. But this is okay. The sleeping bags were of low quality and outdated for which reason sleeping in the Ngorongoro crater camp was extremely cold. The agency only seemed in the mood to answer when they needed something but completely ignored us when we had requests.
But what we found really not nice was our guide Brisont. He really did not put any effort in making this more that a basic experience for my fellow 5 travellers and I. He did not tell us anything about Tanzania or himself and left us always as soon as we arrived at the camps. In the national parks he did not search for animals or explain anything to us but just drove from A to B. Also we were always the first ones to arrive at the camps in the afternoon and the last ones to leave in the morning. But what we found was most annoying is that we had less time than we should have had in Serengeti Np. Briston himself explained that the permit was 12 hours long- but we entered at 15:00pm and left it at 12:30pm the next day, only to arrive way to early at our next destination again, where he left us as soon as he had dropped us.
Do yourself the favour and spend more money on a tour agency that knows what professionalism means.
NL
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Very stressful safari experience; we felt scammed!
We booked a 5-day midrange safari tour. We had a horrible experience with Benson. The night before the start of the tour we received a message of Benson if we could pay 55 dollars extra for the hotel because it had become more expensive. Of course, we would not pay extra as this was not stated in the quote, but Benson was persistent and kept messaging us for an hour straight. Then the next thing came up; the visit to the Masai village. The quote stated that this was included, but Benson called our driver that this was not the case. We sent a screenshot of the quote to Benson, but he did not agree with this. Benson kept calling us and the driver and even screamed a couple of times. This is insane! He told us that he already fixed the problem with the extra charge of the hotel, so now we had to fix this. This was very unreasonable because he caused these problems, not us! Of course, we did not pay for this as it was included. Now the third problem occurred. Before the safari, we agreed to pay extra to get another hotel; instead of the Citymax hotel we wanted to stay at the Waterbuck hotel. This was confirmed multiple times by e-mail and WhatsApp. The extra charge was paid on the first day of the safari. Our driver told us he would take us to the Citymax hotel, but we explained and showed him we paid extra to go to the Waterbuck hotel. The driver understood it, and called Benson. Benson said it was not true; we did not pay extra and we did not agree to go to the Waterbuck hotel. We discussed it for 3 hours!! We showed him multiple times the emails and WhatsApp, but he did not want to help. Finally, he wanted to pay back the dollars we paid extra, but he wanted to reimburse us in shillings which which didn't equal the amount we paid. Another hour of discussing went by and he finally paid us back. It was a very stressful experience for us. Something you do not want during your holiday. Benson did everything he could to screw us over. Fortunately, we had proof of everything, but this was the worst experience ever. I would not recommend booking with this agency!!
CA
65+ years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
I wanted to give them a 0 star.
We were supposed to go to a Kenya Safari in late August 2024. I dealt with Muretti and after some issues, we settled on a trip and price. He asked for a deposit and I asked for terms and conditions for the booking. He wrote back that as long as I cancelled 6 weeks before the start of the trip, deposit is completely refundable. Based on thus, I sent him a deposit. Something unexpected came up regarding my health about mid June. I wrote to him that I may have to cancel and reminded him of the terms and conditions of cancellation. I confirmed our cancellation on July 1 which was almost 8 weeks before the start of the trip.
He even said that he will begin the process of refunding the deposit. Then, after a week, he started giving excuses that the Lodges are not refunding and their terms are different. I reminded him that my dealing is with Treeswift and not the individual Lodges. He still was coming up with excuses and finally did not even answer my messages or answer his phone.
Do not give your money to this company. They have lied to us and very unprofessional. I have told everybody about their lies and fraudulent behavior. You are better off staying away from them.
Sudhindra Dey
OM
50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Difficult to enter
I am unable to write a review of South Africa, its wildlife, or its landscapes due to the frustrating experience with the online eVisa system.
Our first application was rejected after nearly three weeks without any update on the website, despite being notified of a decision. It took several phone calls, emails, and text messages to receive the official verdict.
We are still waiting for a decision on our second application, two weeks after submission.
Our travel plans for July had to be rescheduled for August in the hope that the visa will be approved in time.
Having traveled to numerous countries, we find this process to be the most exasperating. While most countries have their peculiarities in documentation requests, requiring copies of our deceased parents' death certificates appeared unreasonable.
Other eVisas we've applied for were processed within hours or days, but this takes weeks.
US
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Disappointing
My family and I booked travel to East Africa through Leopard Tours and the Krish Group. We traveled from June 25-July 9, 2024. We have had multiple issues during this trip. I have emailed Leopard Tours and the Krish Group several times, with no resolution of the issues, nor accountability.
Specifically, we signed off an itinerary created by Leopard Tours and the Krish Group that stated that we will be staying at Singita Faru Faru in a family suite--and per them, this was confirmed. Instead, once we arrived to Africa, I discovered that we were staying at Singita Sabora in two tented camps. They are both very unique properties, and we had signed off on Singita Faru Faru, not Singita Sabora. I reached out to Leopard Tours and the Krish Group immediately on finding this out and all they could tell me was that there was nothing he could do to rectify the situation as Faru Faru had no availability, and because we were booked a "similar" lodge, neither would do nothing further. This is extremely disappointing as they never took any accountability, nor did they apologize for the error. My husband and I had extended our travels dates (paid extra to change our tickets) and took off additional days from work to stay at Singita Faru Faru - which Leopard Tours and the Krish Group had told us that they had secured for us, however, as stated above, they had not. This felt like the classic "bait and switch."
Additionally, Leopard Tours and the Krish Group suggested we travel to Tarangire. Unfortunately, once we arrived to Tarangire, we came to learn that it was a bad time to travel to Tarangire National Park due to the heavy rainfall the area had over the past several months. Due to the heavy rain/tall brushes we could not see any animals. Even the owner of the lodge in Tarangire stated that the tour companies should have let us know that as he had notified all guests who had booked directly of this.
Lastly, we noticed that there was an option to use open vehicles for safari game rides. We were never given this option when booking the trip. It seems that Leopard Travel does not have any open vehicles. When we asked to change some of our game drives to open vehicles operated by the lodges, we were advised to do it ourselves and pay for the additional cost.
Leopard tours has essentially asked me to contact Krish Group for any issues and has taken no accountability in this matter. The Krish Group has done the same.
Very disappointing trip, service and company. I would strongly advise to AVOID LEOPARD TOURS and THE KRISH GROUP.
FR
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Not trustable
My advice is for you not to trust Manyara Travel Climb Company!
We booked a climb and a safari week with them and no news after the climb. The person took our money and left us in bad trouble. We had to pay again with another company to save our trip. So my advice is really to avoid this dishonest company!