20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Not as informed and lack of communication
Before I paid a deposit I specifically checked through email communication if the safari would be in the order I saw on the safari booking website, i.e., day 1 Lake Naivasha, day 2 Lake Nakuru and days 3-4 at Masai Mara. This was so we would get as close to 2 full days at Masai Mara as possible as I was aware the trip would involve a lot of travelling. I was assured by the agent I communicated with by email it would be in this order.
On day 1 of the tour, when I was picked up, it wasn't until we were almost there and I asked before I was told we were headed to Masai Mara. In the end most of day 1 was spent travelling to Masai Mara and we only spent 2.5 hours on the safari. The very thing I was trying to avoid with my questions! Day 2 was a full day at Masai Mara. To add, the Lodger we stayed at, Jambo Mara, I really liked.
Day 3 was Lake Nakuru (which in the itinerary I was given we were supposed to go to on day 2). The accommodation, the Waterbuck Hotel is not great. Good breakfast but very rundown rooms with too much noise from outside so it's hard to sleep. Plus no fan or air conditioning.
Day 4 was Lake Naivasha and Hell's Gate, which was supposed to be on day 1. The accommodation, Masada hotel, was better than Waterbuck, bit still not very good and bathroom was quite smelly and mine toilet didn't have a toilet seat.
What I liked about the safari:
1. I enjoyed the actual safari itself and seeing all the animals.
2. I liked Jambo Mara Safari Lodge.
What I didnt like:
1. Not correctly informed about the itinerary of the trip, even though I asked.
2. I did a shared safari and everyone was given a different itinerary (i.e., each person was given a different order and some were told we would do a pre-breakfast drive at Masai Mara, which we didnt do). We were all on the safari for a different amount of days so I think the issue was they were trying to accommodate everyone's different schedules. This should have been explained when I asked.
3. The tour guide didn't explain from day to day where we were going and what we would be doing and seemed annoyed when we would ask for information. We were all quite confused from day to day and were never sure what we would be doing.
65+ years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Hugely disappointing
We were constantly down-graded with accommodation, itinerary changed.
Sunsets refused our calls or just didn't respond.
It was a physically & emotionally exhausting safari, projected hours of travel on corrugated tracks vastly underestimated.
Sub-contracted by TourRadar, they cut & pasted our paid for itinerary, under-delivered and caused huge stress to all 7 on our tour.
Don't travel with this company.
ES
50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Mufasa did not reach our expectations of an enjoable and rewarding safari.
In general we felt that Mufasa ones we did the booking, and paid, forgot about us. We had to ask the person in charge of our trip ( Caroline) to send us the name and details of our guide-driver because she hadn't done it and it was friday afternoon and our flight was departing Europe on Sunday. At that moment she told us the rules for Masai Mara had changed and even if we had paid extra to sleep inside the park the last night so as to do an early game drive, that wasn't possible unless we paid one extra entrance ticket. It was too late to cancel the lodge for another outside the park and cheaper. It was very anoying.
On the other hand the guide-driver: Nafthali, was speaking on his mobile very often, even when he was driving uphill and the road was wet!. And when we were watching animals he rarely explained anything, unless we asked heim for information, because he was chatting on the phone or with the whatsapp.
Of course, ones the trip ended, Mufasa did not request a feedback. They were aware of their poor service!!
As a conclussion, Mufasa did not reach our expectations and was not a good value for money.
US
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Unprofessional travel agency
The travel agent I had did not pay attention to details, she got me mixed up with another client which caused delays in payment. Bonfire does not accept credit card payment from foreign travelers, agent also gave me wrong information about Safari itinerary over a phone call, may be that’s the reason why she did not send me an itinerary. I would not recommend Bonfire Adventures to foreigners who live outside of Kenya.
US
65+ years of age | Experience level: first safari
Not reliable - questionable business practices.
If you only read the first paragraph of this review, we would highly suggest you do not book your next vacation with with Sunsets in Africa. Do book your tour through TourRadar and if you are searching for outstanding transportation, consider using Professional Safaris based in Arusha, Tanzania. For reference purposes, our trip was a 15 day safari to Kenya and Tanzania.
Why not use Sunsets in Africa? They are not reliable nor in our opinion completely honest. We just want others to not experience what we did while in Africa. A vacation should be a vacation not an anxiety filled and somewhat intimidating experience. Let me explain.
The good: Kenya and Tanzania are truly special and even though our original tour operator was on the edge of awful, the countries themselves were wonderful. We loved the people, the scenery and the animals we encountered. And the hotels in Kenya booked by Sunsets in Africa were the ones we asked for and were paid for prior to our arrival in Kenya. We are not sure about the hotels in Tanzania because we did not use them. More information below.
The Bad: We arrived and thankfully our hotel provided us with transportation to our lodge. However, once we were picked up by our safari driver in Kenya, we found out a couple days into our vacation that his company (Sunsets in Africa subcontracts out the transportation) had not been paid for our transportation and at one point our driver told us his manager said to just leave us in the Maasai Mara. Whether or not this was true is unknown. A call to Sunsets in Africa was answered by Gladys who said the transportation company can't do that and she would take care of the issue. Yea right. She texted me to not worry everything was fine. The next day or two we were told that Sunsets in Africa had not paid anything and more than more than 30 calls on WhatsApp to both Dexter and Gladys, co-owners of Sunsets in Africa, were ignored. Dexter was available but choose not to answer. At this point, we felt as if we were being mislead by everyone including the transportation companies in Kenya, Tanzania and Sunsets in Africa. I guess the breaking point was when I read a message sent by Dexter to the owner of the transportation company in Tanzania saying that I had agreed to pay for the transportation in both Kenya and Tanzania. I wrote to Dexter and told him I never agreed to this and why would I because I had already paid for transportation! He never reached out to me to discuss this and frankly, there was no way I was going to pay twice even if he promised to pay me back. At that point, I reached out to our planned transportation company in Tanzania and I asked if they were canceling our tour. Response, "I'm not canceling your trip. Just need some money to facilitate your program". I asked why he couldn't wait to be paid by Sunset's in Africa? Didn't he trust the company to pay him? His answer was, "I really trust him but I have no cash to facilitate your program". Doesn't this feel like a shakedown? We had it at that point. Between the two transportation companies, they wanted me to send them ~$4700. Can you imagine?
The Solution: Thankfully, we did a bit of research and realized we had originally paid for our trip through TourRadar. A quick call and TourRadar put in motion changes. They paid for the outstanding transportation bill in Kenya, they rebooked all our remaining hotels and booked a new transportation company (Professional Safaris). Thanks to Kristina at TourRadar, the rest of our trip was outstanding! And I can't say enough about Gerald our driver, Medcine owner of Professional Safaris in Tanzania and TourRadar who saved our vacation. These companies are outstanding and more importantly, honest. We would highly recommend both organizations and especially Gerald!!
Finally: Just so you think this just happened to us, we met another group that used Sunsets in Africa and they too experienced the same issues. Unfortunately, they ended up paying for all the unpaid transportation in both Kenya and Tanzania. I'm not sure if they ended up paying for their hotels as well. Their only recourse to file a report at the police station in Nairobi, and hope their travel insurance covered the charges or credit card reversing the charges. Sad. We heard of a third group as well but this can be construed as hearsay.
I know this review is long and it does not even cover all the issues we experienced before and during our trip. Do yourself a favor. Find a reputable company that pays their subcontractors before you arrive!
AE
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Misleading and Bad Organisation
My experience of Mousebird Safaris is not great. I booked a shared - mid range safari package - 4 nights 5 days. After sending the deposit "to secure the accommodation" a month prior to the trip - I did not hear back from the company until I arrived in Arusha. Gift came to my home to collect the rest of the payment the night before being picked up by Samuel our driver the next morning. The other 5 in the vehicle I would find out later were on different itineraries. After the first day I was told my accommodation had changed as the other people were in different m and mine was too far away. I was put in a different vehicle at the gate of the first Park to be given a lift to the first nights accommodation. Next morning I was picked up and we made our way to Serengeti. I was again told that ,y accommodation for night 2 was again different to what I had booked due to the distances between the groups' accommodation. Night 3 was in the camp I had booked. However day 4 in Ngorongoro Crater was cut short and we were heading out of the park at noon as the rest of the group were on 3 night 4 day itineraries and were due back in Arusha (with a family of 3 flying from JRO that evening ) So I lost 1/2 a day of Safari ( not to mention the hours lost driving around on a morning to the other accommodations. ) The final night was in my booked lodge as advertised and Gift came to the Lodge with another driver for my last day in Manyara.
On return to Arusha I informed Gift about my displeasure at losing so much time - especially in Ngorongoro as it was wonderful there. No attempt to reimburse me was made for the lost time and changes to accommodation.
A hugely disappointing experience as it was my first time on Safari and first time in Africa.
The time in the vehicle with Samuel ( the driver ) and the other travellers was great and we saw lots of wildlife - but the whole experience was affected by the poor organisation.
US
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Beware of contract language!
My family’s experience with Go Touch Down for our “safari tour” was a complete disaster. I would absolutely NEVER book with them again, even if offered a trip at a fraction of the cost. They are able to lean heavily on clauses in their stock contract that allow them to entirely modify their itinerary.
Taken directly from the contract: “Go Touch Down shall not be responsible or held liable to secure the originally intended vacation package, which in many cases may not be available or its procurement may not be practicable due to forces of nature, market factors, or other related reasons” and “…when deemed necessary in its sole discretion reserves the right to: (1) cancel any itinerary or any part of it for any reason; (2) make any alterations to the itinerary (including, but not limited to, alterations or substitutions of hotels).”
In other words, they can promise WHATEVER they want and then dump you into whatever itinerary they come up with! I stupidly assumed this was boilerplate language that we’d have no choice but to agree to in order to sign up for any safari. But even if it is common contract language, most of us have to trust that tour companies wouldn’t dare abuse it; our experience with Go Touch Down revealed that this is not a company worthy of our trust.
My story is a long one, but here is the gist of key issues (though there were many more, too numerous to cover in detail). Go Touch Down closed one of our two safari lodges six months before our trip. They did not reveal this to me, but I instead discovered it on my own…even as I was having multiple phone conversations with our agent (the owner’s wife) about our stay at that very lodge because I was trying to make some arrival arrangements. Of note, Go Touch Down manages the lodges they use on their South African tours, so they knew of the closure, and I found they’d actually removed this lodge from a prominent corporate branding image months prior. When I asked our agent about the lodge closure, she became extremely rude and combative. Go Touch Down then used contract language to prevent us from getting a refund even though this was going to cut the safari portion of our trip in half and dump us at a freezing cold trout fishing timeshare they manage instead (this was the unfortunate fate for months of guests; we got last-minute lucky when they opened a new lodge just before our arrival and spared us the fish pond).
While we may have gotten a safari in the end (after so much grief and stress), it wasn’t the one we were sold. The number one reason I chose this tour had been the promise of a maximum of six people on game drives. In fact, the brief Go Town Down self-written bio on social media is “small group tours of max 6 people.” Upon arrival, we discovered that we would have ten people on our game drives – every seat in the truck filled, including the one up with the driver. Those squished into the middle seats could barely see anything, especially since nearly all of our drives were in covered-top vehicles and some fellow passengers were quite tall. Even the most barebones budget safari packages generally guarantee an outside seat. One high-level staff member brought up specifically how unacceptable this was and explained that many game drive vehicles no longer even have middle seats and instead place storage compartments down the middle! (I’m intentionally leaving out specific details like staff titles and names because I don’t want any of these wonderful people to get in trouble – we encountered so many who were very candid with us about their extreme frustration with Go Touch Down, and it is a testament to their own professionalism that they did not take out this frustration on their guests.) The entirety of our Morubisi stay was packed in like this, as was our full day in Kruger (even though in the latter case, we were assured the day prior that we would all ride together to Kruger and that a second game drive vehicle would be waiting to collect half of us for the smaller tour we’d been promised, but this didn’t actually happen).
Once again, Go Touch Down chose to lean heavily on contract language as an excuse. We certainly were not the only ones on our tour who were extremely upset, as many had chosen Go Touch Down for the six-person cap just as we had. One fellow traveler then astutely observed that the final documents we received the week of departure had been tweaked to state that any “outsourced” activities, including game drives, may have more than six people. First of all, Go Touch Down runs the game lodges, so the drives are hardly “outsourced.” Furthermore, this left only the transport from the airport and between lodges as what they’d deem non-outsourced. Who cares how many people we ride from the airport to the hotel with, it’s the game drives where that actually matters!
There were numerous other key advertised features of the tour that never came to fruition. For example, there was supposed to be a cultural music performance that never happened. There was also supposed to be a walking safari, but this was never offered. In addition, we were supposed to traverse the Panorama Route, a famous region of South Africa, when we were going to travel from Humala to Tshukudu. With the closure of Humala, we still faced a six-hour drive (not including a lunch stop), but we lost the morning game drive that was supposed to happen on that day and traveled a rather dull route to Tshukudu without scenic stops. And when we learned we’d be going to Morubisi, we were told of a wide variety of optional activities to choose from, such as a river cruise, to fill the long period between morning and evening game drives. But when we asked about this on site, we were told that only the reserve owner could drive the boat, and he wasn’t available to do so. In the end, there were no activities offered to fill the mid-day hours at Morubisi. Lodge staff were very apologetic and told us that Go Touch Down had frequently shifted financial priorities and was in the process of opening multiple new lodges which was causing not-atypical disruptions that were frustrating for them as well.
To be clear, this review is about Go Touch Down and why I would never recommend booking with them. The staff at the properties were almost uniformly lovely, and they were very candid about their own hatred of Go Touch Down management and about how guests constantly arrive having been entirely misled and taken advantage of. “They only know hotels” said one frustrated high-level staff member who was doing everything possible to give guests the safari experience they thought they’d purchased in the context of a management tour agency that seemed to think we were there for fancy rooms and meals that they attempted to spin as “upgrades.” So if your goal is to book an African safari, I would say this is NOT the company with which to do so – their contract is written in such a way that they may ultimately decide not to bring you to a safari property after all, and even if they do, it doesn’t have to be the safari you were promised.
South Africa is a lovely place, and there were many wonderful staff, animals, meals, fellow tour members, and hotel amenities that allowed us to make the most of our trip despite its many uncertainties and unkept promises. I have a lot of travel experience and love discovering joy in even the worst of situations. But ultimately what it comes down to is that Go Touch Down is a company that repeatedly made excuses for not delivering what we as clients were sold. Maybe they sometimes pull through, but it doesn’t seem like a risk worth taking when there are so many other options out there. This review has nothing to do with whether I would return to South Africa for a safari or whether the lodges we stayed at were nice. It is instead about warning people that there are thousands of actual SAFARI booking agencies, so I would highly recommend staying away from what was in our experience the unreliable, contract-abusing Go Touch Down when booking something as special as a safari.
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Not a good value
The advertised 10 day itinerary was actually 8.5 days.
If you don't do the optional tours, you'll be alone at camp for 15-20 hours over the trip.
If you do do the optional tours, the price of the trip doubles.
Pressure to tip. Even forced to tip $10pp once.
Bus: It's dirty because it doesn't get deep cleaned. It's dangerous because it's just a plywood shell with plate glass windows all around (good view though). And it broke down so we were stranded by the highway.
Guide: It felt like the tour guide and/or operator were going from kickback to kickback.
Cook: 3 out of 5 stars. Lunch was nasty sandwiches.
Safari: Incredible. Chobe is an awesome place, and the drivers (3rd party) are good at what they do.
Africa: Great experience, don't let ATC jeopardize it.
US
65+ years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Great guides… bait and switch accommodations
Great guides, but bait and switch on accommodations which were purchased six months prior to departure but changed at two weeks before travel. Reason we booked with Sunset in Africa tour company was the itinerary which included a two night stay in Ngorngoro Crater. In actuality we only had a four hour game drive through the park and they booked our stay 3 1/2 hours away. The venue there was a pleasant small hotel, but no electricity after 9pm.
Last night of our tour was listed on their itinerary as Tarangiere Park Sopa Lodge but turned out to be another small venue in Arusha (biggest city in Tanzania). Did not receive what we signed up and paid for. Be careful about this company. I was deceived and would not recommend them.
IT
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Disappointing.
We booked the safati two nights and three days.
Upon arrival in the morning at their offices they were disorganised, they left us stationary for an hour and a half inside the investigating judge while all the other investigating judges had already left. To avoid arriving too late for the first game, the guide suggests that we stop for lunch halfway, a pity that it was at our expense when instead it was included in the price in the booking.
During the booking phase, I specify that I want an Italian-speaking guide, they confirm availability for me. The guide was English, the emails sent to Karibu that didn't resolve the situation were useless (among other things, they asked us to send them THEIR confirmation of the Italian guide, absurd).
On the third day in the description there was to be a game before breakfast and one after breakfast. At the end of the second day, having arrived at the tented camp, the guide informs us that there would be no game on the third day because the second day had been long enough so the hours on safari were fulfilled. However, I paid for something else and that I was told at the last minute without a reply, without knowing that I would no longer be in the savannah, was very incorrect. They deprived us of two games that we had paid for!
Only positive note, the guide was very good, kind but I would NEVER recommend this company. Incorrect!