SG
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Inattentive to details and lack of commitment to deliver
We booked a total of 11d 10n trip with MOAFRIKA.
Overall experience was acceptable but there are a lot of rooms for improvement in terms of service level to suffice the basic expectation of a customer.
communication, commitment, attentiveness and etc.
1) booked on full day Soweto tour 4 months ago but was informed 1 day before the tour that apartheid museum is closed on Tuesday. Ended up not able to visit the museum. Was told that we could try make up for it on other days after the safari but no follow up from MOAFRIKA at all. The opening of the museum should have been known to any local tour operator. How could this even possibility overlooked?
2) for our trip to green field lodge, MOAFRIKA sublet us on other transport company which had 4 more other stops to drop off from south before us at north. Our overall transport duration from joburg airport to Greenfire gate took us approx. 10hours. 0700 - 1700hrs. This leaded us to miss our afternoon game drive at 1530hrs. The driver/ MOAFRIKA should already know that this route the van is taking will not get us to Greenfire in time. This could be avoided if driver could drop us first at north before routing down south to drop others.
The transfer from Greenfire gate to Greenfire lodge takes 45mins. MOAFRIKA should have known and find us a transport to bring us there within 7hours which means it would be a direct transfer in order for us to reach the gate by 1400HRS to be transferred into Greenfire lodge, checked in and ready for the game drive.
I had to personally inform MOAFRIKA that we are not going to make it in time and all I get was ok, I will inform the lodge. No effort to try on compensating this loss caused by their miss planning.
3) photos of the room at tremisan game lodge safari presented to us in quotation is misleading. We were allocated a small room as compared to the one we were presented when receiving the quotation. Feed-backed to MOAFRIKA and was informed that the receptionist will try to make adjustment for us. Went to the receptionist to follow up on next morning. Disappointed to hear: “at the moment, we are very full. I’ll try my best to change the room but no promise. All my guest booked a year in advance. If you have specific room, you need to let us know. “
Well, all we are asking is only what we have been offered before and nothing more. But she sounded that it’s our fault and we should be shortchanged due to her being full.
4) there is no proactiveness from MOAFRIKA to share driver/ PIC contact detail 1 day prior to any trip. I had to follow up on my own and at times I had to wait for them to get back.
IE
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Overpriced for what you get
TLDR: Overpriced for what you get.
Starting with the good part, company was very accomodating since our flight got cancelled and we could change our safari from 4 to 3 days and all people working there were very nice.
Now, it's horribly overpriced given the quality of the accomodation and food received. Tremisana lodge is old, not very well maintained and just clean enough. The food was very dissapointing, one of us was vegetarian and the options given were "well, you just don't eat the meat, eat everything else", that's by all means not catering for vegetarians. We were lucky we had some food with us because portions were quite small, also lunch not included in the package.
Safari itself is ok but streamlined for tourists, there's an adjacent private reserve were they take you twice to see some lions. It's basically a big private zoo but not at all a safari experience. The full day in Kruger park is more real, nice 4x4 jeeps to travel around and we got to see some animals but the fact that these vehicles travel alone and without radio leaves you to your own luck finding animals (in other safaris cars would talk to each other if they see something).
Given South Africa prices, ~1200 EURO for 2 nights accomodation and a bit of safari this is hugely overpriced.
US
65+ years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Dishonest
The tour was great. However the agent I worked with from corporate office kept telling me one thing and changing it where I paid more and received less. She even changed the contract of what I signed. I was promised three meals plus much more and did not receive it. I have my original contract and all of our emails and conversations. BUYER BEWARE--DISHONEST. The properies in Capetown were nice but in need of repair. Stillness Manor: Broken mirrors, issues with water, mold around showers, and load share
issues every day (no lanterns or emergency lamps). Shark Bay was nice. Belle Maroc was a nice location. The people on site And the driver were great. Please make sure you get everything in writing from them and then DO NOT SIGN ANY NEW ADDENDUMS, CANCEL IF YOU MUST TO SAVE BEING SCAMMED, BUT DO NOT SIGN ANYTHING AFTER THE INITUAL CONTRACT. The Victoria Falls portion was great!
CA
65+ years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
The tour operator inaccurately advertises type of open vehicle used from Bakubung lodge.
All was acceptable except for the most important aspect of a safari experience and that is the safari vehicke used for open vehicle drives from Bakubung Lodge. This lodge only uses 22 seater monster trucks, and babies are also allowed on the vehicle. It is impossible to communicate with the guide due to space and diesel engine unless you are one of two people sitting directly behind guide. The guide stopped to speak only when he or she was planning to speak so there is no ongoing conversation to learn and ask questions. This was a very disappointing experience. Just be aware that this particular lodge uses these types of trucks, and I have confirmed this with the lodge administration itself as the tour operator said otherwise.
FR
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Sad safari
Karibu Safaris it's a one-time agency.
Unfortunately we were very disappointed with the safari especially from the guide who was more a driver.
No communication with him except answering yes or no questions.
We were not immersed in the safari with the guide.
We were able to see lions by chance but staying juste 2 minutes juste toi take some pictures.
We couldn't enjoy this moment.
We were embarrassée to Ask each Time toi get Closer to thé animals because he didn't do it naturally.
We chose a private safari 2 days 1 night.
We arrived on the first day at 12:30 at the lodge for lunch and we left only around 3 pm to start the safari.
We would have liked to leave eaelier to enjoy more instead of waiting 2h in the lodge.
The next day we saw very very few animals because we went through the same places as the day before moving away.
We spoke with other travellers who had the opportunité to see from the 1st day to see a lot animals including lepopard crocodiles a lot of lions etc.. They were surprises that WE didn't see all this on the first day.
In conclusion, we have not discovered the Masaï Mara as it's legend says and the people who describe it this is a huge disappointment because we leave with a taste of unfinished.
FR
50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
bad and very expensive
I'm not about to set foot in Zanzibar again it's very expensive the reception is bad he only thinks of one thing and that is to ask you for a credit card and tips the service is not up to par people are ungrateful and the organizers useless
US
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
11 day Kenya-Tanzania Safari, Bad accommodations in Arusha, truck broke down twice in Tanzania
I had an 11 day tour of Kenya and Tanzania with luxury accommodations. Before I left for Africa, I really had a good communication with Susan/Suzy, she answers questions all the time thru WhatsApp, it's when I arrived in Africa when everything starts to become bad, when I got there, she changed some of my accommodations, the accommodations in the national parks were amazing, I chose the luxury accommodations and they were indeed nice! But my accommodations in Arusha were very bad, she put me in bad places that have dirty rooms, slow shower pressure and stinky rooms! Also, our truck that we used in Tanzania broke down twice, one day we have to spend a few hours in a junk shop in the middle of Serengeti to have the tires fixed then the following day this truck broke down again and we have to hitch a ride with another tour group to go back to Arusha! She booked us thru 7 wonders in Tanzania, I guess this safari company in Tanzania is not reliable! Also in Kenya, they used a van that was converted with a roof that can be lifted during game drives, its not those 4x4 safari trucks! The bad thing about this is it's very bumpy during game drives and roads in Kenya and Tanzania are not paved and very dusty! I just would like to point out that the drivers I had were amazing, Anthony in Kenya and Linus in Tanzania were both nice and they can easily spot animals even if they're very far from the vehicle. Overall, I enjoyed this trip I was able to see the big 5 and I would still do it again but I would probably choose another African countries next time and if I have to be back in Kenya or Tanzania then I'll choose a different tour operator next time
20-35 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Worst ever experience
As expats in Kenya, we have taken many safari trips, and the recent one to Masai Mara with Lenchada was unfortunately our worst ever experience. We chose this company out of their overwhelmingly good reviews on safaribookings.com. That probably means that most of their drivers are excellent. But our driver, named Tony, was an exception by a large margin.
Tony clearly hates his job and was cold and rude to us throughout the trip. Every time we met at the beginning of a game drive, he never greeted us and only responded to our greeting with a node. He never helped with our luggage either. During game drives, he never asked us or even notified us before starting the vehicle after a stop, never caring if we wanted to stay for longer. In several cases this interrupted our ongoing photography of animals, and sometimes even worse—the abrupt move of the vehicle on the bumpy road of Masai Mara caused us to fall on the seat. All three of us hit our knees on the armrest of the seats for a few times, and we all got bruises. Having paid a little more to take a private tour rather than a shared one, we expected that we could customize the game drives to a reasonable extent. When we tried to communicate with him about our preferences in animal viewing, however, Tony responded impatiently with cold words such as “You have to be patient,” “I have to follow instructions from the radio.”
And his words about following the radio turned out to be a lie, because his vehicle was not equipped with a radio! A radio is important for any safari trip, and especially for Masai Mara, since the natural reserve is simply too large. Even during the migration season, most part of Masai Mara at any given time would still be empty, and without a radio, on which dozens of drivers share their findings real-time, you will very likely end up not finding anything interesting for a whole hour. Two of the three of us fell asleep for around twenty to thirty minutes during the game drive. In the past we have taken safari trips in less renowned destinations and during low seasons, but the experiences have never been so boring for us that we fell asleep. It may be unbelievable that this happened in Masai Mara during the migration season, but when you don’t see any noteworthy animal for dozens of minutes it would be hard to stay awake. We did get to see some big cats, but that was only possible when we luckily encountered another vehicle that had radio, whose driver kindly shared the information, and our vehicle then made a U-turn to go back in the opposite direction for some fifteen minutes to get to the spot. With a radio we would probably have spent thirty minutes less to get there.
When we realized this problem, we contacted Alex, the managing person of Lenchada. Alex was responsive and attentive. He apologized for our experience, clarified that the driver’s practice of not carrying radio to a game drive is intolerable and against the company’s rules, and told us that he will soon make a thorough check on all the vehicles of his company to make sure that they must have radios. For us, however, the only thing he could offer as a remedy was to extend our final game drive by departing the lodge one hour earlier than planned. We appreciated his supportive attitude and accepted the offer, understanding that it was probably already all he could do within his capability. Tony was late, cutting the extended game-drive time from one hour to less than forty minutes. But the length of the trip turned out not a big issue, because during that extended final game drive, we again fell asleep, for the simple reason that the vehicle still didn’t have radio and we still had not much to see most of the time.
Although Tony had no radio, he attempted to cheat us by saying that he had one. It was only during the second day of the trip, when we heard him responding to another driver asking about information on animal spotting, saying in Swahili “Sina redio” (I don’t have a radio) that we realized he had been lying. When we contacted Alex about this concern, Alex hosted a three-way phone call with us and Tony. To our surprise, in the phone call Tony lied to his boss and insisted that he had a radio which he simply turned off because it was noisy. On our way back to Nairobi, Tony even blamed us for telling his boss about the radio issue, and still insisted that he has radio. When we pointed to the antenna holder in the front of his vehicle, where there was no antenna at all, he said that for some vehicles the antenna is in the back. But one only needs to get off the vehicle and look at its back to know that there’s no antenna there either. For so many times, Tony lied through his teeth.
Tony also told us that because of our complaint, he was going to lose his job. Due to his repetitive blatant lies, we would not believe in what he said. But if what he said is indeed true, that would be an indication that Lenchada really cared about their customers and promptly fired this unprofessional, dishonest, and rude employee. Such a person should simply not be allowed to work in this industry.
In other aspects of our trip that are unrelated to the driver, our experience was mostly positive. For example, the lodge was a good balance of quality and price. It is way cheaper than any accommodation inside Masai Mara, yet it’s only a ten-minute drive to the gate. Since their boss Alex is a responsible and honest person, and since there are many good reviews out there, choosing Lenchada for your safari may still be a good idea. But you have to make sure that your driver is not Tony, otherwise all those good reviews will be totally irrelevant to your actual experience.
IT
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
good tour, but poor communication from the tour operator
5 stars to the experience, amazing landscapes and lots of animals
5 stars to Boniface who went to great lengths to show us the best
5 stars to the group, very nice and friendly people, it was a pleasure to stay with them
4 stars to the accomodations, considering the budget it was good
3 stars to the food, it was good, but always the same, and as vegetarian for lunch bag always boiled eggs
2 stars to Okoa, we had to pay 7% more because we paid by card, and no one had warned us that there were additional charges with the card, otherwise we would have paid in cash. The tour is the same with other tour operators, we were staying in the same van, same hotels, all the same, with people who had booked with other tour operators, but maybe with other tour operators we would have saved money.
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
No professionalism
The points given are only for the itinerary. I thoroughly enjoyed the activities planned and the company of fellow travellers who organised themselves and kept themselves in high spirits throughout the trip. The management team lacked the basics of professionalism organisation and customer care. Their ability to handle crisis situations was abysmal given how many obstacles we faced. No mention of complimentary anything or compensation for things going wrong. As a first time client, I was greatly disappointed. I would try them again in a few years when they are more focused and organised because I believe they have great potential.