DK
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Fantastic experience, but a horrible, bumpy ride.
AbsoluteHolidaySafari offers safari trips where you get a lot of value for your money. We chose a 3 day safari in Maasai Mara, and really looked forward to it. We were picked up at the airport and driven to our hotel on our first day in Nairobi, which saved us a lot of hassle finding taxis at the airport. They also picked us up on the first day from the safari and to the office where we met up with the others we were sharing a car with.
I was expecting like a range rover safari van, but when the trip is as cheap as ours was (300$ pr. pax) we had to settle for a Toyota van with 9 seats. And trust me, the trip to Maasai Mara and during our safari was horrible. If I could choose again, I would spend a little more money to get a better car, but we made the best out of it.
The safari in general was amazing!! We had Richard as our driver, and he's sort of the veteran of all drivers. He really gave us a nice experience and we got to see so many animals. We saw cheetahs 2 times, which we learned was very rare, and a lot of lions, elephants and other animals. You really get to see all the animals you want to on this trip, and if you're going on a safari to see animals and not for luxury, I would highly recommend this trip.
The beds are hard, the facilities are on a low standard, but not too bad. The food was okay, but as others have written here, there can be quite long gaps between every meal, so you should bring some snacks. And remember to bring water, you only get 1 litre per day, which is NOT enough...
We really enjoyed our trip and got to know some really nice people during our stay at the camp. If it's your first time on safari, this is a very nice tour that is affordable, where you still get to see so many animals.
HK
50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Wonderful and interesting 8-days safari and 5-days Mt. Kilimanjaro mountain trekking
Safari - thanks to our wonderful driver and chef! Wonderful and interesting people. Driver (he was also the guide) is good at finding the best spots for photo-shooting. He has good eyes and see animals far away and hence drove to the best spots for watching. Chef gavve us a lot of pleasant surprises in delicious food, especially made a birthday cake for one of our members during the safari trip and it was afreat surprise to her as well as others taking dinner in the canteen of the campsite. Will miss them.
Mountain trekking - Great crew of 9 members to serve us (two). Without the encouragement by our two great mountain guides, we would not be able to make it to the summit! Just one minor comment, for food and especially for our Chinese/asians, it might be nice (to have a better appetite in high attitude) to have some sort of congee or soup noodles for our meal as it is easier to swallow and digest. Anyway, it's our fault not telling our great chef about this earlier for them to prepare the materials before the trekking.
Overall : Mr. Hamad, the responsible person of Face of Africa Adventures is a very responsible man and he visited the campsites several time to make sure that we were satisfied with the service. He also went with us to the start point of our trekking and met us at the gate when we finished the trekking. We whole-heartedly thanked him for his service. Overall, Tanzania is a loverly country, with great places to visit. You can see all that you want to see in the safari (the Big Five) and reach the top of Africa (almost exhausted)! At least once in a lifetime experience.
TN
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
A great tour and a great guide
The tour was great, Masai Mara was everything we expected it to be and more: Wildebeest, Antelopes, Cheetah, Leopards, Hippos, Elephants, Lion cubs, sunrise over the hills... Lake Nakuru was also lovely.
Gibson, our guide and driver was perfect
50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Fulfilled our requests to the letter and even had great suggestions for better animal viewing venues
All the venues had great accommodation - dietary requirements were not past on to the venues and only one mix up with the room booking in four venues. Otherwise all safari sites exceeded our expectations with respect to viewing animals. Some very memorable camera moments that will last a lifetime including a coalition of male lions on a walking safari. Sleeping under the stars and the walking safari were definitely the highlights. We took the option to bus between one of the venues and it turned out to be the best decision ever with only cheetah sighting for the whole trip. Motswari and Rhino Walking Safari's were our choices and The Hide as a suggestion from Wild Africa Travel - a great place to get up 'really' close to animals.
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
A very efficient & well organised company to deal with
We booked the 7 Day Namibian Odyssey and overall were really very happy with the holiday. The communications & service and the information provided before leaving were all excellent and allowed us to feel very confident and excited for the holiday to come, and everything ran as was scheduled.
The guide, Augustine, was excellent in many ways: very informative, polite, helpful with individuals needs, and we felt relaxed in his company.
The accommodation was very good overall with some being excellent, however Etosha Safari Camp, whilst interesting in many ways, was let down by very poor accommodation as the rooms were very poorly equipped, the shower did not work & the windows creaked all night. Sadly we felt that this was below the standard of accommodation we expected for this holiday. I would have given a 5* rating if it had not been for this.
The itinerary was well thought through and we had many excellent experiences.
I would suggest that half way through the tour you may consider letting your guests have a couple of hours more free time to 'catch-up' so to speak as with so much to see and do, and so much travelling, we were quite tired at the end and pleased we had booked a couple of days in Cape Town before we flew back to the UK.
QA
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
We got what we expected and a great deal more with Mercury Zanzibar safar limited
Expertise to make this a great Safari at -Tarangire-Lake Manyara-Ngorongoro. Good food and everything taken care off.The safari was at all really good! .. We are very pleased with Mercury Zanzibar Safari
65+ years of age | Experience level: first safari
Incredible
The first four and a half days of the camping safari were full of unique experiences being up close to the wild life that abounds in Northern Botswana. The guide, Rass and the cook were both very professional and experienced. Rass made the safari very rewarding with his intimeny knowledge of the animals and their behavior. This was especially valuabe on the third night when thre Lions came within 20 metres of our camp, chasing an Impala. Rass controlled the situation very well by giving clear instructions to all of the people on the Safari and maintaining our safety.
The other two and a half days were not so rewarding, with little wild life to see and long distances to travel.
IT
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Brilliant Safari Experience
Me and two friends of mine booked the safari in May 2016 for a 4 days/three nights tour. Richard was super nice and he organized for us a fantastic tour. Our Driver Stanlay was super nice and professional. The food during the journay was very good! We were able to see all the animals we were supposed to see during the tour. Nothing has gone wrong and everything was excellent!
AE
50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Great way to see all animals up and close!!
What a wonderful experience. We went on a camping safari to get the best exposure we could get. It worked. Camping sites, food, transportation were all great. Evelyne was really good in organizing everything for us. Thank you!
The memory of waking up surrounded by zebras in our campsite will stay with me forever. Thanks!!
SK
Safari Kenya - Tanzania
By the end of June I travelled for 11 days with Abolute Holiday Safaris to Kenya and Tanzania. First half - 6 days in Kenya was absolutely amazing. We had a great guide, he told us that his name in Swahili means animal and we should call him John (Onejohnny?). He knew very interesting facts about all that we saw, he knew every animal, he knew a lot about the culture and politics of Kenya and he could find the animals very quickly. We had a lot of interesting experience during the journey. Unfortunately, after the end of the Kenya tour, the problems began. First, the trasfer to the Tansania border in the end turned up to be a public transport transfer. I spent several hours in a bus full of noisy kids and ill people travelling with a lot of stuff. I walked alone the Tansania border and I was met by an agent in the bus station in Arusha. He drove me to the hotel in Arusha - in this matter everything worked OK. In the morning our 5-day tour in Tansania started. The conditions of the accomodation and most of all the guide were not great at all. His name was Good Luck. As a driver, he did a good job. But as a guide it was a total disaster. He was arrogant and lazy. He did not speak about almost anything at all. Because of him every day of our tour was destroyed for me. This is the reason why I gave four stars - five stars and a + for Kenya, and three stars and a minus for Tansania. Tours offered by Absolute Holidays Safari in Kenya are amazing. But they should pay more attention to choosing their partners in other countries.