CH
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Overpriced dishonesty, don't go with them!
Unfortunately, can't recommend this company. Their offer and price doesn't reflect the actual services and the moment you have a complaint they stop responding. We booked a group mid-range safari but everyone else in the group booked a budget one, so we paid double (or triple?) and got the same service but accommodation. The jeep was far from luxury and they promised a goup of 6 ppl but ended up cramming 8 people in the small jeep most of the time. We also paid for 2 entries to Masai Mara but were taken once, while everyone else in our group went on the extra game drive and we were not told about this (!!!). The only positives were the accommodation and the driver - he was great and we managed to see plenty of animals.
US
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Disappointing
Short story, animals were good everything else was not, I would NOT recommend Azas Safari.
Long story.
I had high (honestly too high) expectations, and this trip left me lacking in all areas.
I did a lot of research and narrowed it down to a few options. Prisca was very friendly and quick to respond via WhatsApp, she sent us a very professional quote and was willing to customize (better hotels, different activates, charge more money) our 10-day Ugandan safari. However, communication decrease as we got closer to our trip and we only stayed in 1 of 6 of the original agreed upon hotels, the other 5 hotels changed 2 or 3 times each from our agreement till on our trip. The hotel pictures in the agreement looked very nice and I googled every hotel we were supposed to stay at and was excited, but most of what we got was disappointing. The hotels are important because in general the nicer the hotel more options and better food. Almost all of your meals will be at your hotels.
Our guide Christopher had a good eye for spotting wildlife and had substantial animal knowledge, he lacked customer service skills and communication skills. He set the bar for the trip by arriving 1.5 hours late to pick us up on day one, with no fuel or drinking water in the vehicle. The vehicle was an older Toyota land cruiser. Nicer than a lot of the other vehicles we saw but not great and not the one in picture from Prisca. We got to experience 3 minor break downs and 2 very minor fender benders. We had problem with one of the front hubs, going up a hill overheated? and problems with the ignition, so we got to push start the vehicle twice. My shoulder seatbelt on the back passenger side did not work correctly, none of the gauges worked and the vehicle had no air-conditioning.
Half the time it felt like Christopher was on a trip and we were just riding in the back seat. Should have been him taking us on our dream trip. He never asked us what we wanted to do. We had to pry the daily plan out of him. He would stop and get a snack for himself but not offer us or information is that lunch is still 2 plus hours away and we might want to buy our own snack. Our agreement said meal plan “Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner drinking water, non-alcoholic drinks”. We ended up buying one of our lunches and only water in the safari vehicle was included, we had to always pay for water and soda at meals. (Honestly drinks were cheap but not what was agreed to).
My wife and I agree we would NOT go on another trip is Azas. I don’t know if the other companies are better or if this is the standard of service in Uganda???
CH
65+ years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
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.
DE
50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Very mixed experience with a lot of downsides
It took me very long to write this review, but I think it´s just fair not to write only positive reviews which is of course much nicer. But we would like to let others know what we have experienced. We have been many times to Africa on all kind of safaris from budget to high-end luxury, but never left with this unhappy feeling. So lets start...
I found kingfisher safaris on this website announcing a "private" mobile camping safari operating in Botsuana. Meanwhile they changed the announcement in "shared", thats what we ended up but expecting a private safari . I still have got a screen shot of the original advertisement to proof it.
But already the beginning was difficult. We were picked up late, Pilot arrived than eventually in a hurry, the car packed up with food, equipment up to the roof etc. There was no excuse. Instead he told us, that due to a late arrival of the trip the day before he had to pack new. At this time we were still fine. But as he stopped a little later at the main road offloading us with two chairs and a cooler box, he drove quickly away. My bag with everything like passports, money was still at the backseat and could have fallen off easily from the safari vehicle. We had no idea how long it would take and where he drove to. This was the first time I felt very unhappy. The rest I will write in keywords.
First the positive aspects:
- The staff was extremely nice and welcoming. Pauline the chef did a wonderful job. Elena the host, was such a warmly and attentive person and Collin did everything that the campsite was in a perfect condition.
-The locations of the campsites were magical.
-All the equipment was good.
- Our unexpected co-travelers turned out to be very lovely persons and we appreciated their company a lot.
Now the negative aspects:
- Guiding was less than mediocre. (here I have to be more detailed) I'm pretty sure that Pilot knows his stuff, but didn't show it to us. At Khwai Privat Concession he was only at the radio and driving us from sighting to sighting which others told him. He never was reading any animal tracks, always the windows closed never listening to alarm calls etc. At Moremi as there were just a few vehicles he had to work a bit harder. We wished he would have explained us more about the unique ecosystem of the Okavango Delta and all the connections between fauna and flora. Pilot almost never stoped for birds, mangooses etc. We felt racing from lion sighting to lion sighting, but none of us four was so extremely interested in them. Once I asked Pilot to stop at the zebras which have been in a wonderful light (we are photographers) but instead he was driving to the next lions. He never really attended to our requests. Maybe the worst was, that he was teasing animals , which is an absolutely unethical behavior. For example he provoked a male hippo to attack the car several times. Another example was playing hyena calls from the mobile to a lion family with tiny cubs.
- Logistic is not the strong side of Pilot. We tried to help and let him know before what kind of beverages we like to avoid buying useless drinks. Didn't work. The first evening we were offered an already open bottle of Merlot and I did write before that the only the wine we don't like is Merlot. After half of the time he run out of gin, and to mention we are not heavy drinkers. In the end no tonic water, no Coca Cola, no white wine, no red wine..... and no excuse.
- Driving style of Pilot was fast, sometimes reckless. We had to use the seatbelts first time on a safari. Pilot general did not respond well to criticism or suggestions. In this case when we asked to drive more carefully, he reacted grumpy and kept driving almost the whole afternoon without stopping and talking to us.
Summarising this was unfortunately our worst safari experience so far even though the magical nature of Botsuana and the wonderful staff of Pilot were hard to beat.
US
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Great animals everything else is ehh
Uganda is a large poor country, The national parts have lots and lots of animals. Customer service, food, hotels, roads, are all poor. Ugandan people are very friendly.
NL
65+ years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Disappointing experience
We booked a 2 day safari tour and stayed at Ivory Tree Lodge. The rooms, food and open game drives provided by the lodge were excellent. The transfers from Johannesburg provided by MoAfrika Tours did not meet our expectations. Although we advised we would be travelling with 4 suitcases, no provisions had been made on the outbound transfer so the suitcases needed to be stacked in the aisle. The outbound transfer was a disgrace. Just before checking out of the lodge we received an email, offering us a choice between being picked up at the arranged time 11:30 AM) and spending time in Pilanesberg on a closed game drive. Or spending time in the lodge and being picked up at 2:00 PM. We chose the first option but ended up spending 3 hours in the reception area for our transfer. The people at MoAfrika Tours kept telling us they did not know why the driver did not pick us up but he would be there within 10 minutes. He arrived a little before 2 PM and was met by a group of angry people (7 in total) who had been waiting since 11 AM. And 2 people who had chosen the second option, to be picked up at 2. The driver told us that the people of MoAfrica were well aware that he would not be able to pick us up before 2PM as he was in the park woth another group of people. So obviously it had been the intention of MoAfrika from the start to pick us up at 2. They just were not honest about the situation and kept us waiting for 3 hours without food as they had us believe the drivers would be there any minute. To make things worse, the driver was supposed to wait until 3 PM to pick up 3 more people. After we refused to wait any longer (5 of us had flights to catch), he decided to leave the other 3 behind and drove us to the airport. The driver was not to blame for this mess up, solely the people at MoAfrika office.
After returning home, we sent a complaint to MoAfrika, but we have not received a reply or apologies.
I would not recommend using MoAfrika Tours, just book the lodge yourself, nearly every lodge and hotel offers transfers. No need to book through MoAfrika or any other operator.
DE
under20 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Review about Lake Manyara National Park by Sina Wiedemann
Thick bushes where the animals can easily hide, so you don’t see them much:(
PT
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Poor safari
Unfurtunetly we're going to have to complain and write a bad review about this safari. The organization was terrible, they came to pick us up at 04:50 and the flight was only at 08:45, it was horrible to wait all that time at the airport. then them sold us a private safari and that didn't happen, 2 more people came in our jeep who sat down first so we couldn't even go the 4 together, there were 2 behind and 2 in front . Them assured me that the safari had lions and we didn't see them, and besides the guides said that lions were rarely seen. Of all the jeeps, the ones on your tour are the worst and oldest, even ours broke down in the middle and we had to stand still waiting for them to pick us up. the food for lunch was terrible, there weren't even glasses, we have to drink from the bottle.
MX
65+ years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Not a good service.
I had bad experience with African Breeze safaris in Kenya. First. I paid part of the tour in cash in Nairobi, but they did not wanted to accept some USD bills issued before an specific year. Finally they accept it but only after they charged me an extra amount. Second. In part of the tour they put an extra person in the vehicle, 8 passengers, instead of 7 as in their brochure. It was very uncomfortable for several of us and we almost had a fight! Third. They changed two times my hotels during safaris, one of them of lower quality. In general not a good service.