EC
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
do not perform scheduled tour
chose by rating, not my first safari. feeling that the comments are paid. instead of 3 promised visits to Maasai Mara. only 1, they got underweight back to the hotel, the guide did not hug anything, pulled from the place so that everyone flew around the cabin. people were stuffed into the car like sardines in a jar.
LT
20-35 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Unreliable and defensive service in Coastal Kenya
I wouldn’t recommend this company for the following reasons:
1. The company doesn’t keep its promises. I wanted to book a tour with them, and we agreed I could make a bank transfer. Yet, since it was a public holiday in my country and the tour was just in the next few days, I warned them they might not receive the funds in their account before the tour, so I asked if I could send a bank statement and a screenshot to prove the transaction. They agreed. However, when I transferred the money and sent the statement with a screenshot, they refused to accept the evidence and said they wouldn’t confirm the tour until they received the funds in their account.
2. Their employees are unprofessional and extremely defensive. Whenever I tried to explain to them that they don’t keep their promises (as described above), they were quick to blame me for everything. For example, they said that I “guaranteed” they would receive the funds on time, which never happened and which is why I asked if they accept statements as evidence of payment. The other day, they emailed me, claiming I used offensive language when talking with them over the phone. However, I saw the phone number they said I called for the first time, and I always contacted them using a different number, so apparently, they mixed me with someone else that was using abusive language with them. No apologies were made on their side for making these false statements about me. The only answer I got from them was that I was “wasting their time.”
3. The company’s approach to receiving client payments seems shady. I paid 110.00 USD for a tour by bank transfer, which was successfully processed by my bank and correctly accepted by their bank. However, they reverted my payment without an explanation. This would be fine, but they refunded only 70.00 USD, meaning 40.00 USD was deducted from my account. When I brought this situation to the company’s attention, they refused to accept that they even got my payment, blaming the banks for not transferring the money to their account. However, I contacted both my and their banks, and both banks confirmed that Travel Shore Africa did receive my money but decided to return it partially without providing any explanation.
All in all, my experience in Mombasa could have been better if I hadn’t contacted Travel Shore Africa. All I got from them was empty promises, disrespect, and lost money.
US
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
BEWARE OF THIS SCAMMER/CON ARTIST! Stole < $10K from US tourists
BEWARE OF THIS SCAMMER/CON ARTIST! If you come across Splendor Holidays and the owner Lucy Njeri- RUN. We made a mistake of trusting her partner Glory with Glorious Tanzania, who my best friend in the states has known for a decade. Glory was only able to provide services for TZ, so she referred me to her “amazing partner” in Kenya. We started planning this trip back in May of 2022.
At first Lucy was very responsive, the price was fair, and the itinerary seemed decent. Our entire trip was planned around the Giraffe Manor in Nairobi. She promised us that she got us a slot on June 5, 2023. We also requested a stay at Mahali Mzuri and she confirmed the dates were free. She confirmed that she had already booked these, and she asked for 50% deposit, which we sent. I sent the funds for a group of three travelers totaling $10,477. We had some conversations throughout the year, and she promised the trip was well planned and in March she claimed her sister died and she would get us a final itinerary.
On May 2, 2023, we were doing the visas when we found out her website was down. When we discovered that, I reached out. She stated that her friend’s mother had died, and she would get back to us. Glory went to Kenya to take Lucy to jail, she supposedly spent 3 days in jail. She admitted on video and via messages she used the money for personal reasons. She claimed that it was for funeral expenses.
When I was in Kenya I went to the embassy and the had me go to the police station, which is how we found out the police report number and court documents were fake. They watched the video of her “arrest” and find it very difficult to believe it was a police station. When Lucy was released, Glory sent me a photo of herself, Lucy, her mom and another person all smiling in a selfie, which is absolutely bizarre.
When I took it up on social media, a few people mentioned her sister died a few years ago. Not in March and Glory confirmed her mother stated the sister died before as well. Lucy, her cousin, and daughter have all been reaching to me and no funds has been returned. They sent a “contract” stating that they would pay it back in 10 months, it’s July and I haven’t seen a penny. The last conversation at the beginning on July, Lucy claimed she is still selling the land and it’s taking time.
She is still doing business and I am here to warn people to stay clear. Through my research, I found out she scammed a local tour operator in 2018 and he was unable to recoup funds. She also stole almost $3,000 USD from a tour agent in Uganda and wanted by police there. She also scammed a Canadian tourist out of a few thousand dollars too.
I hope reading this saves you from the trouble we have encountered.
ES
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Bad experience. We feel abandoned and unprotected by this company.
Terrible experience! I went with my family to try to see the great migration and thanks to local guides and not our driver we found it but our driver Linos refused to go. First, he asks us for money and they didn't say anything in the company, which we refused, then he began to speak violently and kept us standing for two hours.
When we got internet we called 7 wonders and they informed us that for the 3 hours we had already lost we should book another hotel in the area where the great migration was and pay 2 taxes from the natural parks.
We agreed to pay, we reserved the hotel on our own and when we said to go, the driver Linos refused again, demanding payment in cash. We call 7 Wonders again and they tell us that we must pay in cash.
We take out all the money we have in cash and we are missing 160 USD to reach the amount of 1050 USD that they ask us to pay the park taxes and we inform them that when we go through an ATM we will pay them the amount that is missing.
It is at this time that the situation becomes totally surreal. The driver Linos calls the company and makes up a story that we have insulted him and that he is not going to take us to the area of the great migration where we had already reserved and paid for a hotel minutes before. We called the company and he told us, to our surprise, that we had offended his driver and that the new plan was cancelling.
I insist, at no time did anyone say anything offensive to the driver Linos.
We missed the chance to see the great migration.
We lost 662 USD from the hotel we had booked.
We had to put up with another day and a half with this driver and his derogatory comments about what he called our white money.
We had to see Ngorongoro with a negative environment and with 0 explanations.
We had three car breakdowns along the way.
Tanzania is beautiful. There are many Safari companies.
I think that in our case, perhaps more than being a problem with 7 Wonders, it was a manipulation and attitude of the driver.
He wanted to share the experience because no one should go through the situation that we live.
CA
Dishonest, manipulative, careless and impolite
We selected Silas based on 20 reviewed from Tripadvisor. That was a big mistake. Silas made us believe that our agreement would be honoured. Unfortunately, we spent most of the tour begging him to provide us what we agreed on. It never happened. Some of the planned activities were delayed until it was impossible to do. We paid for these activities but never received them. We almost missed the gorilla tracking activity.
Horrible experience with Silas. I will certainly report his unprofessional and dishonest activities to the authorities.
Beware of the tour operator. He will put you in positions to force you to pay twice for accommodations and activities . He will try to borrow money from you and you will hear about his banks blocking his accounts. Don’t trust or believe him. Silas does not represent Uganda tourism industry. He is a bad apply that should be removed from the box and thrown away.
Uganda is highly recommended as a destination but beware of the likes of Silas.
CA
50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Horrible tour operator silas be aware
BE AWARE!!!!! Horrible experience with this agency Silas. in SUMMARY
1. He took more than $1000 extra from us than what we agreed upon arrival.
2. He downgraded our hotels
3. Continued lying about many things including rturning our money
4. Car broke down more than 3 times when we were there and we had to wait in the heat. Also window broke and we suffered throughout with a black cover and cant open it.
5. He pretends to be someone he is NOT. decieving and lies and shows a different side that is charming and funny BE CAREFUL
6. played a whole trick on us to change one item in the itenary inorder to cancel and downgrade hotels and pocket the money.
Dont let him decieve you with his answers. We filed a POLICE reporton him upon our departure.
This person should be stripped from his license and not be able to do tours anymore due to his deception to tourists. USE A DIFFERENT AGENcy THAN SILAS.
Uganda is a beautiful place if it wasnt for people like him.
under20 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Horrible
Horrible experience flight got delayed 9 hours zero communication before hand even send us a driver to the airport knowing our flight was cancelled DO NOT RECOMMENDED
AE
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Soured our hard earned vacation
Fred and Eddie have managed to sour our hard earned trip to Rwanda and Uganda.
I booked the 5 day mid-range itinerary with Frena. I sent our tickets to Fred as soon as i booked it (a month ahead of our trip), he ignored our flight time and added chimp tracking, which we only got to know, was never possible after meeting Eddie, the tour guide. He refunded the money but was so vague and indirect and not sorry about this and rudely told me to research pricing of the chim tracking.
The car was a very uncomfortable van, making the long drives uncomfortable and unsafe! the front seat snapped back multiple times on my husband’s feet. Eddie never apologized, never did anything about it. Even the roof that was propped up for the game safari, came slamming down and thankfully we werent standing at that time, all because he forgot to engage the safety lock and again, never apologized.
Eddie had no interest in communicating the plan of the day, change in plans, any delays etc, we just had to figure it out. Day 2, i asked him about lunch enroute and he told me we will have late lunch at the lodge, we reached at 5pm, and due to his communication mishap, they had not prepared lunch. All he said was “why dont you have an early dinner by 6?” No apologies again.
The last day, he made us leave our lodge at 6:30 for a 6 hour drive, reaching the airport 5 hours before our flight (im sure he knew they dont even let you in) under the pretense that we may get traffic, when he actually wanted to get to Kampala sooner.
CA
50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Dishonest tour operator who stole 965$ directly and indirectly
We paid 100% of the tour fees 2 months prior to arrival. We cleared customs at Entebbe airport at around 10:40 am. On that day, we had an activity scheduled with Silas (visiting the Rhino sanctuary). Silas claimed we were too late so we could not do the first activity. The aircraft was supposed to land at 9:05 am. Silas assured us that we will fit this activity in the coming 2 weeks. We left Uganda without seeing the Rhinos.
Silas made us pay for one of the hotels a second time because he attempted to pay with a check and the hotel refused. We told him we don’t have cash so he pushed us to use the credit card and promised to pay us back once in town. We never saw the money although we spent 7 days asking him to return owr money. He made numerous promises but they were all lies. He stole the money which effectively ruined half the vacation time.
Silas drove us around in an unsafe vehicle that broke down 3 times during the tour. The passenger window shattered when i tried to close the door and cut my hands in two places. The door inside handle was broken, the tires where each fixed with two bolts instead of 5. There was no AC in the vehicle contrary to his claims. We were stranded on two occasions where one time we waited at a gas station for 3 hours while he was getting the car fixed. Silas refused to get us a replacement to drive us to the hotel so we were really stranded.
Silas was always doing personal chores during our tour. He frequently provided transportation to locals on tour time which was fine the first two times but became unacceptable after that.
Silas downgraded some of the accommodations to maximise his profit at our expense. He assured us tgat the accommodations had AC and hot water. Only 2 out of 9 accommodations had AC. Hot water was a problem in 7 accommodations. He assured us that accommodations had window screens to allow us to open the windows, one 1 accommodation had. He lied about the accommodations and it was highly disappointing.
He found excuses not to do 5 of the activities defined in the itinerary such as night game drive, leopard tracking, rhinos visit and others. He charged us for extra fuel and he charged us extra for claims that he lost deposits on accommodations.
He lied all the time and was a cheat and dishonest.
His tourism license should be stripped from him.
I highly caution anyone who wants to do business with him. The worst ever tour in my 30 years travel
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Upsetting: 5 different guides and groups during our 10 day safari
My partner and I did a 10 day safari booked through Pride of Africa Adventures and Safaris in June 2022. It has taken some time to leave our review as we were pressured by the staff at this company not to leave any negative feedback for them. I would like to share my experience, as I would hate for someone else to have a dream safari trip to include as much stress and tears as ours did. My partner and I were so excited to go on our safari, it was a dream for both of us as we are passionate about wildlife. However, once we arrived in Nairobi we realised this trip was not what we expected. We were passed between different companies, and over the 10 days we were with 5 different tour guides and groups of travellers. We were not told that this would happen, we were only expecting two guides one in Kenya and the other in Tanzania. It caused a lot of stress and upset throughout our trip as we were left not knowing where or who we would be meeting next, and we were sad to leave our fellow travellers who we'd met. One of these groups included a tour of two cars with 14 students, when our booking ensured we would be only in a group of 8 people maximum. This part of our trip was in the Serengeti and due to the large group everything was delayed and we did not get to experience the Serengeti as we hoped due to the wasted time trying to organised the students who were not that interested in the safari as they had come to Africa to study micro finance on a gap year. Although some of our guides were great and put a huge amount of effort into their job, others did not put the same effort which was upsetting. The wildlife was incredible and we hope to return to Africa and have a much more positive memory. We will not be booking again with Pride of Africa Adventures and Safaris and would not be able to recommend them