US
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Bait and Switch on the hotel rooms, lectured repeatedly about tipping from guides
First, let me say that the guides did a solid job. They were friendly and got my entire group up the mountain. Now for the other part. The hotel we were originally supposed to stay in (Kibo Palace) was swapped out at the last minute for a place called the Keys Hotel. Don’t be fooled by the Keys three star rating, it is a one, maybe a two star. It’s not even close. I stayed at the Kibo Palace as I arrived a few days before my friends. The Kibo Palace is nice, an actual 3 star hotel. We all thought we were staying there as that is what Kilimanjaro on foot told us. It wasn’t till after my friends landed and were taken to the Keys Hotel that we learned otherwise. I had to change hotels from one I was already booked in.
Second issue, before we started to hike there was a meet and greet amongst the guides and our group. The guide must have spent a half hour talking about how much we should tip each person, which was well above what Kilimanjaro on foot had already recommended we tip, it seemed way excessive from this recommended amount.
Third, the guides got us up and down a day early. Not the worst thing, but it ends up that you have to book another night at the Keys Hotel which is quite expensive for the accommodations they offer. I would have been fine staying up on the volcano for our recommended time and coming down when we were scheduled to. This seemed like it was structured because the guides wanted an extra day off, not for our benefit. If they are able to get you up and down a day early it means they get a paid day off.
Fourth, the tipping is done not at the end of the trip but about half a day before. They make such a display about it and also make it a point that you had better tip generously or else. It's be better of Kilimanjaro on Foot to pay their people more and do away with the tipping all together and I wouldn’t have this awful taste in my mouth from the way the guides and sherpas behaved.
I would not recommend Kilimanjaro on foot for the reasons above. If you are aware of all of these factors you may want to consider them.
CH
65+ years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Insufficient management of the Tour and inappropriate vehicule
My rate of this company is low coz there has been too many problems with Leisure tips and their response is not adaquate, as far as I am concern. All my statements are based on facts and I have all the exchanges with the driver in my Whatsapp as a proof.
1. When I paid the Tour with a secure link sent by them, my credit card was hijacked and my Swiss bank has to block it coz somebody tried to use it.
2. The vehicule that Leisuretips provided was in poor state and we encountered many problems after a few hours drive from Nairobi already. The destination was Amboseli National Park on a 3 Days trip, alone in the vehicule except for the driver.
3. The car had to be brought to the garage 2 times coz of the mechanical problems and I lost the second day Game Drive coz the time left was not sufficient.
4. I ve received the apologies from Leisuretips for that but this is insufficient coz the contract that they gave me stipulated all the services I ve paid for and they did not fulfil it actually.
The Amboseli Park is worth to visit and the Lodge I was in was good, that is why I give a 2 stars rate.
The Company has to improve its relationship to the customer and moreover improve its services. I paid the whole amount in USD in one time several months before the Trip, for information.
IT
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Review about Tsavo East National Park by Filippo
Very touristic, very little animals, maybe it is too big, but compared to the others it's like being in the desert....
US
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Standard safari with some annoyances
Overall, the safari seems to follow a standard itinerary that many other companies also offer. We did see a lot of animals including the Big 5 and in that sense the safari was great. I only give 2 stars because of some annoyances:
1) My wife is short and wasn't able to see out of the pop up roof of the Landcruiser (for which you pay extra). She wanted to stand on top of a seat when we were looking at a cheetah that was barely visible (covered by grass) but was told by our driver that that is not allowed because it can damage them and that it's his boss Lewis' rule, with whom we had made the booking. I then wrote to Lewis and he told me it's not allowed because it's illegal and fined heavily by the park authorities. We saw many other safari companies allowing their customers to stand on their seat. So I then looked up the park rules online and it didn't say anything about it being illegal. Lewis doubled down and told me to ask a park official at the gate. I did just that (he probably didn't expect me to) and they told me, amused that I'd even ask, that it's perfectly legal and makes sense for short people. Nevertheless, we decided to let it rest, until my wife got neck pain two days later from always craning it while tip toing to be able to see. At that point I again wrote to Lewis pleading that he allows it for the last two days and he finally did. However, he never admitted that he lied about it being illegal. TLDR: if you're short find a different safari company
2) Our flight on the last day was quite late at 11pm. The original itinerary had us be at the airport around 5pm after visiting the giraffe center at 3pm. Before booking, I had asked Lewis about adding extra things in Nairobi and he told me that we can also visit the Nairobi museum and eat at a famous restaurant and then be dropped off at the airport at 7pm which sounded good to us. Then, on the last day our driver told us that he has to keep going immediately after arriving with us in Nairobi but that a different driver from the company can take us. However, after talking with his Boss there apparently was no different driver available. Our driver rushed us through the giraffe center (urging us to leave) and then dropped us of at the airport at 4:15 pm. We were okay with skipping the museum and the restaurant because we were tired and saw how stressed the driver was, but we didn't appreciate being rushed through the giraffe center which was supposed to be a nice stop on the last day and then bring dropped off at the airport super early.
A couple words on our driver/guide Daniel: he definitely knows the parks inside and out and is a good driver and very good at finding many animals. He also knows a lot about the animals when asked. However, I wish he would be more outgoing in sharing information about animals without us asking. And I wish he would be a bit friendlier and above all not rush us so much on the last day.
IT
35-50 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Wonderful trip to Kenya, but bad experience with driver
We spent 11 days in August with Amazing Memories Safari between Masai Mara, Lake Nakuru and Amboseli, after spending 6 days in Tanzania with a very good guide (Karim) from an excellent tour operator (Amazing Memories Safaris).
The trip in Kenya was overall very nice, the parks visited were undoubtedly amazing.
Coming to talk about the organization of the trip, it is fair to mention some positive aspects:
- the tour operator was always prompt in responding to emails;
- the accommodations where we stayed were very nice (even if very expensive, but of course we knew that);
- the 4x4 car was in good condition.
The strongly negative aspects, on the other hand, concern the driver/guide. Indeed:
- he spoke difficult-to-understand English;
- he had a fair knowledge of the parks, but still a not acceptable level for a guide (e.g., at the first lodge in the Masai Mara he arrived using Google Maps; he struggled to locate the locations indicated by other guides where sightings were taking place, with the result that sometimes we were late and almost missed important moments of the sightings);
- he had just an elementary knowledge of animals (e.g., he struggled to distinguish different types of birds or even antelopes from each other, and gave us systematically wrong information about animal behavior);
- he had no strategy for exploring the parks and looking for animals. On the second day we realized that we had to organize our tour independently (we have a fair knowledge of African nature, having traveled a lot, watched for documentaries, "Wild Earth" and read books) and, in fact, we managed to make excellent sightings (but always struggling to get the guide to go to the best places possible);
- he did not know how to position himself in the best ways for sightings (which is certainly complex in Kenya due to the large number of vehicles, but which should still be a prerogative of a good guide);
- we never managed to start the game drive at dawn because he needed at least 30 minutes to eat breakfast.
We did game drives in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Argentina, USA, Norway, Poland, Italy, India, Indonesia, Australia: we never saw such a low level of guiding, especially if compared to the high cost of the trip. In conclusion, our substantially negative opinion of the tour operator is conditioned by the guide (for the rest, we have no particular complaints). However, we believe that in a trip of this type the real added value is the guide and, therefore, as said before, we can only express a negative opinion on the tour operator as well.
BE
50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Generaly bad food, lunch prepared in the morning stay al the way in a hot jeep.
Good driver but we lost a lot of time for all kind of reasons
Accommodation average
Jeep was in poor condition, dinner cold served, Mouses and cockroach in the rooms.
50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
A travel agent who does not listen
Super disappointed about the experience: a travel agent who does not listen, empty promises, long wait after 5 hours of drive, another 2 hours for a room ( triple for a person)
Definitely not an agency which I recommend, try and get someone who is really professional and tries to do something for you
No value for money, despite promises of a good experience, just excuses
IT
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Guide super , organisation terrible
if it were only for the guide (Thomas) I would give top marks(we saw all the big five and several action of animals). super, he made us experience the Serengeti to the full
I will give two star for the company.
Mr Amos, the owner, gave a jeep to the driver with almost 500,000 km
every day was a problem:
radiator broken(the streets are bad that’s true, but also the car), fuel missing. all this wasted 4 hours(almost one day of game drive, who refund me this?)
mr amos made me pay the balance 150 euros (when it was 112 dollars) telling me that for him changing euros was expensive (the rate exchange is 1€=1.10$)
He also charged 5% of transaction fee(other companies make 3%)
what's even more serious: on the first and last day we had different accommodation compared to the itinerary that we paid. (of lower quality)
The last one was awful (ngorongoro inn): no light and electricity for hours.
if you want to live an “hakuna matata" experience don't book with “migration venture Africa”
I renew my compliments to the guide Thomas. super
IT
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Unreliable people. Unfortunately we paid for everything at the beginning
Improvised agency. We take home good memories because the safari (with whichever agency you do it with) is exciting
We had a lot of problem considering what we paid:
1) in the agreed plan there was 8 Moment of game drive, at the end we did 5! We lost 3 moments to have game drive due to fault/problem in the organization of this agency....(as you know games drive are the main reason of this trip and the reason why the people pay a lot of money)
2) Jasto Safari has included in our plan the a specific day trip (guided nature walk). It was in the "included activities" not in the “extra activties” , but also if it was in our plan we had to pay 70$. Not a nice surprise
3) we spent 1 night in an hotel completly different comparing what we paid. In general this in not a problem for us, but after 8 hour in the car, if we have paid for a 4/5 stars hotel with spa, we were not happy to discover that it was a very dirty 1/2 star hotel (they told us, the same day, that our was overbooking...)
4) In our plan there was a dinner included in Nairobi but we found out the same day that we had to paid for that (other 70$....)
5) They completly forgot to organize accomodation and meals for the entire last day, for this reason we paid also one lunch, one dinner and one accomodation more… (other 150$)
6) an entire day lost due to issue with the Van (From 7:00am to 7:00pm on the road: no lunch, just bought some chocolate on the road).. I know that it could happen but it is inconceivable to be told that it can happen and not to take it personally!
7) In the safari all people had a jeep and only us an old Van…
8) Our arrival at 5:30am we wait outside the airport around 50 minutes for the pick up...
Considering all these problem we tried to ask a partial refund. They proposed us 140$, I think that is not proportionate, but I accepted...I asked 6 times for an update on payment (in 3 months) and each time they (I spoke to Jared) told me ‘we will do it next week’. Obviously this refund was never made....
The last comment is about Steve, our driver. He is a good man and good worker. Considering all problems he helped us every time
US
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Watch for the bait and switch on the safari vehicle.
The accommodations were nicer than expected and the food at the accommodations was very good. Our guide,Peter, was good. The reason for only 2 stars had to do with the safari vehicle. It was a minivan. Their quote included pictures and description of a Land Cruiser so I was surprised when the vehicle that showed up to pick us up was a minivan. I asked them about the change and they said that land cruisers are available for an up charge. I’ve never known a tour company to have up charge items available but not list them anywhere. Usually selling upgrades is a prime goal. Therefore since this information was not provided and misleading photos were included, it felt like a simple bait and switch. If you use Laxa Trails, make sure you ask what kind of vehicle you will be in. You will spend more than 75% of your time awake in the vehicle, so it is pretty important.