US
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
One star is too much
The three of us selected a ten day trip around Uganda. We paid two thirds of the total, told to cover the remaining third upon arrival. Once we arrived, we were taken to ATM's several times almost every morning, to take out the third half and pay in cash. We explained multiple times that we would not be able to take out that much and can wire money instead but our guide refused and kept asking us to take out cash, even asking us to overpay at a lodge so they could reimburse that amount back to the guide.
We told our guide several times we did not want a boat tour. It was not part of our itinerary. On the day we had scheduled game drives all day, they took us to lunch then told us to hurry through lunch to make the boat tour.
After we paid our initial deposit, our guide changed several lodging options. They explained 'it was the equivalent.' One lodge was $125USD a night but they changed it to a $16USD a night lodge. When we arrived at our $16USD night lodge, the guide told us to check in then LEFT. We couldn't check in because it was too early and our guide had left with our bags. They came back two hours later- no explanation or apologies.
Prior to arrival, we were told several times to bring items to donate to an orphanage. On the day we were set to meet the kids, our guide brought us back to our lodging then told us since it was a holiday, the kids had gone home to their families. ..but it's an orphanage? We were forced to give all our items ($300USD) to the lodging manager and are not entirely sure where the items went.
Over the entire trip, our guide was consistently late and left us alone in our vehicle in large cities (without telling us where they'd be). We brought this up but there was no change.
When we went for game drives, they would stop and take photos themselves, then continue on. They never checked in to see if we had a good view or got all our photos.
In addition, our guide made three stops during our drive to visit friends. They would stop the car, hop out and chat with the person for several minutes, then hop back in. No explanation or apologies for the delay in time. At one point, both guides asked us if we wanted to stop and shop. We said no, but they still left us in the car and went shopping themselves.
On the last day, our guide had initially promised a lunch before a ride to the airport however, the night before they decided they'd only take us to the airport.
Overall, we realized we overpaid for the trip we wanted and especially for the trip we got. We feel like we were fully taken advantage of and are unsure of the integrity/legitimacy of this company.
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Still waiting for my refund
It Started In Africa abruptly cancelled my tour a year ago and I am still waiting to refunded US$4,250. Bernard Baraja claims the company is still operational. While in Arusha last year I lodged a claim against ISIA with the Tanzanian Police Department tourist policy department, and also attended the Tanzanian Tourist Board office, which has a thick file of complaints against ISIA for misappropriation of customer funds amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars. I am resigned to never seeing my money again -- this is a warning to all potential customers.
US
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Don’t book with this criminal. This tour never happened. He never even showed up.
If I could leave zero stars I would. Michael was very responsive when we were booking our trip but once we booked he was less and less available.
We arrived in Tanzania for our 4 day safari and no one ever showed up. We also have a 3 day gorilla trek in uganda booked with all the flights etc. doubt he will show up for that either. Originally he tried to have us send money through western union, good thing I didn’t and my credit card is going to work on disputing the whole charge.
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Be aware!!!! Avoid this travel agency!!!!
The owner of Mushra travel agency Michael Ahabwe Mugerwa is such a untrustworthy!!!!
I am writing this review because I don’t want anyone to have the same bad experience as me and lose any money. Also they shouldn’t be in this business.
If I write about the whole experience I had with this company it would be such a long review so I will keep it simple but still quite long, sorry.
1, Micheal changed the original itinerary on Tourradar because on the first day of the tour no one picked me up from the hotel so the 7 day tour became a 6 day tour and I had to pay for an extra nights accommodation upfront which he has never refunded.
2, The accommodation near to the Queen Elizabeth National Park for the 3 night safari was actually 2 hours drive away from the National park! The first morning game drive we had to leave the hotel at 4am in the morning! So I had to ask to change the accommodation to something closer to the park.
3, They didn’t pay the activity fee on time to my guide, so I almost missed a few of the activities. For example, the chimpanzee trekking and even the main activity of the GORILLA TREKKING!!!!! Which is the main reason I went to Uganda in the first place!!!! I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to meet the gorillas so I had to pay the permit fee of $600 from my own pocket, of course! Micheal has never refunded that money either.
They use a payment system called ‘mobile money’ which supposed to be easy and quick so there are no excuses for them to not complete the money transfer to the guide.
4, During the tour the hotel asked my guide to pay the bill upfront but he didn’t have any money because Michael hadn’t transferred it to the guide on time so I had to pay again! Of course, he has never paid me back for that either.
5, On the last day of the tour in the evening I sent some messages to Michael about refunding all of the out of pocket expenses I had accrued and how much stress he had put me under during this tour. He messaged me back and said ‘my returning day in Kampala is 1st January which is a public holiday so no one is in the office.’ He promised me that he would meet up with me to pay me back when I was back in Kampala!!! There were many excuses to escape from the payment.
6, In the message he said “I am a dishonest person”, “I am taking advantage of them” and he said "he thinks I was treating them like slaves” etc.. Shocking!!!!
I went to Uganda because I just wanted to enjoy my holiday and meet the gorillas not to have extra stress and spend extra money unnecessarily. So please, please, please be careful with this Mushra travel agency and the owner Michael!!!!
I truly hope Tourradar team will investigate my issues and will protect the future innocent customers.
Great Safari, terrible organisation & communication.
We booked a 10 day trip with Skywide. A safari followed by Mombassa beach to relax at the end.
The Safari was great but the relaxing part was anything but. We arrived at our so called 4* hotel in Mombassa and we arrived to a green swimming pool with mould everywhere, dirty bathrooms and flies on food. We called Skywide immediately to say we wanted to move to a hotel closer to what we had been promised without a mould and an out of action pool and their communication was quite frankly terrible- the hotel is FLAMINGO BEACH- (DO NOT STAY THERE!!!).
The hotel refused to move us to sister hotel with a clean pool in use because they said Skywide refused to cover the cost, two hours later and no news from Skywide after several calls and emails we took matters into our own hands and booked a trusted hotel and left as soon as possible.
We lost a whole afternoon (of a short 3 day break) sorting this out ourselves and Skywide would not reimburse the costs claiming it was far more expensive than Flamingo, they refunded us the stay at Flamingo and the price was half of what our new hotel cost.
On leaving we arrived at Mombassa airport to learn our flight to Nairobi had been cancelled and no one of Skywide had notified us, the consequences for this could have been massive as we had a connecting BA flight to catch to England. Skywide arranged the airport transfers and booked our internal flights therefore this was their responsibility, the flight was cancelled 9 hours earlier and they hadn't let us know, Kenya airways were shocked no one had contacted us from as they let the booker of the flights know about cancellations.
We got a flight with only 10 minutes to spare thanks to Kenya Airways running us through security, this was all due to Skywide's lack of communication and has we arrived at the airport on time and not early for our flight we'd have missed the earlier flight and our BA flight home.
So the Safari was great but I'd argue most safari companies out there would offer as good a service, after all the Masi Mara is it's own experience regardless whose arranged it, but the trip ended stressfully and as my mums trip of life time at 60 years old I was very angry she had to encounter this stress.
This was my third time to Africa and the worst company I've used I wouldn't recommend them.
US
THERE ARE NO KHOI SAN PAINTINGS IN THE PARK
THERE NO KHOI SAN PAINTINGS IN THE PARK! REPEAT: THERE ARE NO KHOI SAN PAINTINGS IN THE PARK
On the morning of 22 January I stopped at the reception office at the Golden Gate Nat'l Park to inquire about hiking to see Khoi San paintings in the limited time that I had before having to return to Johannesburg that day. I specifically mentioned to the young woman working the front desk that I was there to see Khoi San paintings and not in spending time on other activities in the park since my time had run out. She advised me to go to Echo Ravine to find them and gave me a map to help me get there. Another couple hearing our conversation also took note, and all of us hiked up to Echo Ravine in search of the Bushmen art. Unfortunately, we were quite disappointed when we made it there to find that there were none, and I hiked back to the reception office to make sure that I hadn't misunderstood our instructions. I was then told that there were none, to which I kindly asked for my money back (210 rands) to be returned. I was refused by her manager, Norman Mudau, who took my name and number down in an attempt to quell any further complaints.
The exorbitant entrance fee of 210 rands ($17 USD) assessed on foreigners (4x that for South Africans) would be well worth it if the paintings were there or If one had a full day to spend at the park. But in my case I was misled into believing that I could find them and wasted my last remaining time in South Africa on a fruitless endeavor, when I could have traveled instead to Kiara Lodge to successfully find them.
Norman Mudau and his associate should learn to practice better customer service in the future. Their treatment of me that morning made my trip to South Africa end on unnecessarily sour note, which is regrettable since the remainder of the trip was about as perfect as one could imagine.
US
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
The pilot left us at the Selous Game Reserve
We booked the safari through our hotel Fruit and Spice Wellness Resort. We arrived on time at the departure airport in Zanzibar for the one day safari to Selous. The airplane was to make several stops to drop off and pick up passengers before we got to Selous, but our expected arrival time was 8:55am. We took off and got to the first stop. Upon arrival we saw that the transportation for the first group being dropped off was not there. We were in the middle of nowhere and there was no cell reception. The pilot tried to contact someone but didn't have any luck. We waited 90 minutes in the heat for the transportation to arrive. Once they picked up the passengers we got back on the plane to make the rest of the stops. Due to this significant delay, we did not arrive at Selous until 11:45. This full day tour was now a half day tour since we had to be back by 4:15pm.
Our guide was great and we got to see lots of animals. He did his best to make sure the trip was entertaining and that we weren't disappointed. In doing all of this, he did not get us back to the airstrip in enough time. We arrived just in time to see our airplane preparing for take off. The people at the reserve began to jump up and down to get the pilot's attention but he did not stop. At 4:45pm the pilot left and we were stranded at the game reserve.
After lots of calling around we were finally able to agree to have them take us to Dar Es Salaam. It is the closest city with an airport but it is also an 8 hour ride, with the first four hours spent on unpaved dark roads. We rode for four hours in a safari Jeep through primarily wooded areas. After four hours we arrived at a village and met up with another driver who took us to Dar Es Salaam, which was another 4 hours.
The tour company was very apologetic and arranged for this transportation. They also arranged for us to stay in a hotel across the street from the airport since we had an early flight back to Zanzibar. We needed to get back early because we were flying to Dubai and didn't want to miss our departure flight. Consequently, our Zanzibar hotel had to pack all of our things and check us in for our flight home.
The hotel in Dar Es Salaam was maybe 2 stars and served its purpose for the night. We were covered in dirt and bug bites from the first portion of our trip but the bathroom was not one you wanted to take a shower in and they only gave us one towel. We sat in the hotel room for 5 hours before it was time to leave for the airport. Luckily we made all of our flights, the hotel in Zanzibar did a wonderful job packing us up, and we showered and slept once we got to Dubai.
I was really looking forward to the safari. Being left there with no contingency plan by the tour company was completely unacceptable. I would not recommend this tour company under any circumstances. We were fortunate to make it out but there were so many things that could have gone wrong. Our driver for the day was super nice and the villagers that provided us with food and water and blankets for our 8 hour ride were lovely.
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Do not do it!
Joseph did not deliver on our tour, and stole our money. Our family was devastated. Please do not select this tour, we never got our refund.
US
50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
The owner of this agency - Michael is a crook and should not be trusted
I booked a 13 day package with the Mushra Agency in November and paid for the tour in full. Communication was perfect until the money was paid. Once that was done, there was nothing to be heard from Mushra. Two weeks before the tour was to start, I attempted to contact Mushra and did not hear from them - I asked Safari Bookings for help and after they jumped in, Michael wrote me an email stating he was an attorney and that the safari business was a side business for him. I cancelled the trip and Michael assured me that the entire amount that was paid would be refunded to me - that was the last I heard from him.
After 5 emails and asking Safari Bookings for help in this matter - nothing, no word from him about the refund. I have currently disputed the entire charge with my credit card company and they are in the process of issuing a refund from this merchant. Safari Bookings informed me that this agency has had their account suspended.
Please do not book with this travel agency as they will take your money and run. Micheal (the owner) is not to be trusted.
Dealing with Michelle at AAT has been a Horrible experience. Would not recommend it at all.
We were excited for our trip to Phuket but AAT still owes us money and has delivered no flights. Communication has been poor. Our emails have been unanswered and no one picks up the phone.
Service has been unprofessional and unethical.
My advice would be to stay away as I am currently still money out of pocket due to African Adventure Travels.