NL
65+ years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
It is a fraud
We had a 8-day Safari to Samburu, Aderbare, Lake Nakuru and mAsai Matra.
They did not pay for transport, we had to.
They did not pay for parkfees, we did.
They did not pay for Lodges,we did.
We went to the tourist police to file a report. They say we were not the first one.
So stay away from Madukha.
CA
65+ years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Avoid at all costs
Image travel took my booking for $US 4,500 for a 5 day safari, and became impossible to contact after I paid for my trip. They did not respond to my e-mails and were not reachable by telephone. Less than 48 hours before I was to be picked up at my hotel in Nairobi, and after my flight had left Canada, they sent me an e-mail stating that they were not able to operate my tour and that they would be refunding my payment.
They have remained unreachable for almost 2 weeks now after sending me that notice and they have not refunded my payment. Check a similar review on Tripadvisor from September. I believe they have either gone out of business or are still "selling" tours to unsuspecting clients and absconding with their money. Now I must seek legal action.
Safari Bookings should no longer be including them in their referred list of Tour Operators.
Avoid!
US
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Do not use this tour operator cancel trip on the day of our departure and took our money
PLEASE DO NOT USE THIS TOUR OPERATOR!!!!!!WARNING !!!!! Six of us ladies decided to take a Safari trip in Kenya. I selected this tour operator and we paid full in advance 6 ladies at $3000 per person. Prior to leaving I was emailing and calling on WhatsApp no answer from Mwanje. On the day of our departure he emailed me to cancel the trip.
JP
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Great guide, worst agency
I do not recommend this agency at all.
All the bookings are fine, but they hadn’t pay petrol fee to our guide in advance , so we had to stay at petrol station twice for long time to wait them to send money to our guide.
Eventually they did not send him money so he had to pay out of his pocket. Which is INSANE.
As you know, petrol fee in Kenya is bloody expensive.
Anyway, our guide was super nice guy. He said that our tour will be the last job with this agency. Bless him.
CN
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Do not trust Image Travel
We booked with Image Travel Ltd a 5-Day Luxury Lodges Safari for 2 person. The package cost US$ 4,700.
When we arrived at Nairobi Airport on Oct. 1st, nobody picked us up. The phone numbers were both unavailable. When we checked with three of the hotels, we were told there was no booking information.
We reported our situation to police station at the airport. The police cannot contact them either. This is a fraud incident!
My opinion is you cannot trust image travel
MY
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Choose Super Africa Wildlife and Adventure Safaris with caution.
1、【Excessive Charges from the Guide】
Masai Mara was the highlight of our trip, and we relied heavily on the guide’s ability to find animals. The day before heading to Masai Mara, we promised the guide: "If you can show us carnivores in Masai Mara, we will pay a tip of 10,000 Kenyan Shillings each day." We believed this was a fair amount for a tip. However, when we hiked for 15 minutes to the Mara River, which was supposed to be a complimentary activity, the guide and a ranger forcibly charged us a $40 entrance fee. To make matters worse, our teammates happened to see the guide and the ranger laughing and splitting money at the back of the vehicle.
2、【Deliberately Preventing Us from Seeing Animals】
After experiencing this unjust charge, we reported the issue to the guide's boss. The guide became very unhappy the entire afternoon. To retaliate, he turned off the radio used for locating animals, and we crawled along slow dirt roads all afternoon, seeing only a few antelope and no other wildlife. By the next morning, during our safari, he didn’t even open the roof of the vehicle, clearly indicating he wanted us to see no animals at all. The entrance fee to Masai Mara is $200 per day; for four people, that’s a total of $800 wasted. We flew for over ten hours to see animals in Masai Mara, only to have our experience ruined by the SAWAS travel agency.
3、【Late Departures and Early Returns】
The guide did not follow the schedule we provided. After agreeing to leave at 6 AM, he always postponed departure to 7 AM. The worst instance was in Nakuru, where we only had a total of three hours on safari that day.
4、【Inability of the SAWAS Owner to Manage His Guides】
I reported the above issues to the agency owner, but he was completely unable to manage the situation and even passed responsibility onto others.
US
A complete disappointment and not worth the money.
Accommodations was bad cheap place to stay and no wifi 🛜 in the rooms. You will only see one day of the gorilla and will change your schedule. Keep in mind for 2k there’s better accommodations and trekking but make my mistake if you book with this company. Had to take him to the police station to bring down the amount he wanted. The Chimpanzee is very cheap in Uganda and that’s he’s alternative to make you waste another day and he’s plan to fulfill the other trekkings days he promised. He also stated only Americans complain and I don’t have an education?? Keep in mind trekking in Rwanda cost 1500$ in the park where he will take you it cost 800$ so please do the math. Overall you can find way better tours operators who will provide a much better experience. Safari bookings please look into this matter.
50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
NaShibe is the most dishonest tour operator I have ever had!
I had a very unpleasant tour with Nashibe, where I found their tours from safari booking.com which I suggest this company should be removed from the website, to avoid more people being cheated by them.
I had an agreement with Caren from the company with a price and lodge accommodation. After my deposit paid, she sent me a almost totally different itinerary. My 7 nights lodge has changed to 3 nights in Camp, 2 nights in a resort which the price was not even as half as my original itinerary booking( showing on the booking.com).
I had to join the tour cos they already took my 30 percent deposit!
The only 2 nights lodge I stayed , one has a big pitfall next to my room! I trapped into it as walking in the dark and injured myself! All they did was just moved me to another room!
The driver we were provided got a bit sick from the first day of safari, I asked if he is ok or do we need change to another driver but he insisted to continue. However everyday we have to negotiate for not finished the safari early and stick with the itinerary plan! We’re literally exhausted by just dealing with him. Not to mention the last day we drove back to Nairobi and he was caught by police cos somehow his license was expired and we were stopped on the road for 2 hours !
US
65+ years of age | Experience level: first safari
I found the owner to be a bit dishonest and deceitful.
First, let me say that if you haven't visited Africa, then you need to put it on your bucket list. Our trip was amazing as far at what we saw in the field. We saw lions in trees, the elusive Cheetah, baby elephants, zebras, hundreds of thousands of Wildebeest on migration, etc.......including a take-down of a Wildebeest by a pride of lions. The staff at all of the lodges were fantastic!! This was an amazing trip!
So now you are asking why the one star. The one star comes from the way we were treated by the owner of the company.
At the beginning, the owner was extremely responsive to our questions. But once we sent in our deposits, he went radio silent. Responses to emails either were delayed by weeks or never happened. I sent three emails in one month and never got a response. And this went on for months. His communications were horrible within our group of six.
We booked semi luxury resorts for the 10-12 days in the field. The first three were great. The fourth was a fantastic place but not what we booked. His reasoning was, it got us closer to the animals. And I will give him kudo's on that, as he was correct and the lodge was semi luxury. But it would have been nice to learn about the change in advance as it added almost 2 hours to the drive that day. At the same time we learned he only booked 2 of 3 park permits. This was a disaster for us as we had to wait almost 2 days for the issue to be resolved, then our guide (who was fantastic) told us he was getting incorrect information from the office and had to deviate from our normal game drive to get to a remote ranger station to get the third day permit. Needless to say our guide (not the owner) was not happy either.
The next two places we stayed were no where near what we expected or paid for. Instead of semi luxury, we got a "Eco-friendly" tent site where some members of our party had no hot water for three days. The last site was also a tented site. When confronted, the owner blamed his office staff for the confusion. Going to our last site I asked him where we were going and he said he did not know. How can you not know where you are taking us? Then he passes the original place we booked and traveled another hour to the last tent site! This site was located in the park, but so far away from the animals we could not go back for our last day.
We confronted him again where he finally admitted that he was afraid to tell us that all of the parks had significantly raised (in some cases quadruple) the entrance fees.
So instead of telling us up front, where we could have come up with an alternate plan, he decided to reduce the quality of the resorts to save money. If he had been open and honest with us we would have probably just paid the difference. Issues do crop up. It's how you deal with them that defines how good you are. But he lost out in the end, after the last tent issue, as we demanded a partial refund or we weren't going to leave the site.
-We were told 6 hour drives from location to location when reality was we drove for 11 hours on some days.
-Their advertised picnics were nowhere near what reality was and one "picnic" was in a parking lot of a gas station.
-Binoculars advertised were not available in some vehicles.
-Advertising ample legroom in the vehicles was not completely accurate.
-He spent a lot of time on the phone instead of talking to us.
-We finally learned that when he said "it's an hour from here" we just added another hour! It was a running joke between us all!
I could go on and on, but I think you get the message I am trying to convey.
The visit to Africa was amazing, but the the tour operator (owner) was a bit dishonest and deceitful to us, and as such I cannot recommend Features Africa Journeys.
US
65+ years of age | Experience level: first safari
Liar, liar, pants on fire.
Absolutely visit Africa. The people, land, and animals are amazing. Our contracted drivers/guides for Amboseli, Kenya, and the Serengeti, Tanzania, listened and worked with us through difficult times. We saw more wildlife than we could have imagined. Absolutely visit Africa, but do NOT use the services of Features Africa Journeys.
Our final itinerary showed the list of upgraded lodging as requested and paid for. It was a LIE. Of the 6 listed, we were not informed of any changes until we drove past 4 of them. We were downgraded to tented camps, some with no amenities. One 3-night stay did not even have running hot water.
Estimated drive times were grossly underestimated. Many days were over 10 hours or longer, only leaving the vehicle for lunch. We arrived at all of the lodging as the day turned dark. For every upgraded lodging, we left after breakfast the next day. We did not have any time to enjoy the facilities or amenities. Heck, we didn't have time to even see them .
As a party of 6, with 4 being just under or over 6' tall, we we're assured the vehicle could accommodate us in comfort. We had a terrible time finding leg room. I had bruises on my wrists, head, shoulders, knees, and legs. One guide told us the vehicles are really meant for 4.
Park permits were not paid for in a timely manner. In the Serengeti, we had a 3-night stay but only a 2 night permit. We were informed, if the permit was not paid for, we would have to leave the Serengeti or risk being arrested!
The owner, became our driver when we returned to Kenya. We confronted him about his deceitfulness, asking him to be truthful with us. He looked us in the eye and lied over and over again. We ended our safari early and asked to go directly to the airport.
If I could, I would give this review a zero. I cannot say this enough. DO NOT USE FEATURES AFRICA JOURNEYS.