CA
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Beautiful Mikumi and Udzungwa spot but choose another operator
We highly recommend to go to Mikumi and Udzungwa, but not with these folks.
Here is an excerpt of what we sent to the tour operator:
"
Our guide was great and both parks are stunning, however we are mostly disappointed by the trip.
First of all, the way to Mikumi was 8 hours. We could see on the map that it was not close but we expected 4-5 hours top to get to an activity. It was instead 8-9 hours both ways, which on a 3 days Safari is a lot of time spent travelling. Knowing that beforehand would have greatly impacted our decision to do this trip.
This also meant that we arrived late to Mikumi national park and did only about 2 hours of game drive, but still had to pay the 82.60 USD entrance fee, which we paid again on the second day.
At the end of that first day, the lodge was comfortable but we had no running water for the sink, shower and toilet.
On the second day, the last minute change to stay in Mikumi and not do the planned hike to a waterfall meant that we did a game drive for the entire day, this was really disappointing since we chose this Safari for the hikes and activities on foot, but after two days we only sat in the Jeep, which again would have make us greatly reconsider taking this trip in the first place. Now another important point is the fact that the park was being torched to leave soil for the new grass. Because of this, the park was somewhat empty due to animals running away from the fires. This is a yearly event which we did not know would happen as outsiders, but we would have expected you to warn us when we did the booking at that time. Especially since we were spending much more time in Mikumi. So for the second day we rolled in circles for hours looking at the same few antelopes and zebras. It got to such a point that at around 4pm we simply told the guide to go to the hotel. We would have done it much earlier but we wanted to be respectful of our guide who tried so hard to find something interesting.
On the third day, we finally got out of the car to do a hike, but looking at all the available hikes in the beautiful Udzungwa (94.40USD) we felt like we missed a great opportunity to hike more. That last day finished late, at around 9pm we were dropped at Dar but we did not have any diner along the way, leaving us to wander in Dar after dark for food.
As for the money, we were also disappointed that you did not told us before that the park fees were to be paid by credit card. We withdraw a lot of extra chillings which we did not use in our remaining days in Tanzania and which we cannot convert in Canada. Around 200,000 unused chillings which were withdraw with a 15,000 fee, and then converted in USD at the airport again at a large fee. Also, the entrance fees were supposed to be around 80 USD per day, but the last lark ended up being a total of 259.60 USD (not 240 USD)
Finally, there were a few other points in the description of the tour, such as a visit to the Masaii and a python in one of the Mikumi lake, which apparently did not exist according to our guide. We choose your tour among other reasons for that and did not visit the Madrid village.
Overall, the guide and parks were great, but the whole management of the tour is simply sub-par.
"
From there we would have written a 2-3 stars above, but the response of the operator was aggressive and accusing us of lying, which is pathetic since all of the promises were clearly written in an email, so we had proofs.
The last email we received mostly stated that since the tour was a budget one, it was okay to offer the minimum and cut on what they deemed unnecessary. So if you don't like being played with, I recommend choosing another operator.
CA
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
amazing service
we had an amazing experience with an amazing guide Peter Mugogo. we are used of travaling solo around the world and we usually don't use an agency but this time we did and we are glad that we did. The service of African big five is a 5 stars experience. The email exchange were fast and Maria was so nice and she proposed a really good personnal itiniarery. The guide was nice, respectful of the environnement and people and animals and we could'nt have asked for more. He loves his country and gave us so much information and local stories. He brough us to local places and we felt secure. we had quite an adventure out of the ordinary (we got attacked by elephants) but he kept us safe and knew what to do and we are so glad we chose to go with a company. we highly recommand african big five and you can contact us in private for more information if you want. and please bring school material for the orphelinas and do community treks. Uganda is a great country, less touristic and that is what we like don't hesitate book with them :)
BR
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
I had a wonderful and satisfactory safari with SG tours.
the comunications , services are excellent and I got what I expected.
NO
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Great city-daytour on our way home from Africa
My friend and I had a 24h stopover in Nairobi on our way back home from Zambia. We decided that we should spend the day on a city-tour, so that our day in Nairobi was not wasted. The tour-suggestion we got fra Simon had really good variety and with interesting spots. We were met by our excellent driver James at the airport, and he took us to Karen, UNEP HQ, city centre, Kenyatta twr, and then back home to our airport hotel. I would absolutely recommend James, Simon and UNIGLOBE! :-)
CA
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Amazing experience!
Our guide Jason did a great job! Recommend him to anybody!
AT
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Utmost disappointing
I have been on a 4 day Safari in 2015. Same route, same price, different company, amazing experience.
So I wanted to share this experience with my girlfriend but this time unfortunately the safari was not good at all due to very poor organization and customer care.
So I booked with a company called "Goshawk Tours". The Safari they offered sounded quite exactly like the one I did three years ago and it was about the same price (50€ more expensive this time). A guy named Eric sent me a few emails and I told him that we need to be transfered to Kilimanjaro airport on the last day of safari because we already booked the flight. The transfer was another 50$.
We spent the week before safari on Zanzibar and there i got a text from Eric. He said he will not be there next week so his business partner Ibrahim will organize it "just as we agreed".
So we travelled to Arusha and spent the night in a hotel and the next day we were supposed to get picked up at the hotel. We did, around 30 minutes late and then we were taken to the office. I was suprised because it was the office of Angose Travel Limited. There we met 2 other girls who also came with us. So we were sitting in the office and it passed another 1 hour until the driver arrived and we headed to Tarangire National park. It was agreed that we will go there pitch up at tent, go on a quick game drive before we get lunch at the campsite and the head for another game drive after lunch.
This was not the case. Our guide, an elderly gentleman called Adrian who was not the talkative kind of guy went really slowly to the park. All the other cars were overtaking and when we went uphill we hardly moved faster than 10 km/h. But this was not really the drivers fault. Because as it turned out later, the car was in a dangerously poor condition.
So we arrived in the afternoon at Tarangire National Park, we didn't pitch up a tent, we went directly in the park, where we were for only about 3 hours. Very disappointing, because we could have seen so much more. The driver just said "This is enough for today.". We disagreed. We headed for Sunblight Campsite where we got a room. But it was so dirty that we hoped we could've slept in a tent as agreed. Dinner was good. The driver said breakfast 8pm, departure 9pm.
After a loud night with hardly any sleep we had breakfast and then we went to the car. The driver and the cook were already inside, engine running and they said, they will come back soon. So they drove off. A lot of time passed until they came back and when we left the campsite it was already 11am!!
It was agreed that we would have an early game drive in Tarangire Park on this day again but that was not the case at all. When we left, we headed directly to the Serengeti. Going annoyingly slowly we lost a lot of time on the way there.
At the gate of Ngorongoro coservation area the driver had to patch a tire because there was brake fluid leaking out of it.
We were promised an evening game drive after pitching the tent but all we really saw were some animals on the way to the campsite where we arrived so late, that we had to pitch up the tent in the dark. By the way, 2 of 4 tents were broken and we had hardly had any hooks to place the tents so the driver just said "2 hooks are enough".
After that there was no game drive. So we had no game drive in the morning, no game drive in the evening. We had no game drive at all this day!!!
Next day we missed the sunrise in the Serengeti which we were promised because the driver didn't want to start so early. So we finally headed out for our game drive. The driver often took the wrong path and we got lost so many times (he said he was a guide for 30 years which i found hard to believe after that). Unfortunately we didn't see too many animals and when we came across some we had to yell STOP so many times until he finally did so. After a short drive we headed to a tourism center where we got an informational tour. It was nice but not really neccessary. Instead we would have prefered to see more of the Serengeti itself, not hear from it. After that we had to drive directly to the camp, pack up and leave for Ngornongoro Crater. It just felt so unsatisfying because we had so little time. On the way out, the driver asked the chef where to go at every crossroad. So we left Serengeti and headed to the crater at snail's pace. When we arrived at the camp, it was already dark and the guide and the cook didn't help us to put up the broken tents in the dark at first. So we had to tell them a couple of times that we need help until they finally did so. There was again no possibility to take a shower because it was already dark and freezing cold.
So we thought it couldn't be any worse but then the last day of safari came.
We got up early this time to descend the crater so we will be out in time to get to Arusha. On the way we had to get diesel but on the way to the gas station the car already ran out of gas and we stopped in an uphill grade. The car didn't have any hand break so he sent one of us to get one big rock and put it behind one of the back wheels. Then he went off to get the gas. After half an hour later he returned with a maasai who helped us to get the car running again. So we were late once again and I had a really bad feeling about getting OUT of the crater again with this car. So we had a game drive in the crater and left with quite some delay because the driver didn't know where he was going. Remember - we had to catch a flight in the evening.
So on the way up the car broke down again. But this time he didn't get it running again. And again we were standing in a really steep uphill grade with only one rock to prevent us from rolling backwards into our certain death.
So a car that stopped behind us took us to a place called Wildlife Lodge. I called Ibrahim, the guy from the office, a couple of times and he said there will be a rescue car coming for us. I also told him that I want them to refund the money for the flight if we wouldn't make it in time and he only said he won't because he didn't know of any flight (Eric said Ibrahim would organize everything just as we agreed, so he must have known of the flight). Anyway, after about 1.5 hours the car finally arrived and we already had a huge delay and we though we wouldn't make it. Furthermore the driver said he will only drive us to Arusha and from there we will get another car. On the way there we had to stop at the gate of Lake Manyara National park to pick up 2 other tourists from the UK and Spain who also went with Angose. They were also really disapointed with the organization and they also had a bad driver and the car was also in bad shape.
So after around 3 hours we arrived at rush hour in Arusha and we only had little time to get to the airport. We got in the other car and this driver was our rescue! After the traffic jam in Arusha he went up to 160 km/h to get to the airport in time. There could have gone so much wrong. The seatbelts didn't work and he was going really fast over speedbumps, overtaking left and right but we were used to nearly getting killed anyway. But because of him we arrived just in time! 10 minutes later and we would have missed the flight. When we got out he called Ibrahim who told me that Eric and I agreed that the airport transfer will be 50$. Weird. He didn't know of any flight but he knew of the money. We had no time to argue so I gave the money to the driver.
The other 5 guys from our car stayed in Arusha and went to the company to complain and they got 50$ back each. They told us so I texted Ibrahim that I also want my money back. He agreed, but only sent it via Mpesa (mobile phone transaction via local phones). So asked him to send it to my brother of my host family in Dar. There will be large fees now when transfers the money to my bank account now.
Summing up, it is really sad that the one thing you are really looking forward to the whole year is getting ruined by very bad organization and customer care. There could have gone so much wrong and we have been in some really dangerous situations due to non-existent maintainance. I'm asking myself - where does all the money go to? I know a lot goes into the admission for the park but the rest?
Our guide, well, for doing this job for 30 years he shared almost no knowledge with us and it often seemed that he just would not care.
The cook, Zaidi (I hope the spelling is right) was a nice guy. The food was ok. Even though it has almost always been quite the same.
Because of all that all of us were utmost disappointed. And we wouldn't recommend booking with Angose at all.
NL
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Well organized, eye for detail.
Good accurate communication, in Dutch. Wonderfull accomodations. We receive a foto album as itinerary, this contained all travel information and documents (car rental, accomodation) and was excellent. Very detailed and accurate. The self drive pack (GPS, telephone and itinerary) was very good.
BE
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
The trip of a lifetime. Great plan great execution!
We left Gregory free to create an awesome itinerary that would cover most of Namibia's Highlights and he did exactly that. Of course you need to understand you'll be driving allot of kilometers but the Cars were very well equipped for the task at hand! Greg has great local connections so every location had allot to offer. You like adventure? Chill? Mix with the locals? Everything is possible..... The trip of a life time!
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Super organisational skills and a wonderful safari experience!
Diana was excellent at answering all of our questions, tailoring the safari to our needs, and making sure everything was organised well in advance. We did a 6 night / 7 day safari covering Masai Mara, Laka Nakuru, Lake Naivasha, Hell's Gate and Amboseli. It was the perfect amount of time for seeing everything - the animals and foliage were different at each park, so I enjoyed moving around, even if it did mean long periods in the van.
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Incredible experience
We returned from our honeymoon in Botswana. I wanted to let you know that it was a truly wonderful experience. We were so impressed with the camps we stayed at and the overall quality of the whole experience.
Sango Safari Camp - an incredibly cozy, welcoming and personable camp with some of the most hospitable people we met. Incredible drives and mokoro safaris which were great. The food was really good. The tent was clean and lovely. We had great sightings and would highly recommend this camp.
Hyena Pan - Beautiful camp with great food. Tent was well appointed. It was a bit more remote than the Sango camp but was great. The guides we had were great too.
Savute under canvas - Such a great mobile tenting experience with lovely staff and probably the best guide we had (Dips) who always got us to the best place to vivew the action. We had amazing food here and how they put up the tent every 5 days is amazing. Probably our best sightings were in Savute including cheetahs and hunting wild dogs.
Flights were also great. Nice 12-seater planes and they always knew where we were supposed to go and the transfers were incredibly smooth.
Liselle was extremely helpful and obliging and always willing to help with a great deal of useful information prior to the tour. Was a pleasure working with Liselle to arrange this excellent tour of Botswana's Okavango Delta and Savute NP.