BR
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Great experience
It was definetely one of the best experiences I 've had in my life.
We were in a group of 4 and everything since the first contact to the tour was perfect.
The guide Willem was awesome, a really nice person. We loved his company and professionalism.
I totally recommend it.
Thanks guys.
35-50 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Timing was very good and everyone was friendly and helpful. Last accom a bit noisy, but comfortable.
Everything happened very smoothly, timing with each step of the tour was really good. People friendly and helpful. The accommodation in Kigoma was just a bit noisy, but otherwise good.
DE
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Four-days gorilla safari tour in the Bwindi National Park- Uganda
We booked via internet a four-day gorilla trekking tour with two permits - Nkuringo and Rushaga in the Bwindi National Park in Uganda. Julie our tour consultant from Achieve Global Safaris was excellent. Always extremely helpful and fast with her responses. We arrived in Kigali the night before (organized on our own). Next morning Tom who drove from Uganda to Kigali (Rwanda) picked us up - with some delay and we were quite concerned - but he had a good reason since something broke down in his car. After that everything went perfect and he was a very friendly and helpful guide, always in time and we had no problems with the care despite very difficult and bumpy roads in Uganda trough the Bwindi National Park.
We left Kigali at around 11 a.m. driving towards Uganda to reach our first lodge Ichumbi Gorilla at around 5 pm. At the border, it took about 1h without any good reason, but we had all the time in front of us, without any commitment so we took this as an African experience.
The Ichumbi Gorilla lodge and especially the view was marvelous. Lydia the owner of the lodge was there to take care of some very special guest- the daughter of the 1st Lady. Lydia is visiting the lodge only occasionally.
We got a hand massage when we arrived, a welcome drink and then we got our beautiful rooms. The dinner was excellent and the entire stuff very helpful and pleasant people.
The second day we went to the gorilla trekking tour in Nkuringo to see the X-Christmas gorilla family. Seven guests with the guide and the porters (extremely important and helpful for those tracks) were on the track. My porter Bryan is a Batua (the evolutionary oldest and small people on our plant) and he was so gentle, helpful and kind. I was very happy that I have chosen him; he was the only Batua among all porters. The three trackers left about 2 hours ahead of us to spot the gorillas. After a 2 h trekking tour up and down on quite slippery ground, we reached the gorillas. We saw 3 gorillas: the silverback - 22 year-old, a female gorilla and her baby. We got quite close to them 5-7 m. It was a fantastic experience.
Coming back, we were allowed to take a shower in our room and to chill out on the terrace with coffee and tea and again the fantastic view on the surrounding mountains.
At 3:45 pm we were sad to leave the first beautiful lodge to drive to our second lodge Ichumbi. But the Ichumbi lodge turned out to be an amazing place too. Each of us got an own little beautiful cottage. The administrator of the lodge was a very open-minded, visionary, professional and perfectly organized person, originally from Rwanda. We enjoyed a lot to talk to him and to hear about all the history and experience he went through. Impressive!!! We hope all his dreams will become reality one day.
Since it was my birthday they organized a nice Donate-cake with a candle and flowers, they song and dance for me. This was so touching and wonderful: many thanks in case you ever read this report. The entire experience in Ichumbi was great. The food was delicious, the stuff very friendly and helpful, the place beautiful and very clean.
The 3rd day we went to our 2nd gorilla tour in Rushaga and visited the Mishaya gorilla family. This was a really jungle tour crossing 7x a little river until we reached the gorilla family (after about 1.5 h).
We saw seven of the nine family members and they were extremely well habituated to people, so they passed about 1.5 m between us, fully ignoring us and weren’t afraid of us. We got fantastic photos of them.
The 4th day we had to get up at 4:30 a.m., had breakfast at 5: 00 and left to Kisoro the fly back with a small plane to Entebbe. The flight back was incredible it was like a taxi-flight (hop on - hop off). The plane had three additional stops to pick up quests or to get off guests at different little “airports”. We flew over beautiful landscape and saw a lot of the country in this way without having a 9 h drive. I would do it always again in this way.
In Entebbe, Patrick, the driver waited for us and drove us to Kampala, were our scientific meeting started.
These 4-days were an incredible and wonderful experience in East Africa. Expensive but worth to conserve the mountain gorillas on our planet.
IN
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Big Five And Five Stars. The day I started my talks with Axis Safaris I knew this tour gonna be good
Lennox got everything sorted out for me and his promt mails got me informed of all the schedule and where I would be collected. I joined the Four Day Tour with five more and left for Masai Mara on time. The star of the tour was Mr.Evans our driver come guide who is funny enjoyable man with great knowledge of all animals.. plants..birds etc. I stayed at Lechanda Camp which was very clean and the tents comfortable. The meals were yummy. Next two day we saw almost all the animals, four of the big five and fifth I saw on the last day in Nakhuru. Lucky to see five lions feeding on a zebra and next day a solitary lion who ambushed a wilder beast. Last day I saw the georgeous White Rhino with her cub in Nakhuru and later in Lake Naivasha saw Hippo’s in close proximity. Evans thanks a lot for all the informations and patiently answering my doubts... cheers buddy. Special thanks to Lennox the provider. Will come back again Lennox and Evans.
NL
50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
GREAT!!!!
For the second time we have been traveling with Tailor Made Safaris. Everything was perfectly arranged and booked. It is a personal travel organization with good services. They offer good accommodations and we have had another amazing time!
Last time Kwazulu-Natal and this year Limpopo and Guateng.
They do what they promise!
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Wouldn't use again
I did the 52 day Southern Safari trip with Absolute Africa traveling from Nairobi to Cape Town. Highlights include rafting along the Zambezi river, Spitzkoppe and of course all the amazing animals we saw on safari (Serengeti, endangered rhinos at Matopos, Etosha). Some driving days were long (we covered a lot of countries in 52 days), tent equipment was good quality and food was usually plentiful (unless people in your group want to eat breakfast before breakfast time and they don't save you enough food). For the first 10 days our tour leader Kip/Edmund was great, he had a positive attitude and he was really patient. Then we joined another group and had Martin as our tour leader. Whilst Martin was really informative in the beginning about the daily itinerary, with time i felt he became less informative. It was also clear to some people that Martin favoured certain individuals in the group. I understand that there will be people (even tour leaders) that get on with certain people more than others but as a professional i expected him to treat the group as a whole and listen to us as a whole, taking control of the group during more difficult situations when needed. There were certain situations where Martin acted quite childishly to certain members of the group, a few times he did not respect people's confidentiality by talking to certain members of the group about other people. One particular incident he publicly ridiculed someone in front of the whole group during dinner for not helping cook dinner one night because she was tired. You wouldn't expect this from someone who's been a tour leader for 20 years.
Some of the optional activities i did i felt like it wasn't worth the money, for example we spent 3 days in the Okavango Delta and one day had 9 hours of free time where we had to stay in the bush camp or swim in a pond. Our tour leader didn't tell us this so some people didn't bring things like books etc. Absolute claim that they send you the most updated information (itinerary and optional activities list) however they included activities that haven't been running for years or they don't even run. We went to Antelope Park, Zimbabwe a private reserve home to a lion conservation programme with the aim of breeding lion cubs from captured lions in order to release them into the wild. Since 2005 they haven't released a single lion. I read articles by National Geographic and Africa Geographic that questioned the ethicacy of the programme and there was also speculation about whether the park involved itself in Africa's lion industry (look up Blood Lions for more info). Animal conservation should never involve animal-human interaction or breeding and these do/use to do both these things e.g. cub handling and lion walks.
Correspondence with Absolute prior and throughout my trip was thorough and professional. After giving feedback about my experiences there was an obvious lack of accountability and ignorance. Overland tours are a great way of traveling to so many African countries and overall i really enjoyed most of the activities i did and the people i traveled with. However there are quite a few African overland tours and I am unlikely to use them again.
US
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
awasome team....they do everthing to make u feel comfortable...their guides r excellent.....excellen
best ever i had...good team..nd amazing place...love the guides. nd wanna mention the person robert muhale...amazing...wl b back soon...juat try it guys...worth of money
It was awesome!
The scenery in South Africa was so beautiful and unbelievable!There were really good sightings of this peculiar bird.I really loved it.The routes were great and amazing.The weather was fine though it was a bit windy and sunny.I encountered some of the best hotels and suites in there which made me enjoy my trip to the fullest.The pay for that trip was worth it,i enjoyed it.
Utterly wonderful!
Well organised safari companies, knowledgeable guides, and wildlife galore!
US
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Amazing Wildlife Tour!!!
An African safari is usually a once in a lifetime experience. You want it to be amazing with long lasting and vivid memories. Rest assured, if you book with Wild Discoveries, you will have each of your safari desires fulfilled.
Although our trip was a year ago, it feels like only yesterday that my friend and I were bumping along the roads of Uganda, getting our “African massage” as we travelled from one incredible park to another. We did our tour “backwards” from most people which was no problem for our talented and welcoming guide Blackie. He was completely flexible with our itinerary, picking us up in a smaller city in southern Uganda where we had been visiting friends, instead of the typical meet up in Kampala or Entebbe. He arrived with a broad smile and quickly loaded our belongings into the clean and comfortable van, affectionately known as “clickie”, and we were off!
We began with a tour through Lake Mburo National park to see the Ankole cattle and zebra. Both of which were accommodating and met us on the roadway as we made our way around the park. From there we journeyed on to see the gorillas in Bwindi Impenitrable Forest National Park. This was a life altering experience that still brings chills of excitement to recall. We were guided by one of the more senior trackers in the park and saw a large family group of gorillas, with three silverbacks and two babies. The encounter with these incredible beings was truly astounding. If you have the opportunity to incorporate this into your safari, do not miss it.
Our next stop was Queen Elizabeth National Park where we saw so many elephants we taught Blackie, who was quickly becoming a good friend, a new acronym- “TNTC - too numerous to count”. We also noted numerous babies in the herd, a theme that would continue throughout our trek. We had the pleasure of viewing babies of all of the following species, cape buffalo, giraffe, baboon, chimpanzee, black and white colobus monkey, hippo and even a baby rhino to fulfill our “Big Five” species check list. The most charming babies we met were the tree climbing lion cubs who appeared as if conjured from the tall grass, following their mother to a large Acacia tree. It was simply adorable to watch as the entire brood of 4 cubs and the mother made their way into the branches to rest in the shade. This experience was followed closely by an even more amazing event. Still smiling and chatting about the darling “kittens”, we were on the road heading out of the park when Blackie made the signal to be quiet and pointed to the right of the van. Initially, we saw nothing but grass until we crept forward and suddenly there was a leopard standing so near we could almost touch it. We were stunned into silence and managed to get one photo of the magnificent cat before it dashed away to procure its dinner. These close up experiences with two of the most majestic cats of Africa earned our friend his new moniker - “Lucky” Blackie. Again and again, we admired his talent for finding the game we sought out. From birds to mammals, Blackie provided us with knowledgable local guides or used his own tracking skills to ensure we had a terrific experience each day.
We felt like honored guests on our two person tour. The welcoming and friendly nature of the Ugandan people was demonstrated at each of our lodgings. As we arrived, we were met with smiles and a cool beverage. Our tents or cabins were clean and well appointed and the food was delicious. The Murchison River Lodge was a particular stand out on our tour with a large swimming pool and delectable fresh fish served on their expansive veranda.
While staying at the lodge, we also enjoyed a personalized river tour up to Murchison Falls with our cheerful and knowledgable river guide Boscoe leading us right up to the riverbank to view multiple birds and animals. This was topped off by a vigorous hike up to the falls themselves with numerous photo opportunities along the way.
We concluded our trip with an overland drive back to Kampala and then Entebbe. We made our last animal viewing stop at the Ziwa Rhino & Wildlife Ranch. There we saw a family of rhinos, including a very shy baby, taking a siesta in the shade. Back in Entebbe, Blackie introduced us to his friends at the African Roots Guest House. As he departed, we planned to stay in touch and he even offered to provide us a ride to the airport when we left a few days later. We eagerly accepted his offer and had a wonderful send off including dinner and a dance party in the airport parking lot to keep us laughing and smiling on our return home.
Our safari memories will last a lifetime. You are well cared for from beginning to end. Blackie is outstanding in communication during the planning and preparation, a safe driver and miraculous guide. It is clearly the aim of Wild Discoveries Safaris to ensure you will be provided a friendly, well organized, comfortable and visually stunning tour of the jewels of Uganda, its National Parks and incredible wildlife.
If you would like more details about our entire journey, including photos, here is a link to my blog www.stuganda2017.blogspot.com
