65+ years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Rob and his team at Tailormade Africa made this one of the best holidays we have ever had.
From initial discussions to getting off the plane when we arrived home, Tailormade Africa arranged everything we had requested in a most friendly and professional manner.
They advised on flights, accomodation, places of interest, car hire, driving routes and restaurants. They and their team obviously have a welath of knowledge which enabled us to get the very most out of this 3 week holiday.
We travelled by car for much of the time through the most dramatic and interesting countryside staying in fabulous accomodation and visiting several wildlife areas ending up ona 4 day safari before flying home. - Fabulous ! - highly recommended and would travel with them again without question.
Thanks Rob et al.
SE
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Overall a very good experience, a serious company at a fair price.
Despite some issues, we felt they wanted to give us a great experience. The rating is 4 and not 5 because of the logistic stuff mentioned below. The safari in itself was amazing, although that would have probably been the case with other companies as well. To get the highest rating they would need to improve on planning and information disclosure.
The good:
+ The safari was incredible with sightings of the Big 5 and other breathtaking scenes.
+ Our guide Stanley was knowledgeable but not very talkative without us asking the questions. It felt like we grew on him and towards the latter part of the 5-day safari he elaborated a bit more on the topics. He also knew all the parks very well and collaborated with other cars to find the animals.
+ Airport pickup/drop and hotel accommodation before/after the trip was great.
The bad:
- When we came to the hotel (which was also the office of Sayari Tano) we found out they were going to change the order of the park visits and do them “backwards”. This was because we were grouping up with another couple (we had ordered group safari) and the other couple started 2 days before. This was fine for us even though the info came very late. We also asked to be compensated with a half day Masaai tour afterwards which we got. In hindsight, it would probably have been nicer to start with Lake Manyara rather than finish with it (because there are less visible animals there), but this was a very minor issue.
- When arriving at the first camp site, we found out by the sticker on the car that we were actually going with a company called “World Tours & Safaris”. Apparently, they cooperate with other companies but not to tell us this felt very strange.
- When on the actual safari, we stayed in some different camps than those on the itinerary, which didn’t really matter to us because we didn’t know any of them anyway, but again this type of behavior felt very unprofessional. When talking about it afterwards, the management said that the campsites just had different nicknames and that we stayed in the correct ones, but it turned out that this was not true. We probably just followed the itinerary of the other couple travelling together with us.
- Because the park fees are paid per 24 hours, it does create some difficulties for the companies logistically to arrange the “full days” as per itinerary if they need to deviate from the original itinerary plan. Because we needed to drop off the other couple travelling in our car, we lost half a day on day 4 (of 5). We talked with management about this afterwards and they tried to defend themselves, blame the driver as well as the government for charging such high park entry fees, but we ended up getting a 5% refund (after asking for 10%). Before you book, try to ask them to be very specific about time frames to avoid this.
- The chef cooked “western” food for us like pasta etc. The food wasn’t that great and especially the lunches were super dry and tasteless (crackers, white bread, banana etc.). It would have been nicer to have some more authentic food and some love put into it.
- Sleeping bags were not very clean (probably never washed) but this was a very minor issue.
NL
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Gorilla Trekking in Uganda
In December my partner and I went on a gorilla trekking in Uganda with SBTC. There were lots of tour companies to choose from but none of them helped us so good with finding our ideal holiday as SBTC. The company's owner Samuel helped us wonderfully from the office and we don't regret our choice. His knowledge and extensive explanations helped us setting up our ideal program. Samuel even came to see us personally upon arrival at the airport. Also our tour guide Bernard was wonderful. Good English and extensive knowledge of wildlife and the gorillas. Observing these amazing primates was one of the most impressive moments of our lives. A welcome extra was that Bernard knew a lot about the many colorful birds in the region. Also the accommodations were really nice and comfortable. We can definitely recommend Silverback!
professional and excellent
Very good service and would recommend it to anyone.
FI
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Outsatanding,Affordable Gorilla safari Service in Uganda
The gorilas are amazing. We just had to walk around 1 hour and we found them (this was luck, sometimes they are further), and we stayed with them for about 1 hour!
The hotel we stayed was beautiful! Food was great! Our driver/Guide (Remmy) was really nice, always trying to help.
I would recommend you fly if you are going to the gorilla trek if possible, and not to drive because we where in a car for 9 hours the first day, and the way back we where 10 hours because of traffic.. my husband and i really recommend wild jungle trails safaris. they are really good at what they do..see you next time!
SE
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Excellent trip!
Many thanks for a totally fantastic trip!
We were SO lucky in seeing all the animals, and we appreciate your bookings of nice combinations of lodges, fantastic driver and guide, Caleb, our new friend. And really good food.
Nice guides / rangers.
All over we had an incredible trip, we do recommend Uganda as a destination to everyone. We cannot wait to go back.
EG
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Amazing Experience
this was my first safari, I can say nothing during the trip made me uncomfortable, I had a great time and met new people and made friends.
everything was well organized from arrival till departure, Sami the driver was very nice, also the hotel I stayed in before the safari was good and the staff as well.
The safari as whole was a great experience, John the driver was very good he showed us every saying and he was so helpful and even helped me to make a call to Cairo as I didn't have a mobile SIM, it was very nice of him.
the only negative thing I can say was switching the van because John had to take other customers to Massi Mara on our way to Nakuru with no heads-up, the van we switched to was a seat less so 3 people was crammed in the back seat and it was not comfortable.
except for that, I believe Karibu provided an excellent service!
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
If you want a budget safari, this is definitely a budget safari.
Tour itinerary looked great and Cate was very friendly, but she neglected to tell us that the total payment for the tour was due on Day 1. This resulted in some scrambling to withdraw cash from an ATM but we were limited by ATM withdrawal limits. There was no option to pay online with paypal or with credit card! Finally at the end of the tour Cate had told or driver a different amount than what I truly owed (a $10 USD difference) and also told the driver that was should pay him extra for dropping us off where we were staying in Nairobi even though this was included on the itinerary (in addition to a regular tip).
Our itinerary told us to be picked up at George's Cafe at noon, by 12:30 we were still waiting and called Cate. Cate had apparently (forgotten?!) to call a driver and our driver finally showed up at 2:00pm with no clue about what our itinerary was. To his credit, he was able to take one look at our itinerary and then figure out what hotels he wanted to take us to. There were a lot of extra costs that were not described in the itinerary unfortunately. I ultimately didn't mind paying, but if a boat ride was listed on the itinerary I would have appreciated knowing that it would cost me $100 in cash. While the extra expenses were no big deal, a heads up would have been nice, unexpected expenses can be frustrating.
Our tour driver, Johnny, was friendly but apparently lies to KWS to try and get resident rates for non-residents (this was from a story he told us making fun of the stupid white people who "forgot" they were supposed to be going by fake names). This was disheartening to hear about because this is a big loss of money to wildlife conservation. I'm a resident and my traveling partner was not and luckily Johnny did not try to lie to get resident rates for her. It was a slightly odd interaction.
The hotels we stayed in were clean with excellent food but no hot water in any of them unfortunately. Johnny seemed to have a poor understanding of when meal times should be and how often people need to eat because lunch was at 4pm on Day 2 (he seemed to think we could skip it?!). He also tried to skip lunch on another day right before a long hike (who skips lunch before a long hike?!). He often told us dinner couldn't be ordered before 7:30 (resulting in multiple meals at 8:30 PM!) but the kitchens seemed to be open and working as early as 6 because there was always waitstaff ready to take our order when we arrived. He also often ate with us, which I normally wouldn't mind, but he would order too much food for us (even when we told him we couldn't eat that much) and then guilt us with cultural values if we didn't clean our plates. He subsequently also couldn't clean his plate, but would then offer up some excuse about the food being bad. Overall a bit odd.
Johnny was also getting a bit old and in failing health (coughing and wheezing which made us a bit uncomfortable) and it was clear by his driving sometimes that his eyesight is no longer the greatest. There were a few speed bumps he missed slowing down for and game driving in parks is not his forte! I spotted the rhinos and lions we saw and he stopped at a buffalo once thinking it was a rhino. He also bragged that he would find us a leopard but never did. (I've seen leopards before but the boasting was strange). In general our driver was friendly, but nothing like the kind of service I've had on other budget safaris.
We stopped at multiple curio shops and they are usually expensive, but I've never had someone try to sell me a shuka (usually cost 600ksh and never worth more than 700ksh) for 4,000ksh. I was surprised that knowing that I'm a Kenyan resident Johnny would still try and take us to a place this ridiculously expensive. After they tried to scam us once Johnny actually took us there a second time. (???). He also added in a random stop at a girl scout memorial for people that I know nothing about and the man there asked for donations of any size so I at least thought offer 100ksh but he then turned around and said that wasn't enough. Was getting a bit sick of Johnny taking us to people who were just going to ask us for too much money. Especially since we told him that were not interesting in gift shopping as we were planning on doing that in Nairobi.
The itinerary was great, but at the end of the trip I wouldn't recommend trying to cram as much as we did into one week. Spend at least two nights at every location so that you get a full day at each. Cate added a few extra things to my itinerary beyond what I requested and I trusted her to know what would make a good trip but now I wish I'd asked to cut some of those extra locations.
Good things: Because it was budget we ate a lot of ugali and nyama choma which I love. Food was always delicious. Parks themselves were beautiful and wonderful.
TL;DR: The organization and communication was poor. Driver friendly but not very skilled and in bad health/bad eyesight. Would not recommend. You can find better budget safaris than this, or just rent a car and do it yourself.
20-35 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Amazing Kili climb - highly recommend EAV
The team were great, from our guide to the chef to the porters. They always went out of their way to help us and we're smiling, patient and kind. It was the little things on EAV that made a difference - hot lunch every day, always eating in a tent, hot water to wash, and our own toilet. Seeing other groups looking miserable without these things made us appreciate EAV even more. We had a smoother climb with longer to acclimatise because EAV was so organised. We also saw other tour groups risking people's safety; this was absolutely not our experience with EAV. We were recommended them by a friend and I couldn't speak more highly of them. Really honestly, go with EAV.
UA
35-50 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Best Family Safari with Bison Safaris
Amazing safari it was -easy to book as Maggie was really helpful. Took care of our dietary needs . Great Safari driver we had ,James was exceptional. We cant thank Bison Safaris enough for an amazing experience. We highly recommend Bison safaris to travelers .