50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Terrific safari and amazing value
I still can't quite believe I got to do this. I always thought safaris cost the earth, but this was excellent value - all accommodation, most meals, and importantly all the transport, bushwalks, and guided wildlife drives. Amazing. We saw so many different animals and birds, stunning landscape, dinner under the stars, and felt all the time as if we were in good hands. Thanks especially to all the guides for sharing their stories and wisdom. I'll be back.
CH
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Fantastic service, helpful, informative, friendly and supportive. Highly recommend.
We are a British family, who live in Switzerland, that decided to go on our first safari and visit to South Africa. We usually travel independently and organise all our travel ourselves but this was new to us. We found Pembury Tours online and after reading previous positive reviews reached out to ask for help with planning our holiday. From the very first email,we were impressed by the openness and friendliness and absolute willingness to help.
Kerry Ririe was very quick to reply to all our questions and worries and changes. She guided us through the whole process, offering suggestions and options, and even back up plans!! As we got closer to our travel time we were slightly concerned that our incoming flight had been delayed several times that month - this would have meant missing our internal flight to the safari lodge. Kerry quickly offered alternatives, passed on emergency contact numbers and made is feel very relaxed. As it happened our flight arrived on time, the collection, transfer and internal flight was smooth and the lodge she booked us into was the most amazing place ever. We had a fantastic holiday, the kids agree that our four nights at Madikwe Safari Lodge (Lelapa) was the best holiday ever. Kerry listened to our needs and did everything we needed and more. She also offered advice about other places to visit, shared itineraries from previous clients for ideas and made us feel that she was there for us whatever we wanted to ask. Perfect. Thanks and we will recommend you to anyone travelling in the area.
DE
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Exceptional Organization in Spite of Challenging Requests
My wife, 9 year old child and 68 year old mother and I went to South Africa, Botswana and the Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe for our yearly 3 week vacation. Since we've never been outside Europe or North America together, this was definitely challenging. We really didn't know where to start let alone know what we were doing or what we actually wanted. All we knew was that we wanted to go to Africa!
So, first thing's first, we booked the flight with no turning back. And then we found Safari With Us and asked at least a hundred questions and were very grateful for their super quick response and valuable information. We knew we were in good hands and started planning our trip with them.
We arrived in Johannesburg and were driven to Tremisana near Kruger the following day. After spending 3 nights in that area, we went across the border to Botswana and visited the Okavango Delta and Chobe region which was absolutely amazing and highly recommended! After that, Vic Falls was on the agenda. The place we stayed at there was not great (Victoria Rest Camp), a little too rough around the edges for us and we didn't like the bugs that roamed our cabin space. Other than that, it was fine, but the rest of the accommodations were really good and once we flew to Cape Town after our Vic Falls trip, we actually had wifi in our rooms. It felt like luxury, but it was also nice to be offline for almost 2 weeks beforehand! We spent 3 nights in Cape Town, then went along the garden route and back home.
Planning a 3 week trip is not easy and takes time. And in hindsight, there were a few things we could have planned better, e.g. visit Madikwe Game Reserve instead of Kruger National Park because it's not as 'touristy' and appears more personable or spending one more day in Cape Town by taking one day off the Garden Route. We only scheduled 2 walking safaris and thought we'd get more exercise during this trip, but didn't realize how much time we spent traveling from one place to another, so next time, we'll only spend the 3 weeks in one country and not visit 3. We actually gained weight while we were there because we sat on our butts way too much.
Overall, we had a great time! Our guides and drivers were excellent and we couldn't have asked for a more competent company to handle our reservations than Safari With Us. Thank you for that!
IN
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Experiance with Kenya Walking
This is my second trip with Kenya walking and I must say Otieno is a person who really go to any end to accommodate the preferences/desires of the clients. He has been so flexible and kind enough to modify the itinerary even in the last moment to accommodate our choices of stay and parks without any charges most of the times. The driver come guide Jaffer was a great person who has tremendous knowledge about the wildlife and their behavior. Kenya walking quoted the lowest among the other 6-7 tour operators from whom we got quote for the tour and their service too was excellent and nothing fall short from our expectation. The vehicle was a brand new one with petrol engine and hence it was completely noise free and we could go much closer to the wildlife without much disturbance to them as well as we could shoot without switching off the engine as it was quite rattle free. Overall our experience with Kenya walking was a memorable one and you can simply trust them.
CN
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Wonderful experience of safari with Jocky Tours and Safaris
We had a wonderful tour of 7 days with JockyTours. We were very lucky to have seen the big-five animals in Kenya. We met 20 more lions at least. And we saw that a lion family were eating a giraffe. Lot of various animals and their mutual devouring in Masai Mala, fire-like flamingos on Lake Bogoria, leisurely elephants and giraffes with Mt. Kilimanjaro background, many unknown birds on Lake Naivasha and countless zebras and wildebeests all over the Kenya grasslands, deeply impressed us.
JockyTours is a professional company with very good credit. In order to meet our requirements, they arranged not only safari and scenery sightseeing, but also some project site viewing so that the tour had more pleasure and meaning. The guide driver is a kindly, patient and responsible man. Because of his experience, we got the more opportunities to see so many animals.
The regrets was that we had no chance to see wildbeests crossing the Mala River and catching/killing action between animals.
As for accommodation, Amboseli Kibo Tented Camp. and Naivasha Sopa Lodge were excellent, Mara Lenchada camp was average. The worst experience is: Golden Palace in Nakuru was terrible because of its noise overnight and impolite of its kitchener and servant.
Other bad experience after safari is: our cellphone was robbed in the street and we were extorted by two policemen at the airport in Nairobi. The public security and anti-corruption should be greatly improved in Kenya.
DE
20-35 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
It´s the best crew you can have for safari... and i love to do safari with them every year since 7!!
I know them since 7 years and every year i looking forward to do safari with calabash. It´s like you have a great time with friends (Tillya+Malisa).
They care about really everything - excellent food, nice overnight and of course a great safari. The guide can tell you so much stuff about animals and nature. I was in Ngorongoro, serengeti, tarangire, arusha national, manyara - and it was every time a great experience! I´m looking forward to the next safari 2017 :-)
FR
unforgettable
Since the day of the reservation to the last day of the safari, the agency was perfect. The safari was wonderful thanks to our guide Martin. I recommend without moderation and look forward to the next safari with It's started in Africa!
NZ
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Fabulous experience
We had a wonderful time on our 25 day Wild Life and Game Parks safari. You may think that it would become a bit much doing day after day of safari but no, there has been a lot of thought put into the itinery resulting in each day being a new experience. Ant, our guide, was extremely knowledgeable and capable and fun to be with. Most of all we enjoyed the days where we stayed in the parks and had a braai (bbq) in the evening, everyone joining in together then chilling together in the evenings. We had the best weather, sad for the countries that were suffering a drought... We saw every animal possible except a Cheetah, saw prides of lions setting up their dinner choices and got up close and personal with elephants, lions and rhino's. The company on our trip was the best also and we had lots of laughs and fun. The only worry was remembering to carry enough money to cover tips which is not part of our culture.
Thank you Jude for organising such an amazing adventure. If you are thinking about going - STOP thinking and DO IT.
Disastrous Kafue
I am afraid to say, our trip to Kafue was a disaster in terms of game, very little to see. I think when the new North/ South road was built I think most of the game was eaten/killed, we saw more game in Pilandsberg game reserve.
It was a real pity, next te we will try South Luangue.
US
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Good Experience
Great Experience with this Company.
The owner is a good man, always taking care of his guest in Tanzania.