CL
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
SURICATA SAFARI THIEVES
Tanzania is amazing. But sadly I travel with SURICATA SAFARIS. They ruined my trip.
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Absolutely horrible experience for female solo travellers
My experience has been FAR from pleasant. I have travelled across different regions using 2 different local tour operators and different accommodation providers and the overall feeling was the same: everybody pressures you into giving them money, overinflated prices for basic necessities (you can't even get a bottle of water without paying more than what you would pay in London!), constant harassment on the beach or anywhere touristy for tips, and the worst part is that the tour providers DO NOT PROTECT YOU from it, they are COMPLICIT. They will take you around to gift shops that will demand extortionate prices because they get a cut from it, they will demand tips daily because their employer doesn't pay them enough after you have paid THOUSANDS of pounds for the trip already. I was travelling alone and they took full advantage of that, especially at the beginning. I have used Jambo Safari Tours for visiting the national parks in the north and Mwanamshiki Tours And Safaris for chimp trekking in Gombe National Park. The second operator was a complete joke, tents at the park are regularly attacked by baboons and despite the park authorities knowing they do not provide any security to ensure your personal belongings are safe. All they do is sleep all day while you pay $100 a day to be there in a semi-destroyed tent that they call "luxury". My operator refused to pay for any damage despite paying over $2000 for 4 days (FOUR DAYS!!!) of trekking. Once they get their money, you can forget about it, whatever happens they won't have your back.
Not only I was heavily disappointed by the tour operators, especially the second one, but even the state of the National Parks was in shambles. Demanding foreigners to pay $100 a day entrance fee to a park in a third world destination where basic facilities are not provided. Imagine how many millions the government is making off tourists and then look at the state of the country and their citizens. If you wanna fuel this corrupted industry go ahead, if not, honestly I had a MUCH better experience in South Africa in 2023, where national parks fees were actually HONEST and PROPORTIONATE to the cost of living, camps were very well maintained and organised, and they even organised game drives through the national park, which means you didn't need to rely on private scammy tour operators who demand thousands of pounds to drive you around barely once a day in the middle of the heat when animals are sleeping, but you could actually do several drives a day for less than $20 per drive and you could book sunrise drives, sunset drives and night drives. All of that through the OFFICIAL national park website and for very little money.
I'm not saying it was the perfect experience, I think when travelling to Africa there is always quite a big margin for error and dangerous situations and south africa was definitely not a stroll across a meadow but at least I paid half the money and got way more out of it!
I also went to Zanzibar at the end of my trip and even there nothing good to say. I felt sick possibly from food poisoning and had to get some antibiotics and the hotel manager told me I'd have to pay $80 dollars for it cause it was coming from Stone Town. My insurance doctor had it delivered to me from a local pharmacy and guess how much it was? Less than $5. I did a snorkelling trip where the boat was sailed by a barely legal young boy, no safety whatsoever, 30+ boats all around the same spot trying to chase dolphins. The island is extremely dangerous to go around so you can only stay in the resort, the seaside is indeed blue but not crystal clear, you can barely see anything as it's always very murky. Beach boys harass you continuously, taxi prices are CRAZY due to the island being dangerous for tourists and tours were quite the disappointment as I explained above. So I'm sorry but heavily not recommended!
65+ years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Flight was cancelled due to political unrest
Couldn't fly to Tanzania because of political unrest causing our flight to be cancelled. Agent in Tanzania could not refund our deposit, but said we can transfer is to the following year. Fingers crossed that political situation stabilises.
65+ years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Cancelled holiday because of unrest and Government advice.
Unable to travel because of FCDO advice, dilute to political riots.
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Not Value for Money
I honestly can't recommend this tour agency, or any of the other budget travel companies that do similar trips. A good budget operator is meant to cut the frills and provide cheap food and accommodation, but these guys (and all the others) are cutting the quality of the animal viewing experience in order to try and offer the cheapest trip. THIS ISN'T VALUE FOR MONEY
Firstly, the itinerary. All their budget itineraries only spend one or two nights at Seronera (Serengeti). This isn't enough time if you want to see the Wildebeest migration. The first full day in Seronera is always spent looking for cats, so you need a second day to drive out to visit the wildebeest herds, wherever they might be. They could be as far as the Grumeti River, which you can do as a long day. Don't bother asking the office about whether you will see the migration. I asked specifically if we would go to the grumeti river and Godfrey answered "You go to where the animals are". Well when I was on the trip, the animals were at the Grumeti River and it was never a part of the itinerary. I was lied to.
Also, Lake Manyara is entirely skippable. The itinerary only includes it because it's a super cheap day for the company. Save your money and skip this day, and pay for an extra day in Serengeti. Much better value.
Secondly, starting time. We left Arusha on our first day at 9am, arriving at Tarangire after 12pm. We started our second day to lake manyara at 8am and our thirday day to serengeti at 10am. On the fourth day there was a customer mutiny when our driver, Adam, suggested we start again at 8am. We demanded we start earlier and thankfully he agreed. This is the time we saw a large pride of lions. Many of the drivers are lazy and will try to start as late as they can get away with. The best viewing times are just after dawn, early in the morning.
Thirdly, communication. I noticed that many of the other drivers were constantly on their radios, getting tips from other drivers about the location of animals. I asked Adam why he never used the radio, he said it wasn't used much (a lie) and that he had a mobile phone for that purpose. Adam certainly made lots of phone calls but i doubt many (if any) of them were for finding game. He seemed to be on the phone a lot planning his next client trips.
Lastly, and most importantly, the agents and drivers will tell you all sorts of lies to try to convince you that you're getting the best possible experience even while they're doing the bare minimum. I asked Adam if we could spend our single full day in Serengeti driving out to the Grumeti River to see the Wildebeest. Adam could have told me the truth that this was a budget trip and that we didn't have the money for fuel, but instead he told me all sorts of lies. First that it was too far away, that you needed to go out there and spend the night, that you needed a plane to fly there, and lastly that there was no animals out there this time of year. These were all blatant lies. I spoke to other groups in the camp who had spent a day trip driving to Grumeti from Seronera and had seen the Wildebeest and river crossings. To rub salt in the wound, Adam tried to convince me that the resident herd of Wildebeest that we saw Ngorongoro Crater was "part of the migration". He clearly thinks his clients are stupid.
Adam really shouldn't be working with clients at all, not only does he lie about everything (he told us everyone had to leave Ngorongoro by 12pm, he just wanted to leave early), but he also gets very aggressive and argumentative with clients who try to question him about the itinerary. Once we realised we were getting a bad deal we all started to check and double check everything. He full on yelled at us bringing one lady to tears. It's never acceptable to speak to a client like this, even worse when everything you're telling them is a complete lie.
Adam should be avoided at all Costs, and this companies itineraries should be avoided to. My advice is to spend a bit of extra money and go with the mid range companies. Or if you really need to save money, form a group yourself and then go to a budget company with your own itinerary and be very clear with them about your expectations.
CN
50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
65+ years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Absolute Rip Off
The camps were mostly filthy no hot water dirty matresses ,no toilet paper with staff cooking in kitchens in the camps at night making so much noise one couldn’t sleep.overpriced.
All viewings had so many tourist vans on disgusting roads that it was likely a peak hour expressway
IT
50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Nice place, the worst services in whole Africa safari regions
Terrible experience with the Safari company MAKINI company, Tanzanians asking for a lots of money with very poor services, much better the safaries in South Africa or Kenia. Parks are managed by the Government and if you sleep in the Camps its own your risk, animals in between the tends, most of the time not water in the public toilettes...dirties etc. Food prepared by Cookers in a vey lack of hygene conditions, roads are terrible, but Tanzanian Gov, gets 45,00 Usd for each tourist going in the parks.
I don't know if you see the above mentioned comments cause I tend to think this site its manipulated
IT
50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Beautiful contry lack of services, expensive, corrupted
Be prepared if you intend to go in Tanzania, in terms of services its very poor, and it has got the higher costs in between South Africa and Kenia safari whom are much more organized affordable, better food, better transportation.
main camps ok nothing to write home about. Avoid Matombe at all costs!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hardly any wildlife, mainly elephants, eland, Impala, zebra, giraffe etc
In our 3 nights we never saw ANY predators. I will skip this in future, totally not worth it! Weather good, roads wet and muddy, we got stuck 3 times in mud during drives.