50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
African Safari
We were party of 14 adults and had two SUV from this company. The drivers were excellent in terms of their services and demeanors But we were given one relatively new vehicle and other one was very old. One of our vehicle broke down twice once in Masai Mara and second time in Serengati national park. The ride was very rough with broken seats handles and malfunctioning windows.
PLEASE BE CAREFUL IF YOU PLAN TO CHOOSE THIS COMPANY AND ASK FOR A NEW VEHICLE WITH COMFORTABLE SEATS AND WEFI ONBOARD IF POSSIBLE.
ES
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
No information, no organization.
This agency is run by a person with a lack of education and will attempt to defraud you at any time. The guides / drivers are not professionals and they do not have the necessary education. The exception is in the team of cooks, who do a great job.
As a reference, I must say that we did another safari in Kenya and it was completely opposite, we were with great people and professional people.
You should avoid contracting with this agency, and if it is part of a Kenya-Tanzania combined, you should specify to the Kenyan agency that you do not hire Sandlans Safari for the part you will make in Tanzania.
AE
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Disappointing - Would not recomend them to any of my friends.
Communication- Fair
Service- was pretty bad. they dont stick to the timings . On the day we were to leave from Nairobi to Masai Maara, we were quite appalled with the quality and cleanliness of the mini bus that we were driving to Masai Maara. When we were told that this would be the vehicle that we would go on the game drive , we politely refuse to take that vehicle considering the rough terrain that we would be covering as the Van was in really bad condition without propoer upholstery and bad seats.
when we insisted they had the vehicle changed to a slightly better one.
Day 1- Evening -on reaching MM ,our Tour guide (Fred) was not able to locate our lodge amidst the Savannahs and we aimlessly wandered for about an hour searching and then he decided that we would go on the game drive after which we will find the lodge.
Day-2 was the best day of the 3 day tour as we were on the game drive from morning to evening. Packed lunch was provided.
Day-3 : our schedule was to leave for another game drive from 630 to 830 am after which we were to drive back to Nairobi. However when the tour guide came to pick us up he said that there was some technical snag and the car battery was having problems. We hardly took off and the van stopped twice in the grasslands. We then suggested that he go to the mechanics available in the town to which he agreed and after a 40 mt drive we reached the place but none of them were available. it was already 820 by then and he quitely filled petrol and said that he suggests that we skip the drive as we would reach Niarobi only between 7pm-9m if we went for the drive. We agreed to that as we were a bit concerned about the Vehicle giving way in the middle of the Savannahs with animals around us.
Little did we know that this was a ploy by the tour operators as half way through on our way back to Nairobi , the guide stopped for lunch and after lunch he told us that there would be a change in plan and that we had to move into another car which was parked beside ours and that the passengers in that car would travel in the vehicle we came from MM and we would go to nairobi in their car.
at that point of time we actually wondered how could they take them on a game drive if the van had technical snags (stoppped at least 3 times in Masai Maara when we started the game drive)??
It was just a pretext used by these guys as they needed the car by noon to make the swap.
Overall - Althoguh i would want to visit MM again , i would not take another package with them as their service was quite disappointing and would not recomend them to any of my friends.
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Subcontracted safaris were great, transfers between them were not
We went on a 9-day safari that included Masai Mara, Lake Manyara, Seregeti, and Ngorogoro Crater. Each of the parks were very enjoyable and we saw a ton of animals, including all of the Big 5. However, all of our transfers between the parts of the safari were very stressful.
When we flew into Nairobi, there was apparently a driver waiting to take us to our hotel, but we were not told to expect a driver nor did we see anyone at the airport that seemed to be looking for us, so we took a cab to our hotel. When we got back from the Masai Mara leg of our trip we were staying at the same hotel for a night, but the hotel had to call Erick, the safari manager, to verify that we actually had a reservation because it didn't seem to be on the books. We then had no idea when we were going to be picked up in the morning to go on the next part of the safari. It turned out Erick was coming to the hotel to talk to us later that night, but we were not told to expect that. He told us he would be picking us up in the morning to take us to our bus to Arusha, but in the morning he did not show up, so we had to call him, and then eventually someone else showed up to take us where we needed to go. Once our bus got to Arusha, there was a crowd of safari bookers and cab drivers waiting to take the bus passengers where they needed to go. All the other passengers either knew where they were going, or a safari booker came on the bus and knew the passenger's name and where they were going. We were left on the bus with no idea where we were going and no idea if anyone was supposed to be picking us up, and then we were asked for our bus ticket, which we didn't have. We luckily had Erick's phone number from calling him that morning, but our phone's didn't work in Tanzania so we had to have someone else call him. Erick told them the safari company that was supposed to be picking us up, but they didn't answer their phone when called. We almost took a cab (that we would have had to pay for) to that safari company's office, but luckily the people who were supposed to pick us up arrived right as we were leaving and caught us. We had a similar experience when arriving back in Arusha at the end of our trip, and we had to have the hotel call the Tanzanian sub-contracted safari company (which we luckily remembered the name of) to verify that we had a pre-paid room, and then again in the morning to verify they were actually coming to pick us up. When we got back to the bus, we were again asked for a bus ticket we didn't have, and we again had to have them call someone to verify that we had a prepaid bus trip back to Nairobi.
A lot of this stress could have been avoided by giving us a detailed itinerary with all the information about the sub-contracted safaris, pick up times, and contact info for a person at each transfer.
To top it all off, before we even left our home country, Erick contacted us to inform us of some increased park entry fees, letting us know we should bring a little extra money to cover them. We did so, but when we settled our balance on arrival, the balance did not include these increased park fees. Then, on our second night in Nairobi (between the Masai Mara and Tanzania parts of the safari), Erick gave us a long explanation about how he sets the safari prices for the whole safari season even though Tanzania often increases their fees in the middle of the season. He told us that he does not force his clients to pay the increased fees since they agreed to a lower price, but that he tells his clients about the increased fees in the hope that, if they have a good time, they choose to pay the price increase. This made it sound as though he wanted us to think of a the increased fees as a tip that he should receive if he did a good job. Because of this long-winded explanation, I chose to see how the rest of the trip went before deciding whether to pay the fees, and since we had to convince people at every leg of the trip that we were pre-paid and have them call various people to make sure, the trip didn't seem like it deserved an extra tip. However, once we arrived back in our home country, we received numerous communications from Erick asking us for the money for the park fees. All of this felt pretty slimy to say the least. The ridiculous part is, if he had just included the park fees in the balance when we settled up at the beginning of our trip, I wouldn't have thought anything of it. Instead he had to make it seem like he was demanding a large tip for a very sub-par job.
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Terrible choice to sub-contract the Tanzania portion of our Trip
We recently went on a Safari (Kenya and Tanzania) with SafariBookEvolution. These guys can handle Kenyan safari alright, but they were not forthcoming about the fact that they don't run the Tanzanian safari themselves, and it was nothing short of a disaster as they sub-contract to Jackpot safaris (who basically give you dangerous cars, careless guides and put your lives in danger. See below the list of issues we faced. I wouldn't recommend them and can't say much for Safaribook Evolution as they but us in a very terrible situation.
Kenyan Safari issues
1) no power at destiny Eco camp for 2 days
2) no hot water at destiny Eco camp for 2 days, although we were promised.
Tanzanian Safari issues
Safety - We put our families in danger. Don't risk it!
1) Car's door kept opening right in the middle of game drives and on the highways endangering our families.
2) The car's open top literally fell on us which could have killed all of us. Thankfully we were sitting at that time.
3) Car broke down in the middle of forest. And the driver had least concern for our safety. A speeding vehicle nearly crashed on our car.
4) We were lost in the jungle of for four hours with the driver George not having a clue about where we were. He didn't even have the mobile number of the Kati Kati camp.
Value for Money - Zero
5) We paid a lot for the Kati Kati camp's luxury tent, but stayed there just for 8 hours in Kati Kati camp without enjoying any part of the stay. Thanks to George who got us lost in the jungle.
6) Car was small and cramped in Tz for 3 days. When we complained about this, George said he couldn't drive the other car so we ended up using the same cramped car for one more day which eventually broke down.
7) The guide/driver was very rude and arrogant, not well informed(like he didn't have the phone number of the Kati Kati camp when we were lost in the jungle.
8) The tents given to us at the flamingo hotel were so small. We had to pay $200 extra to get the rooms. Andrew (Jackpot Safari) threatened to cancel the whole safari even though he saw we had 2 small kids.
9) No binoculars for the Tz safari, although we were promised that we will be given one.
10) The itinerary was changed mid way, only one day at the Tarangire national park as opposed to two days.
11) the Tz driver has a total lack of interest with the safari, with us having to push him to go on game drives. For example we spent only 2 hours at the Lake Manyara game drive. Then we had to call the managers to get him to take us to another game drive.
12) The Tz driver only drove us around the main gate most of the time. We had to constantly push him to drive a little bit further. As soon as he shows us one thing, he will be satisfied, but we were not as we have paid a lot of money.
13) The last two days were completely useless, especially Tarangire was a complete waste of time. We didn't see anything partly because of the itinerary change. George, the Tz driver, lied to us that Tarangire will take 3 hours to reach when it took only an hour and a half.
14) The Tz driver tried to sneak into all the parks without paying for the kids
The list goes on. But there are two big things to keep in mind. First, Safaribook Evolution never informed us that they subcontract the trip in Tanzania, nor did they tell us who it would be doing our trip. In the end they are responsible for our trip and our safetey. Second, was anytime we spoke to Andrew about the problems he was not willing to discuss ways to solve them, but would simply threaten to stop the safari and abandon us in Arusha. This is very unprofessional, especially as we were only asking for what was written in the itineary and to be in a safe vehicle.
Don't use them of Tanzania!!!
NL
So-so safari
On the plus side, drivers and other tour staff were helpful, kind and eager to share stories and make the trip more personal. Also, the food provided was decent.
Even though our safari experience at Amboseli was enjoyable, there were some issues.
- Chaotic. Upon departure it was revealed that we were joining other groups in Nairobi, from other operators; merging the safari participants became very chaotic, nothing was communicated or planned, many different people were involved and we were kept in the dark. Similarly, upon returning, we had no idea how or with whom we would get home after dropping off the others at the airport as nothing was communicated by the operator.
- Camp. We arrived at 22h (while we departed at 14.30 from our place in Nairobi) in the budget option camp. When we were taken to our tent the lights had been left inside which basically resulted in an unnecessary bug-fest. Then we tried to use the bathroom but there were still feces there which came up when we tried to flush... When we made inquiries someone did come over to 'fix' it but the bathroom floor was covered instead. Then we were left alone for the night, though we were promised a new tent in the morning. While the website promises the best of the budget camp, it was clear there were cottages better than our tents.
- Organisation. The point of the third day was to go for an early morning (6.30am) game drive and then head back to Nairobi. However, when we arrived for breakfast at 6am nothing was prepared and in the end we had to wait exactly and hour. While we had clearly communicated an allergy for eggs, the breakfast consisted of pancakes and omelettes. Furthermore, the car needed fixing and we ended up in the park after 8am instead. Soon after we got a flat tire, resulting in no time left to watch game as we had to leave before our 24hour park permit expired. Lastly on the way back, our driver kept falling asleep behind the wheel.
Despite these issues we had a good time in the Amboseli National park.
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
EASTCO - Not to be relied on
We made our safari booking with EASTCO many months in advance but found that everything was still being put together at the last minute and in a slightly shambolic manner. The owner, Simon, advised us when we arrived in Arusha that our itinerary was being reversed due to road conditions making the original route too arduous. Whilst this may have been accurate and necessary, it wasn’t a sudden occurrence and Simon should have been aware in advance and had our new itinerary in place before our arrival. We met Simon a couple of days before the start of the safari but he didn’t even know then who our drivers would be for the trip, and on the first morning we had to chase to find out if anyone was going to turn up when we’d been ready and waiting to go immediately after breakfast as agreed. After a couple of hours or so, the two drivers did arrive but they seemed to have little idea as to what the itinerary was. The first day was wasted as we went to the wrong place and ended up driving all day, missing out on an afternoon’s walking safari at Boundary Lodge.
The next day was fine with an excellent day at Tarangire National Park, but the following morning we discovered that one driver was complaining about not being paid and was refusing to take us any further, so we ended up spending 3 hours at the roadside waiting for Simon to send out a new driver and vehicle – another half day wasted. As it happens, we were happy to see the back of that driver as he had a surly attitude and little regard for us as clients.
Things picked up after that, with a much better driver, Julius, who, together with the other original driver, Rogers, worked hard to make the trip enjoyable. Julius’ engineering skills also came in handy in dealing with a number of problems with the slightly dated safari trucks. The high quality of the game viewing in the Serengeti also started to make up for the earlier problems. After travelling some distance to the northern Serengeti we found ourselves in an excellent camp for 2 nights (supposedly) in order to witness the wildebeest migration. On the first morning however, we received a call to say that we had to commence our return trip early because Simon had been unable to alter our onward flights to Zanzibar which had been booked as part of the original itinerary. We had to immediately leave our morning’s safari, pack our bags and set off on the road again.
We’d lost confidence in Simon’s arrangements and began to get concerned about the Zanzibar flight booking. On the morning of our final day we made direct contact with the airline at Arusha who told us that they had our booking but the flights hadn’t been paid for, despite our already having paid Simon in advance. Simon assured us that a man was being sent to make payment and thankfully (but when we were just 30 minutes from the airport) we found that the airline had been paid – but why did it have to be last minute and stressful?
Simon met us at the airport with a slightly begrudging apology, preferring to blame the first driver for all the issues but failing to acknowledge that the drivers are his responsibility. He admitted that he had recently sold off his vehicles to his drivers on the basis that they would contract back to provide a guiding service. It turns out however, that some of them just sub-contract out the vehicle to other drivers over whom Simon has no control – hence our first driver problem. Simon offered to refund us for the loss of the first day, but that appears to have been a false promise with no sign of any payment (or indeed correspondence) after 6 weeks. We are not entirely surprised.
The Serengeti was spectacular, we loved the camps and lodges, we saw pretty much everything we wanted to see and our two eventual drivers had a fantastic attitude. I would urge anyone to visit Tanzania, but DO NOT use EASTCO if you want a well organised and stress free safari.
CA
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
So many Possabilities.....
This review should be read in conjunction with Clives’s review posted in February 2015—he and his wife were the travelling companions with me and my family (wife, daughter and son). https://www.safaribookings.com/or5815
I have delayed in giving a review of Eastco in order for my mindset to become more objective as Clive has pretty much given an accurate outline of our experience with Eastco plus I was interested to see if Simon would make any contact with us to see what our view was. It is now September and we have not heard one peep from Mr. King although I expect he might have a response to my comments here.
My view of the trip was similar to Clive’s and I back him completely in his version of the events as they unfolded. I will ad that on the face Eastview’s proposed itineraries look pretty good—lots of “game drives” shown, nice mix of mid and very nice accomodations, etc., but what the itinerary doesn’t reveal is that many of the “game drives” are simply long drives over rough and dusty roads to get from place to place with little or no gave evident. The use of Ol Tukai lodge puts you several hours out in a virtual desert and fills in a couple of days there with”cultural” activities involving hot walks to neighboring village and school—I have no problem with learning about local cultures but we specifically stated in our work up that our primary interest was game drives and game viewing.
Boundary Hill lodge, which is a beautiful place to stay, is again a long drive to get to and from with little game in its immediate area so more long drives to see game.
We had specifically planned this trip to coincide with the wildebeest birthing stage of the great migration and clearly set this out when planning the itinerary with Mr. King—no luck, the migration moved faster than expected and had already passed the location of Eastco’s tent camp and lodge accommodation placing the main herd several hours drive from where we were staying—no opportunity was presented or even available to us to change itinerary to accommodate because the Land rovers were broken down.
We had also specifically asked for 2 days in the Ngorongoro Crater—we got one day and one of the accommodation nights was changed to a much cheaper location—ostensibly because the more expensive lodge was full and we didn’t book soon enough—yeh, right!!
The last few days of our itinerary were spent at replacement (read Cheaper) lodges and we were offered no explanation or refund.
We did see a good selection of game but not what we had hoped and planned for—this safari was not good value for the money—which was quite embarrassing for us as we had made the selection of Eastco based on the reviews we had read prior to our trip and our e-mails with Mr. King. We advised our friends that Eastco had good reviews and they went with our suggestion--too their dismay I am sure!
We quite agree with Clive’s assessment that Eastco is a second rate operation and we do not recommend booking with them either. My daughter was quite upset by the "hostage incident" and my wife and I were disappointed with missing the birthing. Mr. King's operation appears to be running so close to financial difficulties that there is little or no room for any flexibility once you are committed to the itinerary--but yet there is no problem in shifting accommodations to cheaper venues with no explanation (or refund).
JP
35-50 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Poorly organized, attempted price increase/bait & switch, change of details, unnecessary delays
I have some really mixed reviews about this operator, I honestly wanted to give them a good review and communication during booking was good, but then just before we arrived in Kenya things started to quickly unravel. In short, I can't in good conscious recommend this operator to anyone after the experience we had with them. I went with a 4 day package that was to include Lake Nakuru and Masai Mara. Our flight arrived in Nairobi after noon and most package tours leave in the morning, so I emailed several about this and most were receptive to taking us straight from the airport to our first stopover point right away (we didn't want to waste a night in Nairobi as we had limited time on the trip). Santos from Kenya Bush Excursions got in touch with me and they were the first one to offer the Lanet Matfam resort in Nakuru for the first night rather than the budget hotel in town that most operators seem to use, so I went with them because of that reason. I sent the requested deposit and all was well.
Problems:
1st) 2 weeks before our arrival Santos emailed me and said there was a problem, he said another client cancelled the Nakuru part of their trip and wanted to do Masai Mara only and tried to convince me to do the same, or else pay more to keep our scheduled trip as a private safari. I simply said neither option was acceptable, that Nakuru was part of our plan and we still wanted to go but I saw no reason to pay more since it was already agreed from the start that we were going to Nakuru in a private group due to our mid-day arrival at NBO and our minimum booking number was only 2 for that price anyway. I asked that he either honor the original agreement or cancel and I'd rebook with another operator. (There were no shortage of operators willing to offer nearly the same price). He then said he would work on it and get back to me. A week later he still hadn't gotten back to me so I followed up myself and he said all was fine, that he'd arranged to drop us with another safari operator on the second day to go to Masai Mara with their group. Generally that was fine with me as all operators to Masai Mara were pretty much the same from the quotes I received.
2nd) After arriving at NBO, our driver and Santos met us at the airport. I quickly noted that the car picking us up was not a 4x4 Safari van as quoted, but a small Toyota station wagon unsuitable for a game drive. After leaving the airport Santos again tried to convince us to give up Lake Nakuru and go to Lake Naivasha instead, which I again declined since we wanted to see the flamingos at Nakuru. He was trying to say that maybe the roads in the park at Lake Nakuru were too difficult since it was rainy season (they were fine BTW, and if they would have had the promised 4x4 van then it wouldn't have been an issue anyway). After paying the balance, we had expected to be on our way immediately to Nakuru, but instead they had to take us into the City Market area so he could exchange dollars to shillings on the black market because he didn't have money to pay the driver and our park fees. He was completely unprepared, and if he wanted paid in Kenyan shillings then he should have said that in the booking emails as I could have easily gotten them at the airport saving A LOT of time. It took them over an hour to get the exchange done and payments sorted out as we drove around the city market over and over in the heat with no A/C. Now finally it's well after 3pm and finally we're on the way out of the city. We arrive in Nakuru well after dark.
3rd) After arriving at Nakuru and checking into the Lanet Matfam resort, our driver said that his boss wants to talk to me. I get on the phone and it's Santos again trying to convince me to give up the Lake Nakuru game drive in the morning and just to do Masai Mara because he doesn't have the cash to pay for it all. He said if we want to do Lake Nakuru in the morning (as per the original itinerary) that he wanted us to pay another $150 for the park fees. Of course I refused and said I still don't understand why he's trying this again and reminded him that I gave him a chance to cancel 2 weeks before. I also reminded him that if we were to cancel the Lake Nakuru game drive then it was a complete waste of time to drive there that night, since it's a good 2 hours north of the turn off to go to Masai Mara from Nairobi. Finally he said it's fine and he'd pay the difference out of his own pocket. (I will never believe he paid anything out of his own pocket, maybe he didn't make money on us since other people cancelled but I added up all park fees and they are about 50% of our total package cost, so there was plenty left to pay drivers and budget accommodations).
4th) The Lake Nakuru game drive was in the Toyota station wagon that picked us up from the airport. It was poor because it doesn't have the proper ground clearance for the dirt tracks in the park, no pop-up roof for taking pictures, and is low to the ground hurting chances at seeing animals at a distance. Where was the 4x4 van we were promised?
5th) We'll skip to the last day when arriving back at Nairobi since the part of the tour after joining the other operator and group to Masai Mara was really good. When we got back into Nairobi the driver we were with was already planning to go to the airport to drop off someone else with a similar flight time as us. Instead of leaving us with them to go to the airport, Santos brought his own driver to meet us in the city center to take us to the airport. That in itself was fine, however once again they were totally unprepared. To drop off other people, the van we were in drove through the city market area and went to another parking area about 15-20 minutes away (in traffic, really only about 1km in distance). One parking, Santos and the driver were there waiting, but informed me that the car was actually "a few" meters away. Turns out after walking and following them, the car was actually parked well on the other side of the city market where we had just driven through, at that point nearly an hour before. So here we're dragging our luggage through hot and crowded Nairobi center streets to a place we had already passed once and if he had communicated with the driver of the van we were in, could have been dropped at that spot as we passed earlier. To add insult to injury he made us wait on a street corner for a good 15 minutes after getting back to the city market area waiting for the car to show up from its parking spot. Needless to say I was extremely irritated at this point since the van we started in was going to the airport anyway and all of this was completely unnecessary, my impression was that he was intentionally causing us delay in retaliation for not cancelling Nakuru. There was no other excuse or explanation for it. I was frankly ready to just call in an Uber car and be done with him at that point, the nearest Uber car though was about 15 minutes away and the regular taxis nearby were all pretty shabby looking. His driver did show up finally with the car but by this point the heavy traffic on the road going out to the airport had started and it took forever. We made our flight but had little time to spare thanks to these antics.
Now, the good parts... as far as Kenya Bush Excursions goes, there aren't any, but the operator they passed us off to for Masai Mara was excellent. I didn't get their company's name unfortunately (certainly wish I had because I'd give them a great review), but the driver is Joshua and knows the Masai Mara very well. The first day evening game drive and the last day morning game drive were so-so, but I will blame that mostly on the part of the park near the camp we stayed in, he said the Maasai people drive their cattle through there and it scares away a lot of the animals. The full day game drive he led us on however was really good. He was on the radio the whole day getting locations on big cats and really made an effort to get to them before they disappeared into the bush. We saw more lions than one can count (at least 20 in total), a cheetah mother with cubs, and finally a leopard. Of course plenty of all the common animals too (elephant, buffalo, giraffe, zebra, etc.) but the real gems were the big cats. The cheetah, leopard, and at least one of the really good lion sightings would not have likely been found on a self-drive without someone on a radio.
All in all we had a really good Masai Mara safari and a really poor Lake Nakru one. But the frustrations of dealing with Kenya Bush Excursions were terrible and uncalled for. They are absolute professionals at trying to convince you not to take what you've already paid for or pay twice for the same thing. There is no shortage of tour operators willing to offer the same price with a minimum booking of 2 people. For people doing Nakuru with other operators, I highly recommend requesting the Lanet Matfam resort instead of the budget hotel in town. Considering where we were at, the Lanet Matfam was actually pretty decent (far from luxury, but nothing like the terrible reviews the budget hotels in town get).
IT
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Very old jeep
Jeep very slow, very old (20 years), that did not work well (the engine would not start). It 'a shame to have a ruined a trip so nice.