Luxury Okavango & Zimbabwe Safaris Plus Victoria Falls Tour

Absolutely awesome experience – better than we imagined! We spent time in Victoria Falls, Chobe National Park, the Okavango Delta and Cape Town. The service, guides, lodgings and experiences we had in each location were exceptional. This safari travel company and our travel planner made everything easy – we were greeted each step of the way, enabling us to enjoy our African adventure without the normal stress of traveling in another country. In Zimbabwe, we experienced majestic Victoria Falls both from the air and a guided tour through the park. We enjoyed a sunset dinner cruise on the Zambezi River. Our room at the Ilala Lodge was picture perfect and comfortable, plus we could see the mist rising from the falls. In Chobe National Park, we went on numerous game drives and boat tour with a dedicated guide. The Ngoma Safari Lodge was the most visually extravagant place we ever stayed.  The view walking into the lodge literally takes your breath away as you look down at the Chobe River with herds of zebras, giraffes and antelopes moving between a small watering hole close to Ngoma Lodge and the river. Combine that with great location to Chobe National Park, exceptional guides, thoughtful and well-trained staff, delicious dinners and wonderful rooms with incredible views and you have the perfect safari location. In the Okavango Delta we saw so much wildlife (inlcuding a numerous lions and African Wild dogs and their pups) and were again blessed with wonderful guides, great staff, and lovely rooms in an amazing location at Sable Alley in the Khwai Reserve. Cape Town gave us an opportunity to relax at the boutique hotel and enjoy winery tours and a peninsula tour, as well as amazing restaurants.

Originally, I tried to work out an itinerary myself using online review and travel books, but became concerned about arranging transportation and guides. Then I contacted several different travel agencies. This travel planner quickly responded. She made everything easy for us. She worked with us on locations, desired experiences, dates and cost. We really wanted to see Botswana’s Chobe National Park and the Okavango Delta. Two other companies were trying to steer us away those areas due to cost and availability, but our travel planner was able to make it happen for us. She took care of absolutely everything from lodging, car and in-Africa air travel, tours, guides, and even restaurant reservations for us in Cape Town. Amazing personalized service.

This company makes you feel very pampered and special. Our travel planner made time to meet us in Victoria Falls (her home base). In honor of our 30th wedding anniversary, the travel company surprised us with a complimentary dinner and bottle of wine at our Victoria Falls hotel, which had one of the best restaurants in Victoria Falls.

All travel between camps was well coordinated and all of the accommodations were excellent, the job your travel company did was outstanding in every way.

Overall our trip was spectacular at each camp with one exception - Hwange, but this was a staffing issue.

Our comments on each are here:

01. Camp Moremi - 3 nights - The personnel at this camp were outstanding and very friendly and helpful. Our guide was very knowledgeable and highly qualified, good at finding great fauna and fun to be with. It did help that we could go off trail a bit. The accommodations were excellent, the lodge, food and refreshments were great, the location was optimal for land or river excursions and the overall experience was fabulous. Wanted to spend more time here!

02. Ghoha Hills Savuti Lodge - 2 nights - The same as above, very nice & knowledgeable proprietor who spent time with us looking at the stars and learning the history of Botswana. Our guide was also knowledgeable and friendly, nice accommodations, food and refreshments were great, intimate experience, good game viewing after a long drive but well worth it and quite interesting location especially with the pan below the lodge itself attracting different wildlife each day and night. 2 nights was appropriate for this camp.

03. Chobe Game Lodge - 3 nights - The  lodge here is more like a nice hotel, but with an excellent location & also within the park. Again, Our guide was very knowledgeable, good at finding wildlife and fun to be with. The lodge area, and refreshments were great, the food not so good, just OK, but the staff were very friendly and helpful. The location was optimal for land or river excursions and the overall experience was fabulous. Wanted to spend more time here!

04. Victoria Falls Hotel - 2 nights - This was a culture shock after Botswana, but it's a nice hotel with a good view and location - just a lot of civilization after the first 3 camps. Hotel drinks A+, food C-. We did the hike around the falls, lunch at the overlook and a chopper ride above the falls which was excellent and the sunset cruise on the Zambezi was really the highlight of this experience where we could return to the wilderness on the river and observe the wildlife, the boat staff was excellent and the snacks & refreshments were great - as was the wildlife viewing. 2 nights was appropriate for this place.

05. Camp Hwange - 3 nights - This experience had some great highs and some low points as well. Upon arriving at the camp from Vic Falls we were picked up by an excellent, knowledgeable and friendly guide who wore a Camp Hwange uniform. We had a long ride into the camp from the entrance in which we viewed a lot of wildlife and made several stops. The lodge had a very nice staff and excellent location for viewing the pan directly in front of the camp for wildlife, the accommodations, food and refreshments were also great. Our same guide took us out that afternoon for a nice sundowner and animal viewing that included some spectacular nighlife immediately after dinner.  At dinner the first night at dinner we met our next guide and learned that he was one of two contract guides, and not part of the regular staff.

The next day with this new contract guide we spent the morning hiking without much success in wildlife viewing and searching for a buffalo herd. He did not have his radio turned on to communicate back with the lodge or other guides during the morning but finally turned the radio on at noon to notify the lodge that we were returning for lunch at which time we immediately learned of some lions to go see from another guide.  The afternoon was similar in that we were still in search of the elusive buffalo herd and didn't really see much wildlife. We learned at dinner that the other contract guide and his group seen a multitude of wildlife over the course of the entire day, but without our radio communication we never had a heads up.

The third day we went on a day trip heading out the road towards the entrance we came in on the first day, again our guide did not have his radio on and was searching for the buffalo herd without success. We did a morning hike and saw practically nothing, then found a spot for a late lunch during which our guide went and took a nap under a tree. After lunch we we finally drove to a large pan filled with elephants which we viewed for 2 hours, then drove back to our camp, stopping at a pan with a herd of hippos briefly for photos. It was nightfall when we arrived for an very nice picnic style dinner away from the camp. We also viewed some nighlife that evening which was spectacular.

The next morning we left, and we had our original official Camp Hwange guide from the day we arrived doing the driving - and again saw an abundance of wildlife along the way which included several stops along the way.

Bottom line - we saw more wildlife with the official camp guide going in and out of the camp than we did in two days with our contract guide. This guide was knowledgable but also a bit crabby, a little too in your face and interested in discussing peoples politics and complained that he expected bad reviews - understandably after our experience - so we left feeling that we wasted a day and a half with this guide when we could have been viewing a lot more of what Camp Hwange is known for. I am optimistic that 3-4 nights in this park is appropriate, but you need a decent guide - that makes all the difference

So before you start to read this you should make a coffee as I have no way of condensing this to only a few words. 

I will start though by telling you that our trip was so incredibly amazing that Richard and I had to keep pinching ourselves and asking if this was real and were we really here doing this.  We cannot thank you enough for all the work and effort you put into this trip.  It was so well planned and organized and everyone was where they were supposed to be every single time.  We never had to wait and wonder, everyone was punctual and very friendly. The accommodations were spectacular.  We truly felt like we were being spoiled every step of the trip.

So, we will start at the beginning.  We loved Cape Town.  Our driver was fantastic.  We really connected with him and since he was with us a lot it was very good.  We were fortunate enough to be able to go up Table Mountain, not as scheduled but we fit it in on another day.  I believe I also told you that the lady on the plane sitting next to me invited us to her place for dinner.  We took her up on that and went to her home, met her husband and children and then they treated us to a dinner at Groot Constantia which was quite lovely.  We met on the plane strangers and left as new friends. The South African hospitality is second to none and everyone is so friendly.  Table Bay Hotel...very lovely and excellent location.  Enjoyed all the tours, felt like we got in all the highlights.

From there we went to Franschhoek and quite enjoyed our time there as well.  The tram is fantastic, the wines are awesome (we certainly drank our share) and the scenery was beautiful.  Loved the accommodation...very quaint.

From here we went to Ulusaba.....probably what we would call the highlight of our trip.  We hate to rank anything because it was all great but there was something special about our 4 days there.  Our safari family as I like to call them consisted of a family with two young boys and Richard and I with our ranger and tracker....two amazing guys.  We all connected so well and had 4 spectacular days together.  Our ranger said we were in the less than 5 % of the guests that get to see the Magnificent 7 which are the Big 5 plus the cheetah and the wild dogs. I had tears in my eyes when we had to say goodbye with hugs and kisses all the way around.  And not sure if any of you have stayed there but the rooms are so cool and the food was excellent every meal. Highly recommend.  We did take the opportunity while here in between game drives to go into a local town and spend some time at a primary school with the children.  The children sang songs and recited some poems and just couldn't get enough hugs from us.  They were quite enamoured with my blonde hair and our sunglasses which was very fun.  A good time was had by all.

Our Panorama drive was quite lovely and I am glad you were able to fit that in.  Oliver's was  also a very quaint hotel and the rooms were quite beautiful.  Could definitely spend more time there.  Beautiful location and we had a fabulous meal there as well.

From there it was off too Victoria Falls.  What a beautiful hotel and talk about location.  We enjoyed both the tour of the falls and the sunset cruise.  The only negative was that the food and drink was extremely over priced in comparison to everywhere else we had been.  They did put out a pretty amazing breakfast and having zebras prancing on the lawn in front of your table as you dine was quite entertaining.

On to the last part of our journey....Camp Okavango.  Pretty amazing tents.  Lying in your bed at night and listening to the symphony of insects, baboons and hippos was quite something.  This was quite a different safari as we were either boating on the river or doing a walking safari on one of the islands.  The guides again were excellent and again we felt like we had a good connection and lots of fun and laughter.  It took Richard a few hours to adjust to the fact that it was 37C and this is a tent with no AC, but the nights do cool down and it was no problem sleeping.  The camp was quite beautiful and well taken care of.  The staff there were also very friendly.

And so now we are back home again, back to work and eager to share our pictures and stories with our family and friends.

I have not attached any photos as we have to find some time to sort through all 1500 of them yet. 

Well, I guess in summary if some one asked me to rate the trip out of ten I would give it a 15 and you get 5 gold stars for the amazing job you did putting this perfectly wonderful vacation together for us.  

Many many thanks to our travel planner...you are awesome.

Warm Regards,

Jacqueline and Richard.