One Week Tanzania Safaris

You could not have planned the trip better. It was fantastic! Our safari driver from Rangers was great - again could not of been better. He pushed every day for us to see everything possible. Hes fun and incredibly knowledgeable and has a great command of the English language.You were right to schedule one day in Nairobi - so glad we did not change it to two days. We saw the last of the Big 5 - the black rhino in Kenya. We loved all of our accommodations and the people are so friendly, polite and helpful.We saw the Great Migration in Tanzania. We would not of changed one thing. People from other tour agencies were dissapointed that when they arrived in Kenya when we did as all of the Wildebeest had already migrated to Tanzania.What you scheduled for us was perfect. I do think that Tanzania is not well known but Kenya is to the average American like us. If it wasn't for you we would of never known about Tanzania. Tanzania has it all - except the black rhino at the Govenor's Camp- no need to even go to Kenya but I did want to go the the Elephant and Giraffe orphanages. We loved Capetown, the shark cage trip and the tour operator was wonderful. The 1/2 day Capetown trip was great. We went on the historic Capetown walking tour at 11:00 after we checked out. We added the Olduvai museum at the crater to our trip.  We had a wonderful time and saw so much in 17 days including traveling from the East Coast;  Arusha, Tarangire National park,  Ngorongoro crater, Central Serengeti - Turner Springs, Norther Serengeti - Kokatonde, Masai - Mara, Nairobi, Victoria Falls and Capetown. A trip of a lifetime.

Our trip to Africa was fantastic, and could barely be improved upon.  My wife and I went to Rwanda and Uganda for mountain gorilla trekking, then to Tanzania for safari game drives in Tarangire NP, Serengeti NP and Ngorongoro NP, and finished up in Zanzibar for swahili cooking class, snorkeling and a spice plantation tour. The trip was organized by a travel planner at this travel company. After sending our ideas to our travel planner, we worked back and forth for a week or so to fine-tune our trip itinerary to include the things that we wanted to do, which involved seeing as much wildlife as possible. My wife loves monkeys and I am a birdwatcher, so we made sure that there was plenty of both in our itinerary.  Our travel planner was very organized and great to work with. She even met us in Arusha with her husband, to say "Jambo" hello. Our guides were both great guys, very knowledgeable of the birds, wildlife and culture that we saw. This travel company is highly recommended and we would use them again if we traveled to Africa.

Wow.  That's just for starters.  I just returned from Africa with my partner and two of our close friends.  We had a 2 week trip to Tanzania and Zanzibar booked through this African safari tour operator.  It included a day hike on Mt. Kilimanjaro, 7 days of safari, and 3 days at a resort in Zanzibar.

Just as we prepared to leave San Francisco, our flight was delayed, and we had to rebook arrangements, and arrived in Arusha 36 hours later than planned.  That did not phase our travel company.  I sent them an email on Saturday AM with our new flight plans, a representative of was waiting for us as we landed at 3:30AM, and the adventure continued.

Our travel company was able to shuffle our schedule to allow us to fit in our hike on Mt. Kilimanjaro at the end of the safari portion of our trip, and give up one day in Zanzibar.  

All of the accommodations were first class.  We stayed at the Arusha Hotel for just a few hours when we landed, and found it to be a charming colonial style hotel that we wished we could have enjoyed more.

Our driver/guide, Joseph, was with us 7 days.   He was very good at negotiating the rough roads on safari, and we were able to see most of what we wanted over the trip.

We stayed one night at Kirururu Lodge overlooking Lake Manyara.  Be sure to have a drink at the bar - the view down to the lake is breath-taking.

The two nights at Tloma Lodge were also very nice.  The rooms were large and well-appointed, and the meals were wonderful.  It was relaxing to hang around the lobby in the afternoon talking to other travelers, comparing sights on our safari outings.  A special thanks to Martha for her outstanding service.  She was the best.

In the Serengeti, we stayed two nights each in two tent camps.  One in the central part (Kati Kati), and one farther north along the Mara River (Mara Under Canvas Camp).  The Mara camp was very deluxe.  Our tent must have been over 600 square feet, and had plumbed cold water.

The whole trip exceeded our expectations.  Our agent at this travel company was so helpful at every phase of planning and during the trip when our plans changed at the last minute.  Our tour guides were also there every step of the way in Tanzania.  We were never at a loss as to where to go or when, as they had us totally covered.

From the first conversation with our trip designer to the moment we got in the taxi leaving lodge in Zanzibar heading for the airport, the entire experience was seamless and far exceeded our expectations.  We truly didn't know what to expect with this trip.  We knew we'd see myriad animals while on safari.  We knew we'd be awestruck with the expansive vistas.  We didn't know what to expect with the food, transfers at airports, lodging accommodations, friendliness (or lack thereof) of our hosts, ability to communicate with locals, our general safety, etc.  Africa turned out to be a huge surprise and I'm sure we owe a great deal of gratitude to our trip designer and the entire company's team.  When we got off the plane in Arusha (Kilimanjaro International Airport), we were greeted by a smiling representative accompanied by our guide.  Our representative was a ray of sunshine.  What I initially thought was just a gregarious host who was well trained to make tourists feel comfortable turned out to be what we experienced with every Tanzanian we met.  You couldn't pass a native Tanzanian without getting an ear to ear smile and a hearty "Jambo!"  Sometimes you'd get a "Jambo, jambo!"  The camps we stayed at were all amazing.  Some were better appointed than others (Swala and Serengeti Pioneer Camps in particular) but even the lesser-appointed camps offered amazing settings in the wilds of Africa...star-gazing was amazing!  The food was consistently very good.  We spent our first night at Onsea House on the outskirts of Arusha.

Onsea House was a beautiful, boutique hotel nestled in the hillsides outside Arusha.  The grounds were beautiful;  well-defined paths were guarded by thick tropical plants and flowers were in full bloom.  As the sun went down, I could hear dogs barking, cows mooing and an relentless rooster that announced his presence throughout the night.  The food at Onsea was an unexpected treat.  My wife and I immediately made friends with the couple in the room next to ours and we shared dinner with them.    We set out the next morning for Tarangire.  Our tour guide met us early in the morning and we started our safari.  We couldn't have asked for a better tour guide;  we really felt like we made a life-long friend in him.  He was genuine, gregarious and extremely knowledgeable in all things Africa.  We spent the next 10 days with him.  We visited Tarangire, the Ngorongoro Crater, the Ndutu region and the Serengeti.  It's hard to say which we enjoyed the most.  Taragnire was a haven for elephants.  The Ngorongoro Crater would have been beautiful even if it didn't host a self-contained ecosystem.  Ngorongoro was the only place we saw rhinos.  The Ndutu region was unique in that we felt free to explore nooks and crannies in search of lions feasting on a freshly killed zebra or cape buffalo.  And the Serengeti was majestic and expansive.  Being awakened to two competing lions roaring in the middle of the night to assert their dominance was something I'll never forget.  We spent the last 4 days at a spa on the northeastern shore of Zanzibar.  What an amazing place to get your zen on!  I'm an early riser.  I had an opportunity on multiple mornings to watch as the local fisherman paddled their outriggers past our thatched lodge on the beach.  Dozens of boats would pass by as the men sang songs in Swahili with one fisherman singing the lead while the others sang responses in unison...priceless.