Guest’s of Brett’s recently embarked on a remarkable journey through some of Africa’s most iconic landscapes exploring the vast wilderness of Kenya and Tanzania. This safari adventure took the guests deep into the heart of East Africa, where they witnessed the breathtaking beauty and unparalleled wildlife of the Masai Mara, Northern Serengeti, and Ngorongoro Crater. Here is their feedback:
Hi Brett,
We arrived back home on Wednesday and continue to feel the jetlag, but are still remembering our trip with awe. Overall, the variety of terrain and animals and the welcome and warmth of the local people were wonderful. Though the ambience of each property was different, they were all very comfortable, even more so than expected. Overall the guides were very good, though two did really stand out. Here are some comments about each place.
Entamamu: Our room, or I should say individual cabin, was lovely and very comfortable. The staff were uniformly gracious and warm. Shortly after arrival, I suffered from a brief bout of Montezuma’s revenge, and the staff were helpful and kind in their assistance. The food was excellent. We were certainly spoiled with our first guide, Roland, who was warm, very interactive and engaging, and generous with his knowledge, which clearly was extensive. He had long experience as a guide and with the company. The manager, who seemed to us to have a kind, calm, and quiet authority at the camp, appeared to us to be a big reason it was run so well.
Serian Serengeti Camp: Our tent was comfortable and pleasant. The tent had a nice and very level wooden floor. Once again, the staff were warm, welcoming, and gracious. There was more of a family and social feel to the place. This was partly due, I think, to their dining arrangement that primarily was at a large table that seated most of the guests, an arrangement which promoted more interaction. We were fortunate to be there at the same time as a lovely French couple and their two young daughters. The owner of the camp was away while we were there, but his surrogate, an old female friend of his, also added to the welcome feel by interacting comfortably with both guests and staff. The food was a little uneven, but generally it was very good. Our guide was also a long-time employee of the camp and very good. He was not so outgoing and forthcoming as our first guide, but he was knowledgeable and did a good job of finding good places to view the animals.
Offbeat Ndoto: Our tent was lovely, very large, and comfortable, though Robert found the floor, which was just a tarp over compacted clay and sloped a bit downward from the bed to the front entrance, to be a bit disconcerting. The camp is well laid out right in the midst of the wildlife and has set up a beautiful site for serving lunch next to a watering hole/stream and under large old trees. To us, the camp seems relatively new with some staff still learning the ropes. Overall, although they were friendly and welcoming, we had the sense that they were all trying too hard to make the place feel as upscale as the facilities. They were clearly eager for positive feedback, asking for it in various ways. The food was a bit uneven, but overall very good. For our first night, which was my birthday, they had arranged a dinner right at our tent and surprised me with a cake, a gesture which was very thoughtful and most appreciated. Solomon, a Masai, was our second stellar guide. He was warm and very engaging, knowledgeable and generous with his trove of information, and appeared to enjoy sharing it.
Tawi Lodge: We found this to be a lovely, resort-like place with charming individual cottages. We could see animals romp by our windows, see Kilimanjaro during the day, and enjoy the monkey antics at the lodge building. The staff were warm and gracious and notably more experienced than at Ndoto, which was consistent with the resort feel to the place. The food was consistently good. It was a lovely spot to end our adventure. Our guide was knowledgeable, but not particularly engaging or interactive. The lodges format for the drives to view game was a little different in that we shared the guide and drive with another couple, and changes in guides were possible from one time to another. This worked out fine; it was just different. As the main attraction in Amboseli is the elephants and because of the very large numbers of cars and tourists there, in hindsight staying there just two nights (one full day in between) would have been fine for us.
Flights, connections, etc.: With one exception, and amazingly to us, your arrangements for flights and pick-ups all worked very well. Our first hop from Dar es Salaam to Ngorogoro Crater turned out better than feared. We were scheduled for three flights to get there, but the airline changed that plan and flew us there directly with a single flight. A much improved arrangement from our point of view. The one snafu was at the end in Nairobi. The outfit or person scheduled to pick us up had not checked on the timing of the flight and was not there to meet us. He arrived about 30 minutes late, at which point we had moved on from the pickup point to seek help connecting with the Hotel. We finally connected with our ride an hour late with the help of the local airport security personnel graciously helping out, making some calls and assisting us. The Crown Plaza was a lovely place to wait for our plane home, thank you. Robert mistakenly left his eyeglasses at the hotel; we are waiting to see of the hotel will agree to mail them to us here in the US.
We want to offer one further comment about our experience getting ready for our trip. Most of your materials were very helpful, but given our frustrations getting our visa, particularly for Tanzania, we would have appreciated your having more knowledge about the sticking points in that process and thus providing the necessary information from your end for Visa completion in advance rather than piecemeal as we stumbled through the Visa application process. We realize that you organize trips all over Africa, so it is probably difficult to keep abreast of all the different visa application information requirements, so this is just our suggestion. We really appreciate all your efforts in choosing the locations for us to see—it was an excellent, varied itinerary—and in setting up all the transportation involved. Thank you very much!
Warm regards,
Elizabeth and Robert
