Africa: Reviews from our travellers

"We enjoyed our trip immensely and were sad to leave - our guide Rama was excellent and made the whole experience memorable with his deep knowledge, great sense of humour and his obvious love of the bush and its animals & birds.

Another member of staff also deserves a mention - Jossina always had a wide smile and kind word at camp meals, bush dinners, breakfasts, in fact all the time

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

If we decide to return to Africa, your company will be our first port of call - I think that says everything" Read full review: 9 nights in Africa; 7 on a Tanzania safari

"This trip to Tanzania for a safari followed by time relaxing on Zanzibar, was a long-planned trip for my brother and I, and our wives. My wife and I had previous experience of safaris, but my brother did not, so I felt the pressure of "getting it right". We decided to plan it with Expert Africa following a previous very successful trip planned with their help, and I am delighted we made that decision. A meeting with Expert Africa's Olivia helped her to perfectly judge our requirements, and the result was a highly successful holiday that exceeded all our expectations." Read full review: 15 nights in Africa; 8 on a Tanzania safari

"Overall it was a great trip and very well organized. Despite our booking the trip rather late EA managed to provide us a good mix of accommodation and we can honestly say that only one or two places were below average, most were excellent. Had we booked earlier I'm sure we would have been able to secure more first choice accommodation.

If we are fortunate to plan another trip to Africa in the future, we will definitely consider Expert Africa again, as well as recommend them to others." Read full review: 32 nights in Africa; 22 on a Namibia trip

"All aspects of the trip exceeded our expectations, which were already high given our previous trips to Africa, and the fact that this was our second visit to the Mara region.

Olivia and Richard were of invaluable help in planning and executing our trip, and I particularly appreciated their commitment to understanding our needs and expectations and ensuring that the trip they recommended was the best possible match for us. They found us late availability at popular camps and secured us competitive pricing that matched direct rates with the lodges concerned, but came with all the advantages of dealing with an experienced agency and a single point of contact.

Unlike other agencies, I never felt that they were promoting or selling specific camps with whom they may have preferential commission arrangements - I genuinely felt that their only objective was to meet the needs of their customers as best they could. This, in my view, is the key to a successful agency and repeat business, and we will certainly be using Expert Africa for our next trip.

It's also worth mentioning that the lodges were aware of our backgrounds, travel experience and preferences / objectives before we arrived, thanks to the information passed on in advance by Expert Africa. This was another plus, reflecting a high standard of customer service and attention to detail.

The team also did an excellent job of managing our expectations in terms of areas where the camps we visited might be different from places we had visited in the past. Our past travel history did include one of the most famously luxurious camps in the Mara, and so we were prepared that certain aspects of the camps we were visiting may not quite match what we had experienced before, but the overall safari experience would still be first class.

I'm pleased to say that the safari experience and the guiding matched or exceeded the best of what we had experienced in the past, exactly as the promised by the team. And in terms of the relative simplicity of the camps themselves, I can honestly say that I didn't notice all that much difference from what we had experienced before, and that this aspect of the trip far exceeded our expectations.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

Keep up the good work." Read full review: 8 nights in Africa; 8 on a Kenya safari

"I know it is always a leap of faith, in who to book your holiday with. However, don't be hesitant. Expert Africa were fantastic from the first contact to the last.

The whole holiday was planned and executed with the precision that you would expect from a company that has 'Expert' in their title.

I would not hesitate to book with Expert Africa again and I would recommend them as a First Class company." Read full review: 16 nights in Africa; 14 on a Namibia trip

"Excellent trip." Read full review: 13 nights in Africa; 10 on a Zambia safari

"We had a great holiday despite Bidvest !" Read full review: 14 nights in Africa; 14 on a Namibia trip

"We loved ever second of our trip to Botswana and Zimbabwe.

The game viewing in both countries vastly exceeded all expectations, with Chobe providing some very special highlights, while Hwange gave us a real sense of the space, variety and beauty Zimbabwe has to offer. The Matopos were also a great way to finish, giving us time to relax and really enjoy a beautiful landscape. We couldn't be happier with the schedule you suggested - just perfect!

Many thanks for all your guidance, support and help - so very much appreciated!" Read full review: 18 nights in Africa; 10 on a Zimbabwe safari

"All went to clockwork, thank you.

One small comment was the times on our itinerary were different to Fisherman’s Tours. As such I thought they were late so rang the number on the itinerary for them to check someone was coming. They did arrive 5-10 minutes later, which was just before 6.30am, the time they had down. We were expecting them at 6am.

They did give us their itinerary with the times, down, but I hadn’t read it prior to the pick up.

The driver informed me I had phoned the general manager of Fisherman’s Tours, not the local office! Perhaps it would be worth checking the numbers on your itinerary which is where I got the number from.

Similarly the pick up from Qambani, was at 5am, not 5.30am as on our itinerary.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

We thoroughly enjoyed our trip, thank you for the organisation and recommendations. The service was excellent, and everything went fine.
Our only struggle, was with tipping, who and how much ! and not having local currency when we arrived. The porters at Zanzibar are quick to strike on the poor inexperienced traveller!!

We took advice from the Siwandu manager, (who was overall excellent) re tipping the staff, but I probably hadn’t read your comments carefully enough. I think we ended up tipping $4-500 dollars over the trip, which I hadn’t really been expecting, so I guess it would help to give a ball park figure to the client initially.

Thank you Chris for spending so long on the phone with me and Lyndsey for putting it all together." Read full review: 16 nights in Africa; 8 on a Tanzania safari

"Could not have been better" Read full review: 11 nights in Africa; 3 on a Namibia trip