Reviews of safaris to Okonjima Nature Reserve

"We had a great trip. With the one exception we were more than happy with each place we stayed. The guides were all excellent. We were surprised at how good the food was. As non meat eaters, we were ready to make compromises but at every lodge, the cooks prepared us excellent meals.

We were also happy that we did the trip in the order we did the trip, We had just done a game oriented trip to Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe, so it was good to start with the Namib and end with Etosha.

We wound up driving 3000 km. It would have been nice to have picked up the car in Swakomund and then head to Damaraland. But I would not have wanted to miss either Wolvedans or Kulala and we probably could not have afforded all the flight to go from Windhoek to the Namib and Swakomund.

We hope to come back and be able to get further up to the Skeleton Coast and the Kunene River region.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

None. Expert Africa was great to deal with. Very responsive, good advice. We did not have a single problem with any of the arrangements made by Expert Africa." Read full review: 18 nights in Africa; 15 on a Namibia trip

"The overall experience exceeded my expectations. I was unusually critical of each place we stayed but it is only because you asked for feedback. I mentioned that Waterberg plateau camp rooms had cockroaches but is it fair to expect a place in the middle of a desert in Africe to not have bugs? The only things that would prevent me from going back to the Waterberg camp was the baboons, not the bugs.

I dealt primarily with Saskia Adye, but she wasn't on your list of team members so I chose her sister instead.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

The service was excellent! The only thing I would suggest (and Saskia made have mentioned this but I didn't hear her) was to be prepared for cold weather, especially during early morning game drives. I wasn't prepared for such cold weather in the mornings and suffered a bit until the sun came up. A warm coat, gloves, scarf and a hat would have been nice and easy to pack." Read full review: 19 nights in Africa; 19 on a Namibia trip

"We talked to a number of travel agencies when we decided to go to Namibia and Botswana. Expert Africa was clearly the most knowledgeable and helpful so it was easy for us to choose to use your services. We spoke to Maruska a number of times and she was able to answer all of our questions and help us make informed decisions. The materials she sent and your website resources were extremely informative and helpful.

This was a great trip and exceeded our expectations, especially the wildlife viewing opportunities. All of the lodges were very good and more luxurious than we are used to. We only gave a few "Excellent" ratings on our survey responses so we could single out the truly outstanding lodges and activities.

When we started planning this trip, we realized that it was going to be an expensive holiday: certainly more expensive than any of our other vacations. After returning home from a wonderful 3 weeks in Namibia and Botswana, we feel that it was money well spent.

Thank you for helping us to have the trip of a lifetime.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

There's nothing that you can do about this, but you might want to warn other travellers about the long wait time when arriving at Windhoek airport. It took well over an hour to clear Customs and Immigration. It would have been even longer but they moved a few of the older passengers (including us) to the front of the line. The staff were generally unwelcoming and unhelpful - not sure if this was an isolated incident or general practice. This was such a contrast to everyone else we met during our stay in Namibia." Read full review: 22 nights in Africa; 15 on a Namibia trip

"Africa - what a wonderful place. Expert Africa lived up to their reputation once again. We will definitely be back! Holiday of a lifetime!!!

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:
Although it may be difficult to advise journey times we do feel that this would be very useful in ensuring people can make the most out of their day. Fo example if there are any major roadworks happening this info would be invaluable. Also if info on times of activites could be given in advance this may prevent guests missing out. Eg we only just made it in time to Africat for first activity." Read full review: 15 nights in Africa; 10 on a Namibia trip

"It was an excellent holiday. Seeing the animals in their natural habitat was amazing. All the people that we met were extremely friendly and helpful
I hadn't appreciated that nearly all the roads would be gravel and quite how empty the country is. There are long distances where you don't see another car or anything else for that matter.

This is obviously just our opinion, but we didn't think that the dunes at Sossusvlei were worth the long drive!

We will return to Namibia but spend more time in Etosha." Read full review: 21 nights in Africa; 13 on a Namibia trip

"Our first trip to Africa and it went very smoothly and we really enjoyed it- on balance we had too much driving and too many short stays in the first week so we think we should have planned this a bit differently. Distances in the south are long and gravel roads slow and tiring. The second week at Damaraland Etosha and Okijima was absolutely superb in the timing and in what we saw." Read full review: 13 nights in Africa; 11 on a Namibia trip

"We have had an excellent holiday .

There were one or two minor problems which did not detract from the overall enjoyment and we do not live in a perfect world. We were impressed that Sabina went out of her way to contact us on the first day of the holiday when she found out that there had been a mishap with our transfer from the airport. Wilderness were also very apologetic and made us comfortable while we waited to be transferred to the guest house.

Confriming our flight departure times did seem to cause some difficulties with the various lodges but wasn't an issue that really impacted us. We found all the Wilderness Air pilots very friendly and reassuring and they provided us with great views and in a couple of instances made slight detours so we were able to see the best views. We certainly thought flying between lodges was a great way to see the country and to cover long distances quickly.

We were really impressed by Nambia as a country and how everybody worked together in harmony.

we throughly enjoyed the entire trip and hope to go back in the future. We will use Expert Africa again.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

The following are just suggestions they did not have a negative impact on our trip.

We were not prepared for how cold it was at times. Although this is covered in the information you provided the impact of the winds and the chill factor didn't register with us. Equally we were told that the weather had been exceptionally cold on occasions.

It might be useful to provide fuller explanations as to the exact nature of some of the activities at the lodges. In our case there were some instances where Chris , who has breathing difficutlies could not particiapte in them. Had we had more information we might have suggested that our length of stay at some lodges may have been changed." Read full review: 20 nights in Africa; 18 on a Namibia trip

"We enjoyed our trip very much. We would have preferred not to have gone to Halali, but to have had an additional day inn Swakopmund, as we did not have an opportunity to explore the town. Personally, we preferred the smaller lodges, i.e. up to 20 people. We enjoyed meeting the Namibian staff and finding our more about their country.

Our trip has inspired us to make a further visit to Africa.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

We were told that credit cards would not be accepted throughout the country, but in fact they were. This needs to be amended in your information. Also, we would have liked a detailed breakdown of the individual costs in the quotation.

We will certainly recommend Expert Africa to our friends, and will be using you again." Read full review: 21 nights in Africa; 20 on a Namibia trip

"We really enjoyed our holiday and had some great experiences. Driving was a pleasure with empty roads.

Changing money in the banks was not easy and time consuming." Read full review: 19 nights in Africa; 13 on a Namibia trip

"Saskia was amazing. She catered to our every need. I would not hesitate to recommend this company. I am delighted, my boyfriend is delighted and our pictures will be amazing. We couldn't be happier. Saskia never mentioned the waterfalls at Epupa falls so that was a delight. Make sure people know to cherish their time at the water hole at Okaukeujo and that morning drives are no big deal. We enjoyed our extras we threw in...the petrified forest, the dinosaur tracks,and the water fall we saw on the way to Epupa falls, Ongongo falls. IT was one of our favorite parts of the trip. Many of our suggestions were listed in the hotel section, so read them carefully.

THere was not a place to review N'aankuse. It had tighter fenced in animals but it allowed us to get some excellent head shots of leopard, lion, cheetah. We had never seen wild dog before so that was a treat. Sounds like they run a huge volunteer oriented facility. The drive in and out was longer than expected. I wish we could have gotten a room here. They seemed a little uppity to me ...but were flexible with us when we decided not to drive back in the dark and cancelled dinner and the bush men story time. Arno thinks having Bush men flown in to their camp is absurd. I am sorry we missed them though.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:
This feedback form was aggravating. It doesn't save each page as you go along so 2x I had to start totally over. I am writing a lot so that was aggravating. If I had to return to it, I had to scroll thru all the pages to get to where I was going. A tab system or a drop down box would have been better. Each page needs to be saved when you continue to the next page." Read full review: 21 nights in Africa; 18 on a Namibia trip