Reviews of safaris to Volcanoes National Park

"We thoroughly enjoyed our trip. Primate Safaris, the local agents, were faultless. Our guide/driver Arthur was friendly, helpful, knowledgeable and good company, and his English was excellent.

The gorilla tracking was unforgettable, and worth every penny. The official guides were very good. We also enjoyed the golden monkey trip, and would recommend this itinerary (monkeys first, then gorillas) as it allows you to acclimatise a bit.

We spent two nights in Nairobi before going to Rwanda, which also helped to get used to the altitude." Read full review: 4 nights in Africa; 4 on a Rwanda safari

"We had excellent experiences with gorilla tracking in Rwanda, game viewing in the Serengeti and enjoying the sun on Zanzibar. We would recommend all of these experiences to friends.

While we would recommed going to the Selous, we can not recommend the Lake Manze Camp. This camp was not a good match for us. However, the Lake Manze Camp was the only camp in Selous that had availability on our preferred days. We knew that there were risks with going to this camp as it was so new (in that there may be some procedures that may need to be worked out). We did not expect the full Italian experience. We were expecting that there would be an African experience.

We already talking about our next trip to Africa. We know that we will go again.

When we do, we plan on contacting Expert Africa.

Feel free to include us on the mailing list for your 2008 brochure. Thank you!!!" Read full review: 15 nights in Africa; 7 on a Tanzania safari

"I think when we started planning this trip some doubts were expressed about whether we could really fill two whole weeks visiting only Rwanda (and in addition refusing to "do" the genocide bit). But we never had a boring day.

Rwanda is such a populated country - on every drive the scenery competes with "people watching" opportunities. Everyone with their bundles on their heads, children with homemade toys (we bought banana-leaf footballs back as presents for everyone), markets to look at and explore. And then there is the bird-life. And it also a country with some amazingly forward looking environmental policies - plastic bags are banned.

So much to see and learn ......

Regarding the guide ... Fred was not just a guide, he became a friend. It makes a huge difference when you have a guide who really goes the extra mile to make sure you enjoy every hour of your trip. Fred arranged things really well: I'm sure we got good rooms, good service and definitely better guides for tracking because of his knowledge and connections.

He didn't fuss, but I felt he just quietly watched to see what sort of people we were, and what we liked doing, and then suggested or arranged things to suit us. So we, as very amateur bird watchers, got guides for our walks who were knowledgeable and interesting.

He also made sure we had plenty of information about what to expect when tracking (how far into the forest the primates were, how long it had taken groups the previous day, how much water to take etc.) and made sure we had a good porter, which was money well spent as it makes the walking much easier and provides much needed local employment.

Suggestions for improvement:

No complaints! This feedback form is great - though it took me ages to fill in. Glad you did not have these last year when we finished our ten week trip, I would have been at the computer for days. Funny thing is that although I never got around to sending in feed back after that trip your next brochure said exactly what I thought about most of the places we had visited - your carefully researched descriptions matched our experience.

I think that was also something we appreciated on this trip - Tracy took the time to make sure we knew what we were letting ourselves in for, so when we arrived somewhere pretty basic, that was what we were expecting. I don't think she prepared us properly for the Sabinyo Lodge - but the log fires, huge rooms and vast hot showers were a very pleasant shock!" Read full review: 13 nights in Africa; 8 on a Rwanda safari