Travel reviews by The R Family from London

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"Selous Safari Camp was wonderful. I've already recommended it to some friends. Our guide was excellent and also fun to be with and the two young men allocated to look after us were charming and efficient. The Camp Managers were also great company and were as enthusiastic about what we had seen as we were.

Their attention to detail made our stay so special - being met from each drive with refreshing towels for our hands and faces and a drink; tea served each day prior to the afternoon drive with the chef's tea time offering of the day; the organisation of our 'sundowner' drinks which for those of us who like gin & tonic included proper glass glasses, ice & a slice of lemon along with the nibbles of the day; the quiet but definitely efficient Masai who accompanied us to and fro in the evenings.

We loved the bar and dining area as well and the meals were excellent. Only suggestion we would like to make is that they could give more thought to what teenagers will eat when they have families staying there, both our sons and the children of another family found the adult nature of the menu a little testing at times e.g. some very unusual soups.

We were so pleased to have visited Selous at a time when there were so many cubs/calfs/chicks to see. We saw an amazing array of animals. We want to go back!"

"Mwagusi Camp was brilliant. We all loved the rooms - especially with the elephant walking past us on a regular basis which we got used to in the end. We had a really good guide and drivers and saw some fantastic animals.

However, we did find the management at Mwagusi were a little offhand on arrival and, although very nice, were more focussed on running their camp than ensuring their guests were happy. The meals were excellent but the same applies here as at Selous - when there are children/teenagers they need to ensure there is something they are happy to eat.

Dining in the open air is a wonderful experience but was not conducive to spending an evening chatting with fellow guests after dinner. We had a special last evening at a water hole watching the sun go down with a herd of elephants taking their evening drink whilst we had ours - perfect."

"We were looking forward to Kinasi greatly and it was such a disappointment. Our flight and taxi were fine but on arrival at the gates of the marine park it seemed we were expected to pay park fees for our stay. We had in fact already paid for this but the management had not been organised enough to have been there to meet us or to have made the appropriate arrangements earlier in the day. We therefore had 15 minutes of great concern as we did not have the US $ available to pay for it! This episode was not a good start to our stay.

The rooms and other buildings were all lovely as was the setting, however the service was rather poor and it should be noted that the location loses the afternoon sun quite early. The staff were polite and charming but it appeared to us that they had not been employed for long or properly trained as they seemed unsure of what they were doing. Service was at their own pace and the same request sometimes did not generate the same result!. Service within the rooms was pretty good although they did not always notice that there was laundry to be done. They also left the lights on in the evening on a number of occasions so the mosquitoes came in!

The restaurant was a huge disappoinment. We understand that on an island, fish would be served quite a lot but having tuna for 4 days both lunch and dinner was stretching anyone's desire for tuna. They kindly arranged for a meat dish for our son who eats very little fish but this wasn't always available or brought with the other main courses, when it was it was very basic beef or chicken. We were excited about breakfast but found the cooked breakast utterly tasteless and although there were pancakes with a wonderful choc sauce the pancakes were cold. Such a pity as they are quick to make and could have been made alongside the freshly made omellettes. It seems that menus started repeating themselves after six days.

We were also under the impression from brochures etc. that there was a pool side grill and pizza oven - which was what made us feel that our sons would be happy dining there with this as a back up. It was not used once in the 6 days we were there and looked as if it hadn't been used in the last six months, we had no explanation as to why not.

Having said this the setting was lovely, the fruit was fantastic and there was Marmite and peanut butter for breakfast which kept our sons going.

The Spa was run wonderfully by Tom and Nam and they gave the most fabulous massages which they tailored to your particular needs.

The dive centre was also run very efficiently and both my husband and son enjoyed their dives. Lars and his team were very friendly and supportive - we were very impressed with the time and care Lars took with a nervous lady on her first dive. Unfortunately the weather was unseasonably windy which made snorkelling difficult and cold in such large waves but what we saw was wonderful - a large range of coral and masses of beautiful fishes."

"Good place to stop over for a night in Dar."