Travel reviews by Ian G from Wiltshire

"Only stayed to recover from journey prior to going on safari. Hotel has good facilities and helpful staff and is in quiet area of Dar.

Went to the botanical gardens next door and was approached by a man who had 'worked there for 20 years' who insisted on showing us around. Naïvely agreed and it turned out he was just after a 'tip'.

We walked around Dar as a couple and it is not a tourist destination. That said while we were the subject of some curiosity we were not hassled in anyway."

"Had an amazing time at this camp. It was exactly what we wanted for our first safari, was run like clockwork and has great staff. Very special thanks to our hosts Shawn and Millie who ensured that we felt very comfortable throughout our stay and that everything worked as it should. Arranging dinner seating so that everyone sits near someone who they will get on with is an example of the efforts they go to to make sure everyone enjoys their stay - some people may not like this idea but they have been doing this for a while and got it right every time while we were there.

Special thanks also to our guide and driver Zac and Ali, the best in camp in our view. Zac is wonderfully knowledgeable about the area and its wildlife and Ali manages to get the vehicle to places you wouldn't think vehicles should go - often the driving was an exciting as the wildlife. The camp provides walking, boating and vehicle safaris. We did them all and particularly enjoyed the boat safari, though they were all excellent. Breakfast and lunch in the bush were particular highlights and all the food, while not cordon bleu , is tasty and plentiful.

Facilities are as advertised, so don't expect wifi, electricity in your tent, a/c, pool etc. Note that despite what the website says electric charging is available 24/7 by the bar. This is a close to nature camp albeit with proper toilet, shower and bed. Wild animals , particularly elephants, roam throughout the camp and this is one of its main attractions.

We had a wonderful time and cannot recommend this place highly enough, my wife is already planning to take our daughter there."

"A good camp where we had a great safari experience but with some issues that spoilt our stay.

Location: Ruarha has plenty of animals and I understand it is a lot quieter than some other parks. The most vehicles we saw was around a cheetah, where there were about 10 vehicles. Most of the time we saw only 1-2 others and were mostly on our own. The park has lots of different habitats so lots of different animals and birds but in the dry season the only water is in the one river, so vehicle safaris were the only activities on offer at the camp (half or full day).

The very good: Our guide and driver Dismass and Godson who made sure we had a wonderful safari experience and put up with our endless requests and questions with constant good humour. We can’t compliment them enough. We particularly appreciated their approach to the animals where they put us in good positions for photos without threatening the animals, in contrast to other safari vehicle who sometimes ended up chasing the animals, which we didn’t like.

The good: Like the previous camp we stayed at (Lake Manze, Selous owned by the same company) the camp is very well located, has friendly staff and plenty of good food, not ‘cordon bleu’ but remarkable for what they can achieve given the location and facilities. This is a back to nature facility in tents and with wild animals always close by and often wandering through the camp. This is exactly what we wanted and made for a great camp for us. However, while tents have proper beds, toilets and showers (looking up at the sky/stars !!) there is no Wi-Fi, a/c, pool, electric in the tents(charging points in office available 24/7)etc. If you want these things go elsewhere. Drinks around the fire before dinner and tea/coffee with a snack before early morning game drives were nice touches not seen at the previous camp. Breakfast and lunch in the bush were particular highlights, you can’t beat being served your lunch on the bonnet of a safari vehicle while looking at wild animals walking across the landscape, sometime quite close – amazing.

The not so good: The running of the camp was a bit haphazard, sometime things happened as planned, sometime they didn’t ; sometime the drink/food (e.g. dietary requests) you ordered turned up, sometimes it didn’t. The arrival brief was also a bit perfunctory. For example we turned up for diner on the first night in shorts and t shirts (as we had at Manze) but ended up being quite cold as the temperature drops by 10-15 degrees at night. Several people told us that they had done the same and we witnessed other ‘newbies’ do this so it is a common mistake. Therefore, it would be a good idea to inform guests of this when they arrive. Finally we had a major issue with arrangements for the safaris that spoilt our stay at the camp. Some people said that this was typical of Africa and the service you should expect but it compared poorly to the excellent running of Lake Manze camp. It gave the impression of a new team (and the managers had only been there 7 weks) so it might improve.

The main issue was that on arrival we were put together with a single traveller in one vehicle – we had no problem at all with this, they are a business and it made perfect sense. However, as complete strangers with different experiences and aspirations it should not have come as a surprise that we couldn’t totally agree on what we wanted to do on our 3 days together – they wanted to do all day, every day we wanted a shorter day in the middle. It should have been easy to move one of us to another group/vehicle for one day and this was what eventually happened. However, the camp management seemed to be totally surprised by this and rather than trying to meet our request seemed to spend more time finding reasons why this couldn’t be arranged even though the other guest was willing to pay any additional costs to sort this out. I had to be really awkward and create a fuss, threatening to complain, before this eventually got sorted out. This spoilt our enjoyment of the rest of the holiday and created an ‘atmosphere’ whenever we were around camp.

Overall this was exactly what we wanted from a safari holiday and our guide and driver made the actually game drives a great experience. If it had been our first camp I doubt we would have noticed the somewhat random running of the camp but it compared poorly against Lake Manze, where we had just been. The disagreement over moving people between vehicles for one day was also unnecessary and severely affected our enjoyment and rating of the camp"