Travel reviews by The H family from Surrey

"We stayed at Plantation lodge for two nights (our first and third nights of the trip) and found it excellent. Our first nights stay was in the main lodge area and the second night we were in the farmhouse which is a little further to walk. The bar was very nice and relaxed, food was fairly average and the dining room was a bit staid and quiet.

We used the pool on the first day when we arrived and it was very nice, but rather cold!

Our packed lunch was excellent, plenty of food and very tasty."

"We stayed one night at Lemala camp before we visited the Ngorongro crater. We arrived a little late in the evening and there was a lack of chairs by the fire. The arrival briefing was a bit tedious, whilst they made you welcome they were quick to point out restrictions to the drinks menu, which given the price of the camp felt a bit 'cheap'. The tents were excellent, proper flushing toilets and hard floors. We had been warned that it was cold here and it certainly was.

Dinner was very nice atmosphere with an international feel. There were guests from the USA, Holland, Germany and Austria and everyone mixed really well. We discovered that the Dutch family were also staying at the same hotel in Zanzibar, so it was nice to make friends with them here. We thought the food was OK, however given our experience of the Nomad camp I would downgrade this to "average". Our Dutch friends, who stayed with a number of their other camps, told us they were served the same food each evening for the whole trip.

The location is excellent, there had been Buffalo in the camp during the night so the Masai "warrior" was very welcome. Something strange happened with our lunch though. I suspect we were given the wrong one as there was only enough food for three people in a party of five. Breakfast was also a bit slow given that we were trying to get into the crater early and avoid the crowds. The location is excellent for an early drive into the crater and the road down is a lot easier than the main track."

"I cannot say how happy we were with the Nomad camp and guides. The level of professionalism was superb, the quality and variety of meals where inspirational and the company and atmosphere in the camp was perfect.

We arrived hot and tired after our transfer, the Tsetse flies had been biting us on the way but seeing a herd of elephants as we left the airfield together with a hot shower and cold drink soon revived us. The relaxed family dining table was brilliant, a great time to catch up on everyone's adventures and sighting's plus some intelligent and interesting conversation. Once again the international groups made this a first class atmosphere, we had groups from USA, UK and Belgium whilst we were there and it was family friendly as well. The teenagers made friends and played board games before dinner whilst the adults indulged in one more "gintonic" and great wines around the campfire.

Our guide was very professional and we were very lucky to see everything we had hoped for including a river crossing. We found that the option of a long day was better than two shorter game drives as the camp was about 30 to 40 minutes drive from the main Game activity. As this was pour fist Safari I was concerned that we wouldn't make the right choices, but at Nomad I absolutely know that we got it just right. Even the hyenas howling at the starry sky outside the tent couldn't stop me sleeping like a baby."

"We arrived in Breezes after our transfer from the northern Serengeti and immediately hit a problem. There was a long delay and eventually the assistant manager appeared and told us there was a problem with our rooms. He said that another family with the "same name" had arrived earlier and had been given our rooms by mistake! As a result it meant that our teenage daughters were in a completely different part of the resort (at the back of the property) whilst we were at the front. Now I can accept that hotels make mistakes with bookings and that rooms are shuffled around depending on circumstances, but this is the first time I've heard this excuse. Surprisingly we didn't meet the family with the same name during our entire stay here!

The manager said that this was only for one night and that they would put us into a pair of rooms (the villa) which were attached with a sitting room the next day. This rather dampened our spirit but we were assured that these rooms were more suitable and they also offered us a complimentary lunch. The next day we were asked to leave our bags packed and after spending some time on the beach were contacted just after lunch to move them. I went to see the rooms and whilst they were OK they felt very hot with a bit of a musty/damp smell. I assumed that this was because the air conditioning had not been switched on, it was also disconcerting that someone else's bags were still in the room. I went back to the room later in the afternoon at about 3pm with my wife as she wanted to unpack and the air conditioning was still not working and the room smelt even worse. My wife was rather upset by this and I went to speak with the assistant manager. We sat around whilst the air conditioning was fixed in one room, however it was incredibly noisy in the second room and the smell was still present. Eventually I asked them to move us to some different rooms which provoked a lot of head scratching. I gave them an hour to come up with a solution. Eventually they said they had asked another family to move rooms as they were leaving in the morning and gave us two rooms next to each other, however there was another delay of an hour whilst they organised this and cleaned the rooms (they wanted two hours which would have meant we didn't get into our rooms until gone 7pm).

Once we got past this initial issue and we were able to settle down the hotel was fine. We got our lunch and a bottle of wine one evening, plus the girls were given a massage voucher. It's just a shame that the first couple of days were handled in this manner and that I had to threaten to leave the property before a solution was found. Expert Africa were great in helping us resolve this as they applied pressure to the hotel on our behalf as well. Other gripes: The welcome drinks reception was a bit of a joke and basically an excuse to sell you additional services. The diving centre is good, however be warned that they don't take credit cards, only cash.

The location is excellent, we were lucky with high tides and didn't suffer from problems with sea urchins on the reef walks. We found that the sunbeds had gone fairly early when we returned from a diving trip at 10am, however there were plenty at the side of the pool. Lunch menu is great, drinks were good and the meals were reasonably varied during the week."

"We spent our last night at Swahili house. The location is good, however the cars cannot get to close, so there is a short walk through busy streets. The front desk and welcome briefing was excellent and the roof top terrace fantastic. We went out into the town and got lost (of course) but a helpful local aided our return. Rooms were tall and airy, but be warned that there are a lot of stairs!

We ate at the hotel and our pre-dinner drinks service was very poor. The hotel blenders had broken and the cocktails took about 25 mins to arrive, one of these was undrinkable. The quality of the food was excellent although there were a number of items on the menu which were not available (they also had an odd mixture of old and new menus, which was confusing. We discovered that dinner was pretty expensive when we settled the bill and the promised alarm call and breakfast didn't materialise at 5:15. Luckily the call to prayer at 5am woke us. The lack of staff meant that I had to carry all the bags down two steep flights of stairs to the front of the hotel. However we made our flight in time thanks to the excellent transfer service that Expert Africa had arranged."