Travel reviews by Mrs & Mr B from Washington

"To visit Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe and not stay at the Victoria Falls Hotel, is to miss a crucial element of the experience. When we arrived we were given a wonderful upgraded room with a view of the falls and the garden (we were told it was because my husband had visited the falls many years ago...we hadn't told them that so Expert Africa must have played a role in the upgrade).

The hotel's history is reflected in the incredible photographs which fill the walls. We ate dinner in the fanciest of the hotel's restaurants with delightful service headed up by a Maitre D' who told us he has worked in the restaurant for 42 years and met a very long list of royalty, Hollywood, American political figures, etc.

The hotel seems to be doing some refurbishing and that is clearly called for, but its former elegance is certainly visible."

"We were delighted by the Nxabega facilities and staff. We had been concerned that because we were traveling in February, during the rainy season, we would not see many animals, etc. Though apparently it did rain heavily in January, it did not rain at all while we were in the Okavongo Delta and we saw a nice variety of animals and a vast array of birds (visitors should be sure to bring their binoculars to the Delta). KB, our guide, was extremely professional and flexible, and really tracked down the animals for us.

The tracking began from the time we arrived at the temporary airport necessitated by the washed out airport at Nxabega. We spent a couple of hours driving to the camp, stopping to picnic along the way, and look at animals. (Plans are underway to build a new airport, but it will probably be awhile). The Nxabega managers, a delightful young couple, went all out to see that our visit was so wonderful. We had a relaxing makoro ride, a beautiful sunset boat cruise, a really great visit to the preferred channel swimming grounds of the managers where we safely (no hippos etc. in this spot) flapped around in the water and sipped champagne, and of course the game rides.

There was an extraordinary surprise "picnic" with huge amounts of good food (in fact all of the meals were quite good). All of the staff went out of their way on our behalf. Quite typically, we experienced this interest in truly serving the visitors a few days after we left Nxabega. The morning we were to leave our next & Beyond camp, Sandibe, my husband couldn't find his cell phone. After a thorough search we decided it must have been left at Nxabuga. The nice managers at Sandibe kindly offered to check. The phone had just been discovered at Nxabega, and no one knew who it belonged to until the phone call from Sandibe. All sorts of elaborate plans were considered to send the phone to us, and then the Nxabega staff checked and figured out that they could bring the phone to the bush plane going to Maun in time for us to pick the phone up at Maun airport, where we were going.

Indeed, when we arrive at the airport, there was a nice &Beyond staff person looking for us with a good sized envelope with our name in bold letters. Throughout, we were very impressed by &Beyond, and this seemed like a special and typical gesture."

"Our experience at Sandibe, as at Nxabega, was really great. As noted in my comments about Nxabega, we had been concerned that our trip might be somewhat less fun because we were traveling in the rainy season. Once again, we had no rain. One of the advantages of traveling in February is that there are many fewer tourists, and so we felt the staff in both Nxabega and Sandibe had more time for us. Sandibe, like Nxabega, is very well managed. We were impressed.

Our guide, Tsoba, and the tracker, were both extremely professional and good. They did an absolutely super job tracking down a pack of 24 wild dogs, stopping the vehicles, getting out and walking out to areas where they could get a better sense of what the animals' tracks indicated in terms of the direction they were moving, etc. And once we found the dogs, the guide was able to tell us a lot about their behavior, movement, and so forth. Indeed, all along the guide was not only able to spot and identify animals and an incredible number of different birds, but he was able to tell us a lot about them, about the environment in that area, and so forth. We thoroughly enjoyed a couple of late afternoon boat rides into the sunset, a morning walk with our guide, a surprise brunch prepared for us at a small lake with lots of birds and giraffe nearby, and so much more.

Once more, there was flexibility and a great effort by the staff to see that we had a good visit. When staff learned that my husband really likes a South African dried meat as a snack, the meat appeared promptly in the snack bottles in our tent, though we never requested them. When we found the dogs in the afternoon, we stayed on for some time watching as the whole pack jumped up, played and "kissed" each other, and generally romped before lying down again. As a result, we got back to the camp pretty late for dinner. No one was flustered. In my comments on Nxabega, I mentioned the wonderful coordinated effort by staff at the two camps to get my husband's cell phone, left at Nxabega, back to him.

The down side of Sandibe is that the view from the main camp area is limited because of the surrounding reeds. Also, this is one of the earlier &Beyond camps, and though the tent is extremely nice, it is not, in my opinion, quite as nice as the Nxabega tents. I heard what might be rumors that they might add another site nearby with better views. This said, the view is not bad, and the whole experience of being at Sandibe was just super.."