Reviews of Tena Tena
Wildlife sightings and reviews
160 independent comments and wildlife information from our travellers who have visited Tena Tena and kindly agreed to share their thoughts. They do not necessarily represent the views of Expert Africa
80% success
88% success
47% success
100% success
100% success
100% success
93% success
93% success
88% success
27% success
7% success
5% success
3% success
0% success
0% success
"Tena Tena review"
"great vibe at this camp thanks to staff "
The staff were always attentive and provided great service. The guide Chris was a delight with great sense of humor.
Food was excellent as was the wine.
Everything was well organized." See all these reviews: 6n in Zambia; 3n in Zimbabwe
"Tena Tena review"
Also the food at Tena Tena was excellent" See all these reviews: 9n in Zambia
"Great safari at Tena Tena"
The guiding was informative and we were treated to another feast of exciting and interesting encounters with a huge variety of mammals and birds.
Our guide Chris was excellent .
We had some particularly interesting night drives where we saw some rare smaller animals such as honey badgers ,genets and bush babies." See all these reviews: 9n in Zambia
"Tena Tena review"
"Tena Tena revisited"
Our guide Julias also remembered us from before and he was a great guy, excellent guide and lots of laughs on safari.
Service was good though we thought the food wasn’t quite as good as it might have been." See all these reviews: 9n in Zambia
"Tena Tena review"
The guides were of very high quality and knowledge" See all these reviews: 7n in Zambia; 2n in Zimbabwe
"Not all so special"
Our tents were modern and comfortable. We shared the mainly outdoor bathroom area which was exposed to the elements with a various creepy crawlies, especially during the night. We could spot various animals between us and the distant river while relaxing on the tent porch.
We enjoyed a couple of leopard sightings on both game drives but animals and different species in that region were generally few and far between. If you wish to see high numbers or a large variety of game then this may not be the camp that suits you.
The all male camp staff didn’t seem to be a close-knit working team. They simply did their jobs without providing the special attention you’d expect from such an exclusive and extremely expensive camp. Meals were an extremely basic, one meal fits all, with no choices. This was in extreme contrast to our previous days at Flatdogs Camp where excellent menu choices were available all day. My vegetarian daughter had negotiated suitable food alternatives with a camp manager on arrival but for dinner she was presented with a meat dish, mashed potato and cooked carrots, none of which she eats. She left the table extremely upset and went to bed unfed. Definitely not good enough from Tena Tena Camp, and certainly poor when the same single menu offering is presented to all clients in this day and age of food preferences and allergies.
Camp management would be well advised to consider the following options.
1. Identify the dietary requirements of clients during the booking process and definitely when clients arrive at the camp.
2. Ensure that all clients are provided with suitable food options for their needs at each meal.
3. Be aware that when a separate “vegetarian” dish is supplied that it also becomes a food choice of non-vegetarians, so vegetarians can still be left without a sufficient meal.
4. Provide a greater range of menu choices rather than a meat dish and two vegetables. It’s unimaginable that a group of ten clients would all be satisfied with exactly the same three food choices.
5. Be more aware that if all food supplied is consumed then there probably wasn’t sufficient in the first place. Hungry clients can become unhappy clients." See all these reviews: 6n in Zambia
These problems haven’t, to date, been something that we’ve come across at the RPS camps, but we are really sorry that it was a problem during these travellers’ stay. We’ve spoken further with RPS and they are looking into this and adjusting how they work, both in terms of communications, and also quality and quantity of the food, especially with note to specific dietary requirements.
While we always request the dietary requirements of each traveller on our booking form before the trip, we’ve also recently initiated a new form for any of our travellers with more complex dietary requirements – we realise that small gap on the booking form may not be appropriate for some of our guests’ dietary needs, and so it will give people more space to explain what they need in more detail and length, if they wish, which should hopefully head off issues like this in the future as we’ll be able to pass on any details that may not have been fully explained prior to travel thoroughly to the camps.
We’re really glad that these guests had some enjoyable leopard sightings during their trip - we'd expect this for the South Luangwa, especially for those camps outside the relatively busy Mfuwe area. The game seen by these guests is typical, and perhaps slightly above typical, for a small bushcamp in South Luangwa, especially early on in the season, and so we’d suggest that travellers wanting to see higher number of game, or a wider variety, should probably seek a different park rather than a different camp.
We've discussed at length with these guests, and also RPS, and are glad that the issues were resolved and the camps have taken the feedback on board to ensure this isn't an issue for future travellers. We are glad that these guests enjoyed the rest of their stay, and that the issues with the food provided didn't impact on the rest of the trip.
"Lovely setting"
"Very comfortable and spacious tents"
Although the camp was fairly full we never had more than three guests in our game drive vehicle. The guides from the camp were great at finding leopards on evening drives and hidden from our view in trees or the bush in the mornings. A pack of African wild dogs including several very playful puppies were regular sightings not far from camp and our guide willingly took us to the area near the Nsefu camp so that we could see the Nsefu pride of lions.
The guides and their night-time spotters were successful on 3 consecutive nights in finding predators: although we did not see the moment of kill, we were close to the action when a leopard took an impala, the pack of dogs chased a number of impala at incredible speed and eventually caught one (not a pretty sight), and finally when, after a kill possibly also involving hyenas, a leopard sought refuge from the dogs up a tree before successfully fleeing to another tree where she could hide better." See all these reviews: 8n in Zambia; 2n in Kenya
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