Zanzibar: reviews from our travellers

"Our holiday to Africa was a trip of a lifetime.

Seeing the animals up close was such a privilege and something we'll never forget. We were overwhelmed by the kindness of the people as well as their expertise. Relaxing on Zanzibar island was a perfect way to end the holiday.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

You could potentially make things in the brochure even clearer, such as what to do about tipping, what kind of luggage is acceptable." Read full review: 11 nights in Africa; 7 on a Zanzibar holiday

"The entire experience from start to finish was best in class. We truly had a once in life time experience and we are so happy we chose to work with Expert Africa.

I would strongly urge anyone thinking of going to Africa to work with you guys. The reviews we had read to help us decide and plan were all accurate which is alway a bonus as well.

If I had to do it all over again, there are minor ( and I mean minor) things I would have changed. The first day was an extremely long day of travel. After 21hrs of traveling we were a bit surprised by a four hour drive until we got to our hotel. We certainly sucked it up and at the end of the day it was fine but I may have opted to stay a bit closer.

I may have also done one less day of selous. Not sure if it was our location, luck or combination of the two but we we could have done one less day there. Again, this is being super nit picky it really was amazing.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

My only suggestions is a bit more detail around the flights and the distances of the transfers." Read full review: 13 nights in Africa; 8 on a Tanzania safari

"We had planned it as the holiday of a lifetime and it proved to be exactly this, just perfect.

The arrangements were flawless from start to finish

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

No, and I will certainly recommend you to anyone travelling to Africa, we will certainly come back again" Read full review: 19 nights in Africa; 10 on a Tanzania safari

"An amazing trip, made memorable by staying at Chole Mjini.

Very impressed by Expert Africa, without whom we'd never have discovered Chole Mjini - such a magical place.

Diving was great and as the non-diver I was very well entertained at both Chole and Pole Pole by their daily dhow trips.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

Very impressed by Expert Africa and will definitely recommend and use again when possible." Read full review: 15 nights in Africa; 12 on a Tanzania safari

"A really good trip.

Very glad we spent more time at the beach than Stone Town though. Great to have visited Zanzibar and i would certainly recommend the island - but some travellers might find the poverty in Stone Town a little surprising at first.

Would certainly return - though would want to visit Pemba and get to some of the more remote beaches." Read full review: 8 nights in Africa; 8 on a Zanzibar holiday

"Our safari to eastern and southern Africa was absolutely stunning.

My family has an active, adventurous spirit, which Claire Scott (Expert Africa) picked up on right away as we discussed options nearly nine months prior. Accordingly, Claire recommended camps that met our desires and expectations. I cannot say enough about how easy it was to work with Expert Africa and how efficiently our holiday played out. Complex logistics were well planned and execution was seamless. Well done!" Read full review: 39 nights in Africa; 9 on a Zambia safari

"This was a trip we've been thinking about for 15 years, but when it finally came time to pull the trigger, I honestly didn't know where to start.

James was outstanding from the very beginning — helping me to shape the trip and offering some great suggestions on when and where to go. He was super patient with all my questions along the way, and we always felt like we were in the best hands." Read full review: 9 nights in Africa; 5 on a Tanzania safari

"Amazing! The perfect honeymoon" Read full review: 10 nights in Africa; 6 on a Tanzania safari

"This was yet another excellent safari/holiday created by Expert Africa, each one just gets better than the one before.

We arranged a private guide and vehicle for these travellers, they commented:

Sadiq was an excellent and professional guide, he established what our expectations were and tried throughout the trip to accommodate our wishes. He is obviously an experienced guide of many years and knew the locations we visited well. He was also knowledgeable about the needs of a photographer and manoeuvred the vehicle to obtain the best photographic positions.

We could not have wished for a better guide - Thank you Sadiq

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

I cannot think of anything" Read full review: 23 nights in Africa; 9 on a Tanzania safari

"In February we spent 3 nights in Selous, 4 nights in Ruaha, 6 nights in Paje (Zanzibar), 2 nights on Chumbe Island, and the final night in Stone Town (Zanzibar). Our trip was full of great experiences - totally unique from any of the travelling we've done in the past. This was our first trip to Africa.

I am happy that we went to both Selous and Ruaha. We experienced the most diversity and abundance of animals in the Selous (we stayed at Azura Selous), but appreciated being able to sit and watch the interaction of the 'social' animals (lions, baboons and elephants) in the Ruaha. If I was forced to just go only to one place, I would reluctantly say Selous because of the more wilderness aspect of it. We didn't see a single 4x4 when we were out in the Selous, while in Ruaha we probably saw 6 on average per day. I understand that this is nothing compared to northern Tanzania, and is one of the main reasons we chose Selous and Ruaha.

The Tanzanians that we met were all extremely welcoming and hospitable. They all wanted us to go home as ambassadors for their country. We felt totally spoiled and were willing to overlook disappointments we had with some of the food because of this.

I'm glad that we spent some time shopping in Stone Town as it was a great place to pick up inexpensive home décor items, but I probably could have done that in a few hours and didn't need to overnight there.

Coming from Canada, we found the food and drink prices to be very inexpensive on Zanzibar. Watching the kite surfing in Paje was really interesting and made spending hours on the beach enjoyable." Read full review: 17 nights in Africa; 7 on a Tanzania safari