Reviews of trips to Stone Town

"For a long time we thought we wouldn't be able to have our holiday because of the Coronavirus and as it happens, we had to cancel our visit to Botswana. But with the help of Maruska at Expert Africa we were still able to visit Tanzania and Zanzibar. Everything was very fluid with plans changing almost daily right up until the date of departure (and beyond)! due to airline cancellations because of Covid. However, Maruska was incredibly patient and helpful in identifying solutions and alternatives and she also proactively (and mostly successfully) sought refunds for the parts of the holiday that we couldn't undertake (a couple of lodges in Botswana offered to postpone our bookings but were reluctant to give refunds but they succumbed to Maruska's charms eventually). And although I didn't book our international flights through Expert Africa, Maruska kept an eye on all of our travel arrangements, even whilst we were away, and alerted us when our return flight was cancelled.
The holiday itself was way beyond our expectations partly, I suspect, because there were so few other tourists about. In some of the lodges we visited we were the only guests which meant that we were treated like VIPs. And what lodges! The Lemala camps were excellent and Maruska negotiated a very good deal for us by using only Lemala for our safari accommodation and the deal included our own vehicle and guide throughout, which meant that we could go where we wanted to go, when we wanted to go, instead of being tied to a strict timetable for game viewing. As far as the game viewing was concerned, having been told by a couple of friends that their experiences included having to vie for a view of the animals with 100s of other vehicles, we instead found ourselves to be in splendid isolation with almost every animal we saw. The only downside was having to come home." Read full review: 41 nights in Africa; 12 on a Tanzania safari

"Everything went very well, it was exactly the kind of experience we were looking for and the children had a blast." Read full review: 14 nights in Africa; 8 on a Zanzibar holiday

"Maruska put together a trip in 3 days and did an exceptional job. We had enormous fun and everything was private as there were very few tourists.....I highly recommend you plan a trip soon....can you imagine walking 80k in the Serengeti and never seeing another tourist or hearing a car.....go now and I promise an incredible experience." Read full review: 28 nights in Africa; 12 on a Tanzania safari

"Everything worked very well. We were met and well looked after wherever we went.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

No. We hope to travel with you again in the near future." Read full review: 16 nights in Africa; 9 on a Zanzibar holiday

"We are well travelled but this was one of our best holidays ever.

A great safari experience with a bit of Zanzibar adventure thrown in at the end.

Expert Africa have come up trumps again." Read full review: 23 nights in Africa; 13 on a Kenya safari

"Kono Kono let the whole trip down

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

None I can think of" Read full review: 21 nights in Africa; 6 on a Tanzania safari

"We are very happy with our experience. Lyndsey was very helpful all times, thanks for your help." Read full review: 13 nights in Africa; 8 on a Tanzania safari

"We had a brilliant trip to Tanzania, with a great variety of scenery, wildlife and culture.

We appreciated the gentle encouragement to go to 2 separate safari parks as we had been put off visiting Ruaha by the extra cost, but it was worth every penny. The contrast in environment and scenery between Selous and Ruaha was particularly marked during our visit as the rains had come early in Selous but yet to arrive in Ruaha. We hadn't realised quite how striking the differences between the 2 parks and wildlife were. We appreciated that Olivia didn't pressurise us to book a more expensive holiday but we would recommend highlighting these differences explicitly to future customers.

The variety of walking, boat and driven safari was brilliant, with expert guides and drivers able to find/spot wildlife and share insights about every species. Sharing these experiences each night at the communal dining areas was lovely too.

The guidebook sent to us before the trip was a really useful extra and we used it to book a recommended eco-tour to Jambiani village as an extra. The leather travel wallet has a lovely construction but could do with being a tiny bit larger (just an extra centimetre?) to accommodate the A4 documents sent out before the holiday.

The camps, hotels and transfers all worked seamlessly - there were no niggles beyond a minor adventure with an aircraft stuck in the mud at an airstrip after overnight rain. We felt very well looked after at each destination and extend our thanks to every member of the teams for making our holiday so memorable." Read full review: 15 nights in Africa; 7 on a Tanzania safari

"We had a wonderful trip with many momentous adventures but quite a lot more tedious jeep rides than we had bargained for, especially in the Kenya portion where the distances between camps was several hours on washed out roads only to find out when we arrived that the next activity would be a jeep ride! This was disappointing as I had been quite clear that that what I was exactly what I was trying to avoid.

The biggest issue was that Olivia had not made clear to me the consequences of the rainy season. I thought it just meant that it would rain a bit during the day and we would get wet, something I don't care about. What it really meant is that the bush would be so green and thick that animals would be extremely hard to see, that water would be so readily available everywhere that animals would be widely dispersed across hundreds of thousands of acres, and therefore hard to find, that the bugs would be fierce. and that the normally rough, bumpy roads would be so deeply rutted and washed out hat driving was bone crushing. And, as I noted in my comments about Sarara, some activities such as the Singing Wells, were not possible. No one can control the weather but if I had known what the rainy season was really like I don't think I would have taken the chance of traveling in the shoulder season. Since we were the only guests at a number of places, i felt everybody else had gotten the memo except us!

Also, some of the logistics could have been worked out better. Though the three Samburu camps look equidistant on a map, in fact it made no sense to go to Saruni Rhino last instead of Sarani Samburu, which is quite close to the airstrip.By going there last, it added another 2 and a half hour jeep trip on washed out roads to get back to the airstrip we had just come from two days earlier.

Finally, we were never told that the trip from Saruni Rhino to Plantation Lodge would be over 10 hours. We were shocked to discover on arrival at Kilamijaro that our jeep ride was over 4 hours. I can't believe there was not a scheduled or even charter flight from Kili to Manyara. In any event, no one told us about the length of the trip and we had no food from 8 AM till 6:30 PM expect for the driver's small pack of Pringles. I expected better attention to logistics.

With the exception of Stone Town, all the places we stayed were great. I just wish we had done the trip a different year when we could have done it at the right time." Read full review: 20 nights in Africa; 7 on a Kenya safari

"We had a wonderful trip thanks to the fantastic support of Jessica Plumb. She continually went above and beyond in every aspect of our trip from negotiating upgrades to arranging for great local guides and transport. She was truly a joy to work with and we will recommend Jessica and Expert Africa to anyone who is interested in visiting this great continent.

All of our camps, guides, hotels and transport were wonderful. Thank you Jessica and Expert Africa!" Read full review: 17 nights in Africa; 9 on a Tanzania safari