Reviews of safaris to Volcanoes National Park

"Amanda who organised this for us was wonderful, and created the trip of a lifetime. All of the difficult things I had asked for were arranged to perfection, and were the highlights of our trip.

Have recommended Expert Africa to all travellers we met en route.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

One minor point. Can you add the date (or vesion number) to the text of each version of the paperwork. This is nomal office practice and avoids confusion with multiple updated documents when printed.

We will certainly come to Expert Africa again, but only on condition that I don't have to fill in 200 different reviews online again!" Read full review: 26 nights in Africa; 13 on a Zambia safari

"All went very smoothly.

The meet and greet at Kigali was spot on and the Primate Safari rep was there with my name easily visible on a prominent sign and waiting for me. he introduced me to Sula who would be my guide for the rest of my 12 days in Rwanda.

The whole trip worked extremely well without any hitches." Read full review: 13 nights in Africa; 12 on a Rwanda safari

"Expert Africa was great to work with and Ellie was on top of everything." Read full review: 15 nights in Africa; 10 on a Botswana safari

"Terrific.

Rwanda was great to see the gorillas. they were magic.

Zambia, though was marvellous. We have been to places in Namibia, Botswana and Tanzania before and we really enjoyed them. However when/if we return to Africa we will go back to Zambia: Kafue and South Luangwa. The people were terrific overall, and we saw a variety of wildlife and birdlife.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

No" Read full review: 21 nights in Africa; 16 on a Zambia safari

"This was an incredible trip that is even more amazing given the limited time Amanda had to prepare.

Everything I could have thought of from Rwanda was included. I would love to go on another safari prepared by Expert Africa, and I will be recommending them to anyone who asks for my opinion.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

Maybe just a little more detail regarding information about the lodges and accommodations.

Hard to find something to improve on such a great experience!" Read full review: 12 nights in Africa; 12 on a Rwanda safari

"The trip has been excellent. We could entirely relax as we had always someone taking care of us, especially on arrival at the airports. Richard Trillo has been always very responsive and helpful in the planning phase. The guides and the drivers and all the people we met have been extremely skilled and helpful." Read full review: 12 nights in Africa; 6 on a Kenya safari

"Learning about Rwanda was as important and valuable as seeing gorillas and monkeys.

A fine combination of powerful experiences.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

Tell people to do monkeys before (not after) gorillas, as a warm up.
In my case two gorilla days instead of one was very good, but of course that's even more money.

My guide/driver was Bram. He was excellent. Always polite, helpful, knowledgable, prompt, flexible. Many thanks to him." Read full review: 4 nights in Africa; 4 on a Rwanda safari

"Exceeded expectations.

Fascinating country and whist it sounds a little misplaced to say it the opportunity to confront the Genocide added a thought provoking additional dimension to a brilliant wildlife experience. Compared to our other Africa experiences the two stand out features were the opportunity to be more active (moving about on foot etc.) and the feeling of safety and a warm welcome from a people who still have next to nothing in spite of the relative success of rebuilding the country.

All of our accommodations were up to standard even if they are way below the better lodges in other parts of Africa in terms of pure lodge experience.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

At the planning stage perhaps make suggestions for alternatives and give advice to make choices.

For example, in Nyungwe it would have been good to have been offered tjhe forest treks and also a visit to the tea plantation (our guide tried to get us in but it was closed on a Sunday). As related in this form, our guide was quite resourceful in adapting our itinerary when the first day's sites were unavailable and in fact we are glad to have seen a couple of the alternatives that we may have missed otherwise. These could have been suggested in planning maybe.

These remarks really are intended as pointers to improve what is already an outstanding service that we have now used three times (Namibia, Tanzania and Rwanda) and will use again." Read full review: 10 nights in Africa; 9 on a Rwanda safari

"Organisation from Expert Africa was excellent, and advice choices resulted in a really outstanding trip.

We could not be happier." Read full review: 17 nights in Africa; 8 on a Zambia safari

"The biggest issue with comfort for the trip was that we were given an older vehicle which is quite uncomfortable from the beginning of the trip until we reached Kivu lake. At Kivu Lake, three days into the Rwanda part, I let Expert Africa know about my concerns regarding the possible safety issues of the vehicle as well as the comfort issues. I had an almost immediate reply from Expert Africa who contacted the tour organizer, Primate Safaris in Rwanda. They met us the next day with a new vehicle for the rest of the trip.

The entire planning of the trip took multiple conversations and emails with the Expert Africa team. They were extremely helpful and worked with us until we found a trip that we thought would meet our desired experience. I believe we had seven iterations before finally choosing the last one.

I would have mixed feelings about going during rainy season again. It was less crowded, which was quite nice. A few plans did get rained out or had to be changed.

The few hotels we stayed at in between various parts of the trip were used only for several hours and simpler, less expensive accommodations would probably have sufficed quite well.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

We did not seek other quotes for the trip.

Our previous trip to Zambia with Expert Africa impressed us so much, that we only used them to arrange this tour for us. It was a good decision." Read full review: 14 nights in Africa; 8 on a Rwanda safari