Kenya: reviews from our travellers

"This trip was excellent and Expert Africa were, as usual, superb in handling the arrangements for us. We changed our plans a couple of times but nothing is ever too much trouble for the Expert Africa team and everything went according to plan. We all had a wonderful time and a memorable safari. I can't comment on the brochure as I'm always happy to work from the website and make bespoke arrangements with Expert Africa's superb team - helpful, friendly, thorough and knowledgeable.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:
I can't imagine how anyone could possibly improve on the fantastic service consistently provided by Expert Africa over many years. I already have next year's plans in mind and I know that Expert Africa will make the arrangements with consummate ease and efficiency!" Read full review: 22 nights in Africa; 6 on a Kenya safari

"I always look forward to visiting Kenya. The weather was not so good this time but everyone did there best to make sure we had a good experience.
Thank you." Read full review: 11 nights in Africa; 10 on a Kenya safari

"This was a trip of a lifetime for my sister and I and did not disappoint in any way.

We had a fantastic time and experience, one we will remember for a long time to come.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service:

Nothing at all, just keep up the service you provide, it is a very specialist area and Olivia certainly knew her stuff!" Read full review: 5 nights in Africa; 3 on a Kenya safari

"The short rainy season extended right through our trip in January-February (2020), which is ordinarily the height of the short dry season. Interestingly, this is no way dampened (pun intended) our enjoyment of the trip.

I’m interested in photography, and the lush green foliage, moody skies, and sometimes dramatic sunrises/sunsets all enhanced my efforts. The animals were all healthy and happy, with plenty of vegetation for the herbivores and well-fed herbivores for the predators. Luckily, in spite of the presence of rain on each except our last day, we only experienced one 45-minute delay on a single game drive, so we weren’t particularly impacted by the rains, other than by the presence of lots of mud (the camps supplied Wellington boots) and some insects in Meru.

The hard work of the staffs at each of our camps contributed tremendously to our enjoyment of the trip." Read full review: 16 nights in Africa; 14 on a Kenya safari

"Excellent within the constraints set by the weather.

We maximised our drives at both camps though at Little Governors we were severely restricted and at no point after the initial arrival were we able to cross the river." Read full review: 11 nights in Africa; 10 on a Kenya safari

"It was wonderful, but very hard to describe. A friend said that if asked, on their return, what the holiday was like they'd just say 'Great' if the person asking the question had never been on safari, and only enthuse in detail if they had, because only they would really understand. I understand that now. I had great hopes for this trip, but being my first safari I did not really know what to expect, and, despite Expert Africa's best attempts at describing the experience on their website, words cannot really do it justice. The impact is emotional and spiritual as well as literal. Yes, there are that many animals and birds and these are real wild creatures in their natural habitat, but it is so much more than that. I will never forget this trip. It was one of the great experiences of my life." Read full review: 8 nights in Africa; 7 on a Kenya safari

"A great trip; truly a holiday of a lifetime!" Read full review: 17 nights in Africa; 16 on a Kenya safari

"My experience on this trip was very good. I had done a similar safari in 2018 in the same areas and I was a little concerned that this trip may not live up to what I had experienced back then. In the end this Safari exceeded the experience of my first trip.

The Mara area had experience more rainfall than usual in the weeks prior to my arrival and as a result the grass was taller than I had expected in a lot of areas making it difficult to see the smaller animals and difficult to get unobstructed pictures of other animals. This was a bit disappointing as my prime objective on this trip was photography." Read full review: 11 nights in Africa; 11 on a Kenya safari

"The trip was influenced by unseasonable rains throughout the country. Everywhere did the best they could with the conditions and should be praised for their efforts.

Kicheche Valley in Naboisho Conservancy and Il Moran in the Mara Reserve were wonderful places to stay. The welcome, the location, the staff, the food and the guiding were all very professional and we would certainly go back to both of them.

Satao Elerai is in a beautiful location especially if you are lucky enough to see Kilimanjaro. Satao Camp is tired and would benefit from some energy from management.

The guiding problems we had with Southern Cross definitely affected our safari in both Amboseli and Tsavo East. Guides are vital to the enjoyment of these wonderful places and make a huge difference to what you see, learn and enjoy. If they are not of a suitably trained standard, temperament or not enthusiastic about all wildlife, long-anticipated (and expensive) trips will be spoiled. Quick fixes, such as offers of treats or bottles of wines, do not detract from the very bad taste of having to complain and try to get someone to take us seriously.

As travellers are told to do, we complained to the management and sent emails with our concerns and experiences to Expert Africa. Although Richard was liaising with Southern Cross what he was being told was often not what we were experiencing on the ground. In fact, he was being given false information. Six of the last 7 days on safari had problems. Julius at Satao Elerai did discuss things with us and try to sort out a solution. The problem with that is that the low standards should not have been acceptable to the Lodge or Southern Cross in the first place. During the last 4 days with the final guide, neither camp management nor Southern Cross management dealt with us directly. We are left feeling frustrated, angry and disappointed with a reasonable part of our trip." Read full review: 19 nights in Africa; 13 on a Kenya safari

"As I said in my email to Richard, nobody can be blamed for the unprecedented levels of rainfall in Kenya over the past few months and its effect on the ground, the vegetation and the distribution and accessibility of the wildlife - well, nobody at Expert Africa or on the ground in Kenya. The climate change deniers, maybe!!!

We enjoyed our holiday nevertheless but the issues with wildlife mean that, if we're being honest, it wasn't as good as our first trip last year. We're not very experienced Safari goers and haven't got to the stage that more sophisticated guests might be at, of wanting to look very hard for animals; we want to come out of our camp and see herds of animals across the plains for as far as the eye can see and, at times this year, there was nothing very much as far as the eye could see!

We would like to note that none of the guides we had this year were as good as the excellent ones we had last year.

It's also worth mentioning that there was a misunderstanding about our pick-up time from the airport hostel to go to Solio. Some months ago, we changed the time from 7.30 am to 10 am, and this later time was clearly on our itinerary. However, Patrick from Safari Collections turned up at 7.30 when we were still in bed! He was very good-natured about it and waited for us to get ready and to have breakfast. He was pleasant and chatty throughout the drive and when he came back to Solio to collect us and drive us to Elephant Bedroom. We're not in any way complaining about this. These things happen but we thought you'd like to know." Read full review: 12 nights in Africa; 11 on a Kenya safari