"Overall experience was outstanding.

Expert Africa (Jessica) was a joy to work with and the trip was put together quickly and executed seamlessly." Read full review: 12 nights in Africa; 9 on a Tanzania safari

"Wonderful." Read full review: 18 nights in Africa; 11 on a Tanzania safari

"This was our second safari with Expert Africa and this company delivers a first class service.

From initial enquiry through to travel we have received nothing but excellent advice, help and information.

Tanzania is a worthy safari experience, luxury camps that still retain an authentic bush experience. Staff at all the Lemala camps we stayed at were so welcoming, attentive and couldn’t do enough for you.

Game viewing was superb, plenty to see including rhino, lions, cheetahs and one leopard! All with the assistance of two very able guides, Victor and Mary. Clearly trained to a very high standard, with knowledge and experience a plenty. At the same time they have the ability to engage with you, make you laugh and just add to the whole experience.

A unique holiday that we thoroughly enjoyed - thank you.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service
None - a very good company." Read full review: 15 nights in Africa; 8 on a Tanzania safari

"Unforgettable trip, very well organised with few hiccups. Very happy with the service received and Jessica was a great help in organising the trip and was lovely to deal with." Read full review: 11 nights in Africa; 7 on a Tanzania safari

"The trip was fantastic and without criticism. The planning and detailed instructions first class. The guides terrific and Maruska Adye Row just so very helpful.
Had a small query at one stage and accessed the emergency email and was answered immediately and the appropriate information supplied.
Expert Africa is just simply the best." Read full review: 10 nights in Africa; 7 on a Tanzania safari

"Originally I had another plan for my trip this season, however there were some difficulties with logistics. So after talking with Claire on Skype, I finally chose Serengeti and I believe I made a right decision. Thank you Claire for your advice and arrangement.

I have been to Serengeti many times but I stayed at Asilia's camps for the first time. I was really surprised at Asilia's hospitality.
On arriving at Kilimanjaro Airport from Doha, I was treated as a VIP. I was escorted to the VIP lounge, was offered drinks and snacks, cleared immigration in the special room there......really special treatments.

I usually choose small camps with rustic feel. Asilia's camps I stayed were more luxurious than I had expected, but that's not so bad.

I enjoyed staying luxury camps, watching animals....expecially migration and many cats.
I had a wonderful safari again.

Suggestions to help us improve our trips or our service

Claire's arrangement was very good as usual.　

Everything went smoothly. Thank you as always." Read full review: 9 nights in Africa; 7 on a Tanzania safari

"This was the first time in five visits where we got our timing wrong regarding the location of the migrating animals (the start of the migration). The weather pattern was slightly different from normal years in that this year there had been a second "short rains season". However, there were enough animals to provide adequate sightings and so the overall experience was good albeit somewhat different from being surrounded by vast numbers of the migrating animals as we have been on previous visits at the same time.

We were pleased to find that you are still able to traverse "off-road" in the Ngorongoro Conservation area (round the Ndutu area) and this enables you to get closer to some of the sightings and to get optimum camera angles. You are not allowed to go off-road in the Crater itself nor indeed in the Serengeti so with somewhat fewer animals in the Serengeti at this time this year we did not get as many photo opportunities as on previous occasions. The number of animals in the Crater does not vary much from year to year as they tend to remain within the crater.

On a personal note we were very pleased with the way in which my wife was assisted as she is partially disabled and the assistance provided at all locations and by our guide ensured she was able to participate fully in all viewings." Read full review: 12 nights in Africa; 11 on a Tanzania safari

"One of our top holidays, brilliant planning by the Expert Africa team who managed to achieve two accommodation upgrades!

All our requirements were met and even after two cancellations over the COVID years we maintained all our original bookings dates ( 3yrs on) times and schedules.

Perfect planning seeing the migration in the southern Serengeti then fly on to the northern Serengeti to wildlife watch up there.

All our accommodation in mobile camps were high quality venues and of course Mkombe’s house was just an amazing experience.

Our final chill and relax at the Manta resort was perfect. What a place?!

I would like to thank the Expert Africa team for all their hard work planning and amending this trip through several difficult years. We were always given friendly and extremely efficient service and Jessica Plumb was totally brilliant. She was easy to contact and always available to answer questions or make adjustments to our plans. We would like to thank her so very much." Read full review: 19 nights in Africa; 17 on a Tanzania safari

"We did most of the planning for our trip to Tanzania ourselves. Lyndsey was our agent from Expert Africa. This is our second trip with Expert Africa and we are left disappointed by the service received.

Lyndsey's main role was to assist in stitching our itinerary together, liasing with both Nomad Tanzania on the ground, with accommodation providers and with safari charter companies. On a positive note, all our transfers, accommodation and transport were seamless. We appreciate the work Lyndsey did to make this happen as we are aware logistics in Tanzania can be complex.

However we dont feel Lyndsey or Expert Africa proactively discount or negotiate on behalf of clients. We were offered discounts with various accommodation providers for booking direct but we had to push for these to be made available for booking through Expert Africa. They were never proactively offered. In addition, we had to push to stay at Hatari Lodge. Lyndsey wrongly commented that Arusha National park is closed after 6pm and we would be unable to arrive into Hatari later. We had to contact the lodge ourselves directly and paste information on email from Hatari's website to challenge this as Hatari have an agreement with the park management to allow guests arrive post 6pm.

We were disappointed we never received a paper copy of our documentation from Expert Africa. We didnt purchase a travel guide as we were expecting to receive one from our agent. With only 2-3 days before our departure date, we were finally told no paper documents, luggage tags or guide book would be sent. It left us no time to purchase one online ourselves. Its a small thing but it left a poor impression. In addition, & despite agreeing accommodation choices, it took a long time to receive confirmation of reservations, some times up to 14 days.

Finally, we are currently disputing a fee we were told we must pay in order for a safari charter to operate. We paid 4 seats and were reassured by our agent that this would be refunded if other pax were subsequently onboard. When we sent an email from Tanzania that 4 pax were in fact on board and requesting a refund, we received an email from Lyndsey offering to refund only 1 seat and would we be happy with this? There was no offer to escalate this on our behalf. We werent happy.

We have responded with copies from two emails quoting Lyndsey reassuring us of a refund if we were not the sole pax on board. We have been told twice in the last week on email that the matter has been escalated and the agent is awaiting a response. We would have preferred if this had been done promptly and efficiently. Having paid almost £20000 for this trip, it leaves a poor impression of both the agent and Expert Africa. After almost two weeks, we still are none the wiser.

We have every intention of returning to both Tanzania and exploring other parts of Africa. Based on our latest experience, we're not so sure however we'll continue use Expert Africa to facilitate these trips in the future." Read full review: 21 nights in Africa; 11 on a Tanzania safari

"We (my wife Nancy and I) had an incredible experience during this trip. Everything was first rate. We saw everything that we hoped to see (captivating places, amazing wildlife and birds), stayed in wonderful lodges, gained insight into human evolution at the world-renowned Olduvai Gorge archeological site, learned an amazing amount of information about local culture, people, flora, and animal behavior, were very comfortable doing it, and most importantly, had lots of fun throughout. We are very grateful to Expert Africa, especially Maruska who helped us plan the trip, for making all of this possible.

This was our second trip organized by Expert Africa. The first was a short three-day outing in 2019 to Zanzibar planned as a side trip while we were in Kenya on a work trip. We chose Expert Africa to help us plan this longer two-week visit because we were so pleased with the quality of our trip to Zanzibar.

Needless to say, we are even more impressed by Expert Africa after this trip. Everything was outstanding: the advice that we received from Maruska during our planning of the trip, including the pros and cons of selecting either Botswana or Tanzania as our destination; the materials that we received - very detailed and helpful annotated itineraries, information to help us navigate Covid-related health requirements, a helpful guide to travelling in Tanzania; alternative choices of places to visit and camps for lodging; and high quality vendors for all of the services provided.

All five lodges/camps were located in beautiful places, were incredibly comfortable, provided outstanding service, and had plentiful, excellent, healthy food (we never left a meal wanting for more). And the guides that accompanied us in every place were very personable, likable, and knowledgeable people from whom we learned much about the countries and local flora and fauna. Finally, the ancillary activities - a visit to a local Maasai village and a long walk from our lodge to the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater - were interesting, informative, and fun, with the added benefit of providing exercise after long days of riding in safari vehicles.

We hope that we will make further trips to East Africa in the next few years before we lose the ability for long-distance travel (we are both in our 70s). One of our hopes is that we can take our two adult children and grandchild to see the incredible country-sides and wildlife in East Africa whenever we can make the schedules work for such a trip. We will definitely ask Expert Africa to help us plan any future trip whenever we are ready to do so.

We also would like to express our deep appreciation for the invaluable, outstanding assistance that Maruska Adye-Rowe provided to us during the planning of this trip. The choices that she provided for places to visit and stay and things to do, always giving us the final choice, and the vendors she selected made our incredible experience possible.

I am sure that you already know what it is like to work with Maruska. In addition to the summary feedback on Maruska's performance that the form requests below, we would like to provide a more detailed client's perspective on how easy, helpful, efficient, and effective she is to work with. I hope that you will not mind the detail of what follows:
- Maruska and I had 2 lengthy phone calls at the outset to discuss what our (my wife and I) objectives for our 10-day safari.
- Our first call focused on what we would like to see (wildlife in interesting places in either Botswana or Tanzania) and the types of places we would like to stay in (high-end luxury, middle-of-the range, etc.) She then sent us a lengthy email comparing safari options in Botswana and Tanzania and suggesting possible lodging options in each place.
- Based on this very helpful information, my wife and I chose Tanzania as our destination, with a focus on the Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti and selected a few of the alternative lodges that she suggested (one on the crater rim, the other in the Serengeti)
- We then scheduled a second lengthy call to flesh out the itinerary (she suggested adding a safari in Lake Manyara on the way to the crater and suggested two other places to stay before we arrived at the crater)
- Maruska was fun to speak with. I enjoyed our conversations. She was very informative and, most importantly to me, listened carefully to what we wanted, provided very helpful answers to my questions, and made very helpful suggestions
- We then exchanged many emails (I counted at least 13 sent by me) in which I posed many questions and asked for greater detail on: the places we would visit, the lodges where we would stay, the activities that we could do, the logistics of the travel, the best time to depart and return to Kenya, etc.
- Maruska was incredibly prompt with her replies to my emails which provided very thorough answers to my seemingly endless questions (one of my unfortunate characteristics)
- She also was very adaptive when I suggested something that she had not included in the itinerary. Here are two examples:
- I indicated that we would like to add a visit Olduvai Gorge as a side activity during our stay on the Ngorongoro Crater and she adjusted the itinerary so that we could do that without having to eliminate one of the other activities that we already had planned.
- When I realized that we would have 2 extra days in Kenya before we were scheduled to join the group that we were meeting there, I asked Maruska if she could help us plan a 2-day visit to one of the soda lakes that I had last visited more than 20 years ago. She consulted with colleagues who were Kenya experts and recommended 2 options for lakes to visit. Once I chose Lake Nakuru, she identified two alternative lodges in different locations and different price ranges. We had a wonderful experience viewing land-based and aquatic wildlife at the lake and loved the lodge that we selected from her options.

- Maruska also was very helpful in other important ways:
- providing helpful resources on how to obtain reliable health and travel insurance
- notifying me that Kenya Air had changed our flight time to Tanzania without notifying me, which required some adjustment to our itinerary
- helping me navigate the Covid-related health requirements to enter Tanzania
- helping me to navigate Expert Africa's web site when it would not let me log in or accept my deposit for the trip. I had to provide my credit card information to her over the phone
- preparing and sending the detailed annotated itinerary, including all of the helpful information on visas, health information, luggage weight limits on the internal flights, the need to avoid older USD notes, and arranging the 2 internal flights

In short, Maruska helped us plan a fabulous trip and was a pleasure to work with. As noted below, I would recommend her very highly to my friends and would be delighted to work with her again in planning future trips." Read full review: 23 nights in Africa; 9 on a Tanzania safari