Travel reviews by Dr B & Dr G from UK

"We only stayed here briefly because we arrived in the evening on the KLM flight to Kilimanjaro. The lodge was about 1 hour's drive from the airport.

We had a late dinner included and the food was excellent. Our room was luxurious, clean and tidy. The lodge was close (about 10 mins drive) to Arusha airport for our morning intenal flight.

We felt that it was a very good start to the holiday!"

"We loved our stay at Sayari. Given that we were travelling in February, we had no expectations of seeing river crossings or the migration and were unsure what the resident game was going to be like... It was great! The Lamai plains were teeming with wildlife. As well as numerous antelope, resident wildebeest and zebra, we saw a black rhino, a cheetah with 3 cubs at a kill, a pride of 3 male, 2 female and 2 cubs at a kill and a herd of about 50 elephants.

The best part was that there were only 3 vehicles out at any one time and although they radioed each other if there was anything spectacular you mostly felt that you had the entire area to yourself. During drives by the Mara river we saw plenty of hippo and crocodiles including several large crocodiles eating a dead hippo.

We did a couple of game drives south of the river where we saw a lion pride with 5 young playful cubs and a leopard (briefly). Apparently there is a also a leopard with 2 cubs in this area. The only point worth noting is that the game is much more plentiful north of the river and this area becomes inaccessible if the river rises and the bridge becomes flooded.

The camp was very comfortable. The room felt quite like a luxury hotel room. There was plenty of hot water for baths or showers. The food was very good and the camp took care to take account of my dietary requirements. The camp has a good pool area with lounging chairs, a sitting area and a small library with books and games. The managers, Joe and Barbara, were very hospitable and worked hard to ensure people were happy.

The guides were knowledgeable and chatty. They were also flexible about timings eg. having breakfast on morning drive, extending game drives if we found something interesting etc. We felt that the guides were genuinely fond of the animals and interested in tracking their progress eg. the cheetah cubs.

The only very minor downsides were that a couple of afternoons game drives were cut short because of rainstorms (to be expected in Feb) and there are quite a few tsetse flies in the wooded area that you drive through between the camp and the Mara river.

The feeling of remoteness of the camp, the great wildlife and the extremely comfortable camp meant we had an incredible time here and could have spent much longer at Sayari."

"We booked our holiday very close within a couple of weeks of leaving so stayed here knowing that the sister camp Olakira, which was fully booked, would have been a better bet for seeing the migration, which was in the Ndutu area. The manager of the camp kindly suggested that we do a whole day's game drive to Ndutu with other guests that were transferring to Olakira.

This meant that we managed to see a herd of about 1,000 wildebeest in the NCA. This drive was not for the faint hearted however because it took about 2.5 hours each way and, because Dunia uses open sided vehicles, we got wet when it rained and dusty when other vehicles sped past.

We got a great sense at Dunia of the vastness of the southern plains but were also relatively surprised by the lack of resident game in the area around the camp itself. Game drives seemed to go north to the Seronera area and whilst sightings in this area seem to be good (we saw lion, a leopard a long way away, hippo, elephant, giraffe, ostrich) they are balanced by the fact that probably 6 other vehicles will be looking at the same animal and the guides have to stay on the roads. This also meant that the guiding here seemed to be rather reactive and at times it felt like we were rather aimlessly driving around lots of road waiting for animals to happen to appear at the side of them or waiting to see a cluster of vehicles pulled up at the edge.

The tents at Dunia camp were large with a front seating area, a bedroom, a sink area, flushing toilet and warm bucket shower. The food here was very good. As everyone sat at individual tables and many people were travelling with their own guides, it was not a very sociable camp. We think that 2 nights here was a good length of time for us to stay here and we greatly appreciated the way in which the managers worked hard in order to get us down to the Ndutu area."

"We spent 5 nights in total at Tafika and thoroughly enjoyed it. John and Carol were very welcoming and everyone worked hard to make our stay memorable. The guides were very flexible and worked to accommodate people's wishes eg. walks, drives, cycling or visiting the school.

We saw a lot of game including leopards several times in the day and night, lions several times, porcupine, hyena, lots of hippo, elephants, giraffe and antelope. The guiding was excellent, although at Tafika the focus on game drives tended to be the animals rather than the whole environment. We found that the walking camps therefore complemented our stay at Tafika really well.

The food was excellent and we could not believe the varied menu that they were able to produce from the kitchen. We stayed in two different chalets at the start and end of our trip. Both were very comfortable. The water was always hot! We would have been grateful to have been warned however that the elephants visited the tree next to No.2 during the night to eat the fruit, although this was a welcome surprise."

"We stayed for three nights at Crocodile Camp. We walked there from Tafika, which included a river crossing by canoe, as our morning walk. It took about 4 hours to get there but we took a very winding route and stopped for tea and cake.

We did not see as much game at Crocodile Camp as at Chikoko or Tafika. However, our time there gave us an opportunity to learn how to identify plants, trees, bird calls, tracks and droppings! The highlights of our time at Crocodile were seeing male kudu very close and watching the elephants crossing the river.

Crocodile Camp is located on the bank of a dried-up river bed. We saw quite a lot of animals from camp including elephants, antelope and warthog.
The service, food and accommodation was great but more rustic than Tafika. The showers were heated by the sun in the day giving a warm evening shower.

We met some fun and interesting people at Crocodile and the numbers staying there ranged from just us to 6 people (the maximum). We had the same guide, Stephen, throughout our stay at the walking camps and this provided good continuity because he knew what we had already seen. Stephen was an excellent guide and we learnt an enormous amount from him.

The atmosphere is really relaxed at Crocodile. We started our morning walk early to avoid the sun. We'd normally walk from about 5.45 or 6 am to about 11am with a stop for tea. If we were out much beyond 11am, it began to get pretty hot when walking. Lunch was at about 12 and then everyone chilled out until tea and cakes at about 4pm. We'd then walk again from about 4.15 to 6pm. Dinner was at about 7.30pm. The terrain was not difficult to walk on because it was all flat but the grass was quite long in places."

"We spent three nights at Chikoko Tree Camp. The chalets are two storey and we thought that they were great. Our chalet was shaded by the trees but still afforded us a great view of the grassland in front of us.

There were a lot of animals close to the camp including elephant, antelope, zebra, giraffe and buffalo, not to mention the birds. We spent one morning walking to see eland and were successful. It took us about 5.5 hours (including tea stop) but was well worth it. Our guide, Stephen, was great. We sat and watched a herd of about 1000 buffalo walk close to us. We also saw hyena in the day and had a close encounter with some warthog!

The atmosphere at Chikoko was very relaxed. The food and service was great. It was a fabulous place to sit by the campfire in the evening and just look at the stars. We could have stayed here forever!"

"Please see previous comments."