Reviews of holidays to Michamvi Peninsula

"All went to clockwork, thank you.

One small comment was the times on our itinerary were different to Fisherman’s Tours. As such I thought they were late so rang the number on the itinerary for them to check someone was coming. They did arrive 5-10 minutes later, which was just before 6.30am, the time they had down. We were expecting them at 6am.

They did give us their itinerary with the times, down, but I hadn’t read it prior to the pick up.

The driver informed me I had phoned the general manager of Fisherman’s Tours, not the local office! Perhaps it would be worth checking the numbers on your itinerary which is where I got the number from.

Similarly the pick up from Qambani, was at 5am, not 5.30am as on our itinerary.

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We thoroughly enjoyed our trip, thank you for the organisation and recommendations. The service was excellent, and everything went fine.
Our only struggle, was with tipping, who and how much ! and not having local currency when we arrived. The porters at Zanzibar are quick to strike on the poor inexperienced traveller!!

We took advice from the Siwandu manager, (who was overall excellent) re tipping the staff, but I probably hadn’t read your comments carefully enough. I think we ended up tipping $4-500 dollars over the trip, which I hadn’t really been expecting, so I guess it would help to give a ball park figure to the client initially.

Thank you Chris for spending so long on the phone with me and Lyndsey for putting it all together." Read full review: 16 nights in Africa; 8 on a Tanzania safari

"Our trip as a whole was wonderful. I kept joking that I was worried something would go wrong - but nothing did (much to my relief)! It can feel like you have a lot riding on a big trip like a honeymoon, and we were keen to travel somewhere that neither of us had been before.

Overall, everything was seamless, from flights to transfers to the lodges / hotels / resorts themselves. For the most part, everyone we interacted with on the trip was warm, friendly, and eager to help.

Olivia was great - from initial enquiry to the final booking, she was responsive and clearly very knowledgeable about travelling to Tanzania. She managed to accommodate and re-work our itinerary/quote a few times as our dates changed due to work obligations, but managed to find something that worked within our budget and timeframe. We booked our external flights ourselves, but only because we had air miles available to utilize.

The trip was a great mix of safari / wildlife, short city break with some history, and beach holiday." Read full review: 11 nights in Africa; 5 on a Zanzibar holiday

"Fantastic trip put together on short notice and appreciate the guidance of Richard and others.

I contacted a few other big-name agencies who wanted to provide me with their agenda; Richard listened and put together an agenda for us.

I appreciated the detail in their website and that is what led me to call them (okay, it may be a bit old-fashioned in design, but it is encyclopedic and sometimes that's better than glitz)." Read full review: 10 nights in Africa; 7 on a Tanzania safari

"Everything went well from start to finish.

A very good holiday with a good balance between the three locations.

Even though we already had visas for Tanzania we had to stand and wait at immigration while a staff member collected a whole pile of passports and visas and then worked through them interminably slowly!

On arrival in Zanzibar we expected to show our passports and yellow fever vaccination certificates! In the event we just filled in blue cards, gave them to the member of staff, plucked our bags off the carousel and walked out to our transport. (This was Fisherman Tours-their vehicles are very comfortable and they were always punctual)

Having read dreadful accounts of Zanzibar airport (standing in long queues in the heat etc) we were pleasantly surprised. Yes, it is small and cramped but there were no long waits and we left on time." Read full review: 14 nights in Africa; 8 on a Tanzania safari

"It was a lovely trip - the highlight was Ikuka which is a simply wonderful place which we cannot recommend enough - Zanzibar was lovely and Breezes was a very good hotel even if the kite surfing was a little disappointing.

The arrangements by Claire at Expert Africa were excellently done and the itinerary was great ( we would never have know of Ruaha without that knowledge). My sister and brother in law have already booked a Namibia trip with you based on our recommendation." Read full review: 13 nights in Africa; 6 on a Zanzibar holiday

"I have had the most wonderful holiday.

Everything was seamless with the arrangements and accommodation. The staff at the hotels and lodges were friendly and made me feel welcome and as if nothing was too much trouble.

The trip itinerary was informative and everything worked to plan.

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No....I have been impressed with the way the holiday was planned and with the seamless way it all fitted together while away. The connections were all on time. I always felt that everything was taken care of...and each step of the holiday fitted into place without any stress......just what a holiday should be.

Thank you Expert Africa." Read full review: 15 nights in Africa; 10 on a Tanzania safari

"We loved our holiday.

The safari was simply amazing and we loved our trip to a Zanzibar.

Everything was organised perfectly. We couldn’t recommend it more highly." Read full review: 11 nights in Africa; 5 on a Zanzibar holiday

"We had a wonderful holiday in Zanzibar and owe a big thank you to Jessica at Expert Africa for making sure that the accommodation was top notch and that everything went super-smoothly for us." Read full review: 14 nights in Africa; 12 on a Zanzibar holiday

"The entire trip was impeccably organised by Expert Africa. Travellers should be aware that they do not book international flights or arrange travel insurance. End July/August is a splendid time to go on safari in Tanzania; we came across no mosquitos and few Tsetse flies. The three lodges we stayed at were each very different in feel and location and this made a fascinating two week safari with four nights at each lodge, followed by a week in Zanzibar. With two game drives a day one is often out in the bush for up to 12 hours a day and one has to be prepared to be in the jeeps for this length of time, as the opportunities for getting out are very limited because of safety. The bush is, of course, wild and the going often rough, so first time safari goers need to be prepared to be thrown around in jeeps (but with seat belts!).

The game viewing at this time of year is magnificent and we saw several crossings of the wildebeast in the Mara river, quite a few prides of lions in the Ruaha, including the full pride of 13 at one point and two close up sightings of an entire pack of wild dogs at Beho Beho. Three separate leopard sightings in the Serengeti were very special.

Zanzibar is the ideal place to wind down after a safari but one needs to choose one's hotel carefully according to what atmosphere and recreations one wants. Near Stone Town, or not, swimable beach, or not, isolated or not. Some of the taxi and shuttle drivers can be quite on the wild side, but it is the nature of the island!

Our expectations were more than fulfilled on this magical trip." Read full review: 18 nights in Africa; 12 on a Tanzania safari

"both James Denny (who was my initial contact and helped me to choose safari location and camps) and Lyndsey Marris (who organised our two stays in Zanzibar, and made all our reservations) were very helpful, and extremely knowledgeable. Overall the trip was amazing on every level,and incredibly well organised, thank you!

The only slight negative is that we were a little disappointed with Mwagusi Camp in terms of service and food, especially after staying at Siwandu which surpassed our expectations and was just excellent on every level. Maybe if we'd stayed at Mwagusi before Siwandu, we wouldn't have noticed so much!

We are definitely keen to explore more of Africa as a result of this trip, and will definitely return to Expert Africa to do so!" Read full review: 12 nights in Africa; 7 on a Tanzania safari