Zanzibar: reviews from our travellers

"We want to thank you very much for organising our honeymoon.

The locations you have choose were definitively what we wanted. We were very pleased and had a gorgeous time in Africa!

What a fantastic holiday! Superb accomodation, delicious food and, most notably, a very warm welcome and great African hospitality everywhere we stayed.

Thanks to all at Expert Africa for co-ordinating such an amazing holiday for us and for your patience with our ever-changing itinerary!" Read full review: 12 nights in Africa; 8 on a Zanzibar holiday

"Excellent.

We especially loved the stay in the bush" Read full review: 12 nights in Africa; 6 on a Tanzania safari

"Great family holiday

Walking trip misunderstanding with Chada should not have been allowed to happen but was very competently solved when it did" Read full review: 17 nights in Africa; 14 on a Tanzania safari

"Beho Beho set the honeymoon off to a great start.

Would be hard to follow that experience and beat it and so our beach expereinces were good, but not really comparable

Zanzibar has to compete hard with safari due to the nature of what is available on each type of holiday. Beho Beho being amaziny, beaches being great, but not comparable.

Also the "Safari Blue" in Zanzibar is a bit of a let down, 200/300 people all crammed onto one sand island was a bit of a shock" Read full review: 13 nights in Africa; 7 on a Zanzibar holiday

"We thoroughly enjoyed our holiday, and it lived up to all our expectations. This was some feat considering that we were a family of four - with 2 mature daughter - each of whom had different interests and needs. All these were satisfied by the holidays, which included different types of accommodation and experiences.

Expert Africa's advice was terrific, always professional and always timely in their responses.

One negative - the recommendation of $10 per person per day as a tip is, we feel, over generous. We are always happy to voluntarily reward good service, but there seems to be an excessive tendency of expectation by most staff, in all accommodations and places, which is to-say-the-least off-putting. To facilitate this 'expectation culture' is counter-productive." Read full review: 17 nights in Africa; 10 on a Zanzibar holiday

"Expert Africa organised the whole trip tremendously well. We saw loads of animals and birds from a superb safari base camp. Enjoyed our trip to Stonetown and ended up with 5 outstanding days and nights at an excellent beach hotel.

All the arrangements worked perfectly and the people of the country as well as those working for the tour companies and hotels were kind, helpful and very friendly." Read full review: 14 nights in Africa; 8 on a Zanzibar holiday

"Expert Africa helped tailor this trip to our requirements exactly. The first half (Zambia) was our best holiday ever. The second half (Zanzibar) was a bit of an anti-climax and very disappointed with inability to scuba dive.

Anna Devereux is the best travel agent I have ever dealt with. I am quite demanding/ pernickety but she was always more than glad to answer any query with alarming efficiency. As I told her - sometimes it seemed she was working for us and noone else. Her recommendations were spot on. Anna was also willing to get involved when issues came up during the holiday (Zambian airways flight overbooking/ disasterours last-minute trip to Ngorongoro (not booked through Expert)). Real value-added travel agency." Read full review: 16 nights in Africa; 7 on a Zambia safari

"As a complete trip I think that I speak for the whole family by saying that this was probably the best family holiday that we have ever had - which is probably a good thing because it certainly was the most expensive! Having said that however when one considers what we experienced over the 2 weeks both Liz and I agreed that it constituted excellent value for money." Read full review: 15 nights in Africa; 7 on a Tanzania safari

"Brilliant.

Only one problem. We did not book a trip to Jozani Forest but it was recommended to us whlst on safari. We realised we would pass it on route to Unguija so asked the driver if we could stop and visit it. He agreed but said it was normally US$60 per person but for us only US$30 each. We disagreed and said we would sort it out with his head office. He took 12,000 shillings each for the entrance fee each which we later saw should have been only 10,000 each.

When we arrived at Unguija he again asked us for the US$60 witnessed by the owner Ralf. Again we declined and but asked him to get his head office to contact us when back at the Serena. The same drive collected us for Unguija and again asked for the money. We have never been asked by Expert Africa's Zanzibar agents themselves. US$60 for waiting for 90 minutes seemed wrong and we suspected he was asking for money for himself.

The driver [Ed: from Expert Africa's Zanzibar agents] who took us to the airport on our last day could not have been more helpful with expediting us through checkin, passport controt etc.

I am a little concerned ther may be one rottern apple in Expert Africa's Zanzibar agents." Read full review: 13 nights in Africa; 9 on a Zanzibar holiday

"A good combination of towns and beach.

Quilalea is a very distinct experience and well worth the money.

For Mozambique it would have been good to have had a variety of places to choose from to visit, eg Ilha de Mozambique.
Maputo was very interesting and underrated." Read full review: 14 nights in Africa; 7 on a Mozambique holiday