Azas Safaris
- Located In:
- Size:
- 1-5 employees (Founded in 2012)
- Member Of:
- UTB, UWA & YUTO
- Tour Types:
- Custom budget & mid-range tours that can start every day
- Destinations:
- Price Range:
- $867 to $17,345 per person per day (MXN, excl. int'l flights)
Reviews
Email Otiono Zhong | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Very professional and excellent operator and I wanna do family safari with him again I cannot wait.
All the aspects have been well considered and arranged. He created a very good atmosphere and comfortable experience for my family along the safari. He as well has good knowledge of the wild and can always give us a professional view of what we ask.
Email Peter Sharp | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Good value and service
Booked this budget trip last minute and was very happy with my trip around the west and south west of Uganda. Considering the money I paid for the trip, I was pleasantly surprised by the good standard of accommodation and food and the guides were courteous and professional. I would definitely consider using Azas Safaris again and would not hesitate to recommend them.
NO
Email Andreas, Johan and Kaino. | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Never visited another place with such service like this.
Me, Andreas and friends visited Uganda in September, and after our Safari we proved that it is really the Pearl of Africa since it has it all. Azas Safaris organized our full safari from the Airport to the agreed destinations, and we all was so happy and satisfied about what we got back. We like to thanks all the people who helped us, and we will soon be back as soon as its possible for us.
FR
Email Seera | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Reliability
2 days city tour to Kampala and jinja was fantastic.
As a solo traveler I appreciate the attention I gained from the company representative.
Thanks
LV
Email Simon.C | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Comfortable tour
We went for a 4days cultural tour as a family and I'm sure they all got satisfied.
They had comfortable vehicles and their guide Henry was hospitable and had updated information.
Email Divine | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Incredible
My payment for the domestic tour I took with Azas Safaris was worthy.
I had an amazing experience with the guide and above all he was good at communicating.
SE
Email GGM | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Simon is a dedicated tour person that suits his job.
Travel with your company is therapy indeed. I will gladly do it with you over and over again.
Email Ben | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Disappointing
Short story, animals were good everything else was not, I would NOT recommend Azas Safari.
Long story.
I had high (honestly too high) expectations, and this trip left me lacking in all areas.
I did a lot of research and narrowed it down to a few options. Prisca was very friendly and quick to respond via WhatsApp, she sent us a very professional quote and was willing to customize (better hotels, different activates, charge more money) our 10-day Ugandan safari. However, communication decrease as we got closer to our trip and we only stayed in 1 of 6 of the original agreed upon hotels, the other 5 hotels changed 2 or 3 times each from our agreement till on our trip. The hotel pictures in the agreement looked very nice and I googled every hotel we were supposed to stay at and was excited, but most of what we got was disappointing. The hotels are important because in general the nicer the hotel more options and better food. Almost all of your meals will be at your hotels.
Our guide Christopher had a good eye for spotting wildlife and had substantial animal knowledge, he lacked customer service skills and communication skills. He set the bar for the trip by arriving 1.5 hours late to pick us up on day one, with no fuel or drinking water in the vehicle. The vehicle was an older Toyota land cruiser. Nicer than a lot of the other vehicles we saw but not great and not the one in picture from Prisca. We got to experience 3 minor break downs and 2 very minor fender benders. We had problem with one of the front hubs, going up a hill overheated? and problems with the ignition, so we got to push start the vehicle twice. My shoulder seatbelt on the back passenger side did not work correctly, none of the gauges worked and the vehicle had no air-conditioning.
Half the time it felt like Christopher was on a trip and we were just riding in the back seat. Should have been him taking us on our dream trip. He never asked us what we wanted to do. We had to pry the daily plan out of him. He would stop and get a snack for himself but not offer us or information is that lunch is still 2 plus hours away and we might want to buy our own snack. Our agreement said meal plan “Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner drinking water, non-alcoholic drinks”. We ended up buying one of our lunches and only water in the safari vehicle was included, we had to always pay for water and soda at meals. (Honestly drinks were cheap but not what was agreed to).
My wife and I agree we would NOT go on another trip is Azas. I don’t know if the other companies are better or if this is the standard of service in Uganda???
Reply from Azas Safaris
Posted on Mar 9, 2023hello Mr. Ben , we are very sorry for whatever went wrong , first of all we would like to send our apologies to you and your wife , we will be more careful next time . Also we understand your wife got sick amidst the trip and she could not finish the trip, which was a frustration to us and to you as well , hope he recovered so well , we wish her a quick recovery .
Trips booked on a short notice are not always easy to execute especially like yours of 9 days because of few hours at our hand to book all hotels and permits , but we are glad all the permits were successfully purchased , for accommodation, in the contract we signed with you we indicated that we can look for alternative hotel in the same capacity like what you had chosen before because of the short time we had we could not rely on one option but still we send our apologies to you. For hotels we always pay full board ( beak fast , lunch , dinner plus non alcoholic drinks , we are very sorry if it was not communicated to you , we are very sorry)
For the vehicle , we will always ensure that its in good mechanical condition for our other clients , even though we cant avoid minor cases due to some terrain roads in our destination areas.
For the guide , Chris will improve for our next clients , he is as well very sorry , he extends his apologies to you and your wife , as you can read previous reviews Chris has always been a good guide and he will work hard to improve more .
Thank you so much , hope our apologies are accepted.
regards.
Email Victoria | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Scam!!! Azas are con artists and scammer who did not deliver on anything we paid for.
Azas Safari Uganda SCAM
My husband and I are in Africa on our honeymoon. We booked a 3 day Azas Safari to see the Mountain Gorillas at $4180USD. Our trip included return flights from Entebbe to Kihihi, accomodation at Mahogany Spring Lodge, Gorilla Permits, guide, meals and park entrances. We arrived in Entebbe and stayed at the recommended hotel, we were in constant contact and communication with Azas the entire time however they began to get less and less responsive on sharing required details around flights, permits etc. We were told, by Azas, to go to the Aerolink office at Entebbe where we found out we were never booked on flights and had to pay for our own return flights $895USD. Azas, still in communication with us via WhatsApp, assured us the permits were sorted so we proceeded to purchase the flights and flew to Kihihi. We were met by a guide who took us to our accommodation where we found out that no permits had been secured. After speaking with anyone and everyone that we possibly could to rectify the situation we then had to purchase the permits ourselves $1600USD.
Azas are awful human beings who have scammed and completely ripped us off and continued to string us along.
We have reported them to the Ugandan police and tourism authority.
DE
Email Ralf Werner | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Avoid the company, they are fraudsters and liars
We were cheated by that company by around 2.400 USD.
We have fixed a ten days safari with them and paid all money that was agreed onin advance by international bank transfer.
We arrived at the 29.07. 2024 very early in the morning
It was agreed upon that we should be picked up at the airport but nobody was around. All the other tourists were warmly welcomed by their safari companies. We then called the K hotels where we were supposed to spend the rest of the night and the next night before the safari.
The problems already started there because KHotel wanted us to pay extra money for the early check in although it was fixed in the contract that the accommodation before and after our trip should be paid by
AZAS, which they did not do, even the night before our departure and the trip to the airport we had to pay by ourselves.
During the trip there were a lot of irregularities that should be communicated.
From the 31.08.- 03.08. 2024 it was fixed in the programme that we should spend 3 nights at Mweya safari lodge based on full board.
When we arrived at the Mweya safari lodge the manager,
Mr Brian Maher, told us that the lodge was booked by AZAS but unfortunately not paid yet.
Staying at this lodge was a compromise Azas agreed upon before we started the trip.
The former set up contract says that we should have been accommodated at the Karambuya Gorge lodge which the did not book fast enough, so the prices went skyhigh and they could not deliver that lodge.
After that frustration and some whatsapp traffic Simon, the head of Azas, told us that the payment unfortunately bounced back to their account and he did not know what the issue was, he then requested us to pay the lodge by credit card and by arrival from the trip he assured me to give back the money, 1.856 USD at the KHotel in USD cash, before we would check in.
So finally we did the payment and when arriving at the KHotel nobody was there to give us back the promised money.
When checking in the last two nights at KHotels we heard that he did not pay for the last night either which cost us another 310 USD. + airport transfer.
He also did not pay for the trip of the top of the Murchisson falls which was agreed upon in the programme.
To make it short Azas is absolutely unreliable.
They are big pretenders that do not deliver what is fixed in the set up contract.
To make it short AZAS is absolutely unreliable. They are perfect cheaters who want to make a fool of their clients.
Avoid them!
I can prove everything that I have written, the facts are overwhelming!
Reply from Azas Safaris
Posted on Aug 18, 2024Hello Ralf, thank you for your review , we understand your frustration, we are sorry it happened but thats not how we are, we always want to sit on the round table and solve issues with our clients for better trips although we are humans , sometimes its hard to please everyone but we try our best.
First of all kindly observe the following points .
1. You paid 10500usd for the trip as its shown on the receipt of payment( 3 people)
2. You paid 528usd for KHOTELS to us as shown on the receipt of payment.
3. Pesapal charged us 4% of that money , pesapal charged us 275.7usd which you also did not pay to us.
Let me breakdown the services we provided to you.
a) we bought for you 3 gorilla permits at 2400usd
b) we bought for you 3 chimpanzee permits at 750usd
c) we paid mahogany springs lodge in bwindi at 1710usd for 2 nights .
d) we paid turacco treetops lodge in kibale at 890usd for 2 nights
e) we paid twiga lodge in murchison at 1000usd for 2 nights
f) we paid KHOTELS 650usd for 2 nights , remember you paid 528usd to us. K HOTELS wanted 960usd in total.
g)we paid kasenyi safari camp in queen elizabeth NP which you refused to go to , yet its a good semi-luxury lodge
h) we paid your inland flight to kihihi at 803usd for 3 people on 30th july 2024.
i) we gave money to a guide 1105usd , for his allowance and fuel for 10days .
h) we paid 3 park entries in queen elizabeth at 360usd , each day was 120usd for 3 people .
i) we paid the boat at kazinga channel at 50usd
j) we paid boat trip in murchison at 96usd
k) we paid bigodi community walk in kibale national park at 53usd
l) we paid rhino tracking in nakasongola at 150usd for 3 people .
m) we paid abatwa caltural walk and community walk in bwindi at 105usd.
n) we also paid hiking at the top of the falls at 30usd for 3 people .
0) we paid 2 park entries in murchison falls national park at 240usd.
TOTAL EXPENDITURE : 12072USD remember you paid 11,028usd minus pesal pal charges of 275usd
when you add all those expenses above , you get 12072usd , that means we went extra 1044usd loss for your trip.
your argument , you wanted us to pay K hotel more 310usd and pay mweya 1856usd. So if we paid mweya safari lodge , that means we would have made loss of about 2354usd , which is a big loss for our company. We tried to explain to you via a whatsapp phone call this incident which rarely happens to us but you never understood and instead you were abusive and threatening, we respected you and your argument. if we were fraudsters , you would not have found us in uganda and all those services above would not have been paid.
For not picking you up from the airport, we are sorry , You reached the airport at 3:00am in the night of 29th july 2024 , and we paid the hotel 30usd for your pick up. Since it was a fly in trip that is you were supposed to fly from entebbe to bwindi on 30th july 2024, that means your guide had to drive from kampala to bwindi on 29th july 2024 day time so that you find him at kihihi airport on arrival. Thats why we contacted a hotel for a pick up in the late night.
About mweya safari lodge, previous you wanted kyambura gorge lodge , kyambura gorge lodge each day we were supposed to pay 3150usd for 3 people ( double occupancy is 1715usd , single occupancy is 1453), then for 3 days , we were supposed to pay 9450usd , remember you paid 10500usd for the whole trip, and you were insisting we pay it,how was that possible?. Then you opted for mweya safari lodge , since already we were out of money, we opted for kasenyi safari camp( a lodge better than mweya) which you refused to occupy and went for mweya where you paid for your self.
we are very sorry , and sorry for all that went wrong , we thought we would sit on the round table and make this trip awesome of which it was not possible. We wanted you to have a great trip but also to protect our company from a loss,at the e nd of the dayhumanity + empathy solves everything.
We shall always do better for our next clients.