20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Vehicle Safety Concerns and George (Owner) Showed No Accountability
We had a deeply distressing experience during our safari with Terrain Tanzania Safaris, owned by George. What was meant to be a once-in-a-lifetime trip turned into a situation where we felt genuinely unsafe — and unsupported when it mattered most.
In Kenya, we were provided with a vehicle that, in our experience, raised serious safety concerns, including:
- Seatbelts that did not function
- Exposed, rusted metal that injured my mother’s leg
- A passenger door that swung open twice while driving on the road
We were alarmed and immediately requested a replacement to George. We were told by him that it would be arranged — but then received no updates or communication for over 24 hours. During that time, we felt anxious, helpless, and abandoned. Our current driver on that day also felt confused since he didn't get a confirmation from George wheather he should go back home or continue on the next day. We insisted him to stay that night, because otherwise we could have a risk of no guide or a vehicle the next day, which turned out to be true since George made no replacement arrangements.
On the next day 1:30PM, we were informed by George that the replacement vehicle would not be provided due to additional park entrance costs. To us, this felt like our safety had been deprioritized in favor of saving money — a decision that left us both disappointed and frustrated. Furthermore, this complete lack of communication caused us immense trauma and unbearable stress.
We understand that no trip is perfect and safari conditions can be challenging. However, we believe that basic safety and responsive support should never be compromised.
This experience left us shaken and disheartened. In our personal opinion, travelers booking with this company should be aware of what we encountered, and consider whether they are comfortable with the level of risk and response we faced.
RO
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Amazing tour guide, great tour overall, but the attitude of the management was absolutely terrible
Everything started when we first met their contact person, Daniel, who came to brief us and take the rest of the payment for the tour, which we chose to pay in cash. We paid 60 USD more, as, of course, he did not have change. He promised he will give us the change back when the tour ends.
We started the tour everything was ok until the second day when we ate the lunch prepared by their hotel, Suricata Boma Lodge, where we stayed the first night. The food was bad and we had got food poisoning, exactly what you need in a safari.
Considering this, when we arrived at the next accommodation we asked them to prepare a lunch with rice and more solid stuff so we avoid getting sick again. Guess what, they did not care about what we asked, we ate only part of the food and we got sick again.
We were promised by Daniel, who we believe lied to us, that we will have our own chef which will prepare exactly what we want, considering some limited options. We never seen such a guy.
Besides this, the tour guide was kind and helpful and he did his best to make us comfortable. He planned the days in a very smart way and we were most of the time almost alone with a lot of animals. Thank you again Paul!!
Now, let's move to the nasty part. On the last day, got back to Arusha and we were supposed to meet with Daniel, for a feedback session and of course, as promised to return us the money he owed us.
Guess what?
He kept saying that he is coming soon, and at some point he called saying that we should do the debriefing via the phone, because he is stuck in traffic and during the discussion he asked us to not mention anything about the food poisoning as he wouldn't want us to generate a bad image for the company. And then he promised again that in 30 minutes he will come with the money. It was already past 9 pm. At around 10:30 PM he said that we will get the money from the driver who is going to drive us to the airport. Of course the driver did not have the money and did not know anything about this.
I discussed with Daniel again and he said the money were left at another hotel reception, then that the money were in the company's office and then that the driver actually had the money and forgot to give them to us. He was clearly lying. These different versions are from a Whatsapp conversation with him.
He clearly wanted to keep the money.
Now, it is not about the money, it is about their attitude in regards to this.
I told them that I want to get the money back via a bank transfer. They said they only do western union, which was not an option for me at all. I am not going to waste time to open accounts and run arround in my holiday at different western union places to get back the money I was owed. After multiple different conversations and pressure, I was told I will receive the refund via Revolut, and that the money were already sent. They lied again. This is the moment when I started to threaten them with a bank claim (I did pay the deposit via a bank payment). After threatening them, I got the money back the day after, from another Revolut account, which is an instant bank transfer (so they cannot say anything about the transfer taking longer than a day).
I would never recommend them and I feel lucky that nothing really bad happened during the trip. Considering their attitude, I am pretty sure they would have not done anything.
CN
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
the worst travel experience of my life.
Please be cautious of this company that scammed us; this has been the worst travel experience of my life.
1. We paid the full amount, but the 6 nights of hotel accommodations and park entry fees included in the trip were never paid. We only discovered this upon arriving at the hotels. The travel agency asked us to cover the costs upfront, promising to refund us later, but they have since completely disappeared.
2. The agency unilaterally changed the hotels specified in the contract without prior notice. They replaced the hotel in Nakuru with a substitute that costs more than double, and they did not refund the price difference.
3. The agency has repeatedly deceived us through various means and delayed our plans, which has severely impacted our itinerary. We have lost an entire day in Maasai Mara.
This experience has been a total scam and a nightmare, so I urge everyone to be very careful with this company.
RS
20-35 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Zero star
I hope you guys who are interested in traveling in Uganda find this review useful and won't make the same mistake as me and my friend did. In this review i will share the part of my experience with Karumuna Safaris and it's owner Richard who we believe is a fraud and a thief.
From the first moment i contacted Richard he was very fast in answering my mails and whatsapp messages,which i liked because that is how an agency should behave with clients. I applied for the journey inDecember and was supposed to arrive in Uganda in March!! It was like that until the moment I paid him the 50% down payment which he requested because he wanted to make sure the gorilla tracking permits are secured. The same story was with my friend who applied for the trip one month after me. The moment I paid him the money, no answers no mails, nothing! Every info I needed I had to wait 3 or 4 days for a response i called him and told him this is not professional. I asked him to make me another trip plan because i had less days in Uganda because of my ticket.
He sent me the plan 2 days before my trip and also found a guide for me and my friend day before our arrival. When we arrived and gave him the rest of the money the problems started. In the Lodge in Queen Elizabeth our guide approached us and told us thar Richard had an accident and hit the boda boda (motorcycle taxi) with his car and the motorcycle driver didn't survived so Richard was detained in prison. My friend and me were concerned but as the gorilla tracking was approaching i was starting to be suspicious about everything because Richard couldn't be reached on any phone and they apparently didn't know which prison he was detained and he was the only one who knew where the gorilla permits are. Our guides brother was searching for permits in his office and he was able to find only one permit. This one permit was paid on March 8th the day we arrived! And he told me in December to pay so he can secure the permit. At this point we knew that we were scammed! With the help of our guide Herbert we managed to pay for another permit 700usd because we came in Uganda specifically for the gorilla tracking. Richard was not answering any calls from our guide and the warden in the gorilla tracking office told us that he know Richard and that the chief of tourist operations in Uganda are awared that he scammed people before.
There was a lot more happening which I could write and if anyone is interested in hearing this can contact me.
This is not a fake profile, which he claims on other reviews of people that were also scammed and according to him want to damage KARUMUNA SAFARIS reputation. If you look the negative reviews it was never his fault!! . The ranger in Kibale national park told us that his driver by the name Dona went to Chimpanzee tracking with fake permits left the clients there and ran away with the car keys. If you don't want things like this to happen to you avoid Karumuna Safaris and Richard.
God sees everything, if Richard is really in prison he should stay there. But if he lied about hitting someone with his car in order to get 700usd speaks volumes about him as a person.
I tried to attach valuable photos (the payment of the permit,screenshots of our chats and more) but the site won't publish them, so if anyone needs to see them I can send them.
65+ years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Unhelpful to the max
We booked our trip for 2020. They were very happy to help us select them and arrange the entire trip with them. They highlighted (over and over and over again) that they were a five-star resort, which to me means five-star assistance and service. Then COVID happened and they ignored our requests for help. We did have travel insurance (as they recommended) but they were not interested in helping us with the process. We will NOT be booking our next safari with Kenyazi.
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Very disorganized
We booked a short trip to Mombasa using the SGR. When we got to the Miritini station all the people who had booked with Bonfire we're herded to one corner. Most of us had no transportation to the hotels. Where a bus finally showed up, 2 hours late, it broke down at the parking lot! They eventually put us in 3 separate taxis after much complaining. We wasted about 4 hours that counted as part of the first day of the trip.
NO
35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Read all 1 star reviews. They are TRUE!! Do not book with ISIA!!! WARNiNG!
We paid extra for a pick up from the airport.
They didn'¨t show up. We had to find another a taxi driver in the middle of the night.
The next day we had to hunt ISIA down by phone with the help of the hotel manager.
The trip started 5 hours too late because of this.
We had paid USD70 for an extra event. We didn't get to do this event and still after 4 months we haven't been refunded. I waited this long before writing a review to give them a chance to make it good.
They answer emails sometimes and sometimes not. Lies and stalling. In the beginning they said that they had made the payment but that it will take a couple of weeks before we would see it on the account.
The guide wasn't too interested in talking about animals. He just wanted to drive to get to the next camp and start driving a bit late every day.
He had good contact with other drivers to find animals but that was about it.
In the end he and his boss tried to pressure us to pay USD20 per day in tips and said that this wasn't optional.
You don't need to pay for an expensive company like ISIA!
All companies drive around and talk to each other. Just be sure to get a driver who have been driving for at least 5 years or so. This because a rookie might wreck the car and you will lose time.
There is a million companies out there.
Check what areas you want to go to and what camps you want to live in. Then contact any company but NOT It Started in Africa!
You have been Warned!
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Our deposit $4000US missing
We have planned a Safari for December2017 and received the same email as everyone else about someone running off with the money
We were told our trip is safe and is with another company.
When we contacted that company it is not so
So rang all hotels on our itinary some booked some not, none have received any payment
This is very disaapointing...Do not go with this company
We have tried to contact all Tanzanian tourist boards and even the Tourism Minister and are waiting replies
PL
50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Terrible standard for much too high price
My review is based on comparison - we experienced services of 2 agencies in Kenya, for 2 different Safaris.
We (the couple from Poland) went to Maasai Mara national park, in tour organised by Jocky Tours (Bison safari in internet). We had already experience with safari, since we went few days before to Tsavo East and Amboseli, so we have had some expectations, which have not been met in ANY aspect.
Lodging and food - terrible, much closer to the army camp than tourist lodging. We have been accomodated in Rhino Camp (claiming to be the best camp in Maasai Mara, really!!!), but it is very far from what you expect. I have to mention that at booking time we were offered Lenchada Camp, what has been changed without any prior information to us. Just dropped in other camp, no explanation.
Food on the road and in the camp - dirty(!) dishes, no choice of food, dirty place: disgusting in every aspect. In the camp - do not take a look into the kitchen (what is difficult, kitchen is open all the time)), otherwise you will stay hungry...
The driver/guide - not interactive with passengers at all. All the time on CB, listening and responding to other CB users, not providing any information to people on board and not reacting on your requests to stop, see something, etc. Last day he was 45 min late to pick us up from the camp, without even a word of apology!
To sum up - price (310 $/pp) does not meet the offered standard. For mentioned above another tour (which was private one - only 2 of us on board), we paid 275 $/pp, receiving great accomodation (hotel Voi Wildlife Lodge and high standard camp: Senirim Amboseli), great food (on the road and in the hotel) of good choice and service, fantastic guide - informing about what we see, responding to our needs, good tracer of game, always on our request.
I did try to claim to agency received service, but they don't care at all...
UA
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
They are Liars!
A plus:
It was a beautiful safari and we saw many animals. I want to say many thanks to the chef, his food was very tasty.
Minuses:
We went in the low season, so if you are hoping for what they told in the correspondence, do not believe it! They'll take you as they like. They will not follow the description that is said here. And you will have a safari only in the morning or only in the evening, do not expect that you will spend all the time looking at animals. Our car broke down and we drove 6 hours to the campsite at a speed of 10 km and no one came to our rescue.
We arrived when it was dark, nothing is visible and I hurt my leg, it was swollen and there was a hematoma, and they even do not have a usual first aid kit and they refused even to bring a bottle of cold water that I would put on my leg. On the last day of the safari, the people who were with us, ended their safaris, because they started earlier and we just joined them. At 11 o'clock in the afternoon we were taken to a camping place and we did not go anywhere else!
With all this, the director of this company blatantly lied and denied that everything was fine!
When I gave the guide a tip of $ 85 (4 days of safari for two), he also started to say that we should give tip the chef! Dear authorities, warn people that they themselves should distribute tips between employees, because I thought that they themselves share everything equally. That's why we paid even more!
I do not recommend this company to anyone. The most terrible and deceitful attitude!