What you should know before booking a safari tour in Africa

At Monkey Adventures, we are proud to share that 97% of all safari tours that we offer in East Africa (Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda) run smoothly without any problems and we are able to meet or exceed client expectations. But even though less likely, given the nature of these tours and the number of variables involved in arranging a safari tour (hotels, vehicles, guides, airlines, parks, road conditions etc), clients can sometimes face some inconvenience while on tour.

When clients report a problem, we work on it immediately and together with vendors and partners and contacts, we try our best to find a solution. But a majority of these issues can be avoided if clients read/understand/follow the information/notes provided during the sales stage.

Here we are summarizing the list of important points that we strongly recommend all clients to be aware of, during their East Africa safari tour planning stage to avoid/minimise any kind of discomfort while on tour. We request our clients to pay attention to each of the points mentioned below and feel free to ask their sales representatives any questions regarding any of the points below.

1. Hotel standard: We work with almost all the hotels in East Africa ranging from economy hotels to high-end luxury levels. Given, there is no standardization/rating system for hotels in national parks and the huge variation in hotel prices in/around national parks and that every client's expectations can be different, we strongly recommend clients check the photos/reviews of the hotels on Tripadvisor and other platforms to make sure they are up to clients' expectations. From our side, before we quote a hotel to clients, we try to make sure it offers decent value for money among the hotels available in a particular location and price tier. Check this to understand how we classify hotels on safari But there is often a limited choice available in hotels at a given price range and location in/around parks. This can result in hotels of varying standards/service levels at different locations in a tour. So whether the hotels are suggested by us or by other sources, whether they are low priced or mid tier or high end hotels, we strongly recommend clients do a thorough review of hotels before booking a tour. If there are any specific questions about hotels, we will be happy to address them. If clients are not happy with any particular hotel(s) mentioned in a quote, we will be happy to offer multiple alternatives for that location(s).

2. Hotel location: Some of the hotels we work with, especially at the economy level and a few at the mid-range level are not inside the park. Some might result in up to an hour of extra drive time from the park(like karatu based hotels for the night before Ngorongoro crater tour in Tanzania safaris). This is because some parks have very few hotels inside and/or the ones inside could be quite expensive compared to the ones outside. Please pay attention to the location of hotels in your tour and if you wish to stay inside the park only, please notify your sales agent in advance.

3. Change of hotel during the tour: Once a hotel is selected/booked, we will have limited flexibility to change it. In some rare cases, we have clients requesting to be moved to a different hotel(this can happen across all hotel tiers) while they are already on tour. While it might be possible to move to a different hotel, it would cost additional as the hotel already booked will not offer a refund for no-shows/last-minute cancellations. In some cases, it might not be possible to move to a different hotel (even when clients are willing to pay additional) at the last moment due to the challenges and restrictions associated with remote locations where we operate our tours.

4. Service at the hotel: If there are any service issues at the hotel (ex: bugs in the room, slow service at the restaurant, food not being adequate or tasty, not enough water, hot water for shower etc), we request clients to escalate to the camp manager and also inform our operations manager or sales team simultaneously. We try to get in touch with senior management of the hotel you are staying at to offer a quick resolution so the rest of the stay at that hotel can be smooth. Phone/Whatsapp numbers of our operations managers & sales teams can be found in your booking voucher.

5. Room configuration: Please pay attention to the room configuration mentioned in your email/voucher. If you want us to make changes to room type when you are on tour already (like changing a double room to a twin room or a standard room with extra beds for kids sharing to a family or interconnected room or changing a triple room to a double + single room etc) it might not be always feasible (as it would depend on availability at hotel for required room configuration at last moment) and the price can sometimes change due to change in room configuration.

6. Electricity/Internet/Hot water at the hotel: Electricity, at most camps/lodges inside the park, might be available only during certain hours(usually between 5:00 PM to 10:00 PM and 5:00 AM to 9:00 AM). Wifi might not be available or might be available only in common areas and there might be no phone signal. Hot water might be available only for a few hours in the evening and morning. If someone needs electricity throughout the night or wifi it should be notified in advance and we will suggest hotels where this is possible.

7. Air conditioning/Fan at the hotel: Most camps/lodges inside the park do not have air conditioning/fans/hair dryers. Even several of the very high end hotels inside the park do not offer air conditioning. Some can arrange a fan upon request. But since it is usually not hot in the evenings/night, this is not a problem for most clients.

8. Drinking water/Drinks at the hotel: We provide 2 liters of drinking water per person per day and hotels provide about 1 liter per night. Some clients carry these bottles to their dining tables. You can also order water at a restaurant in your hotel but it will be charged extra at most hotels. Most hotels are booked on a Full Board basis (3 Meals a day). But some of the luxury hotels are booked on an All Inclusive basis (3 meals + unlimited soft drinks/select alcoholic drinks). This is specified for each hotel in your voucher.

9. Meals during tour: Meals during safari are provided by hotels where you will be staying. Breakfast and Dinner are arranged as hot/fresh meals at the restaurant in the hotel and they are either served in form of buffets, where you have the option to choose to eat, what you like from a number of dishes or as à la carte, where you can order food as per your taste from a menu. Lunches are often packed so we can consume them while on the go without having to return to the hotel while on game drives. Packed lunches usually include items that can be easily packed and eaten without cutlery so things like sandwiches, chicken wings or meat balls, boiled eggs, biscuits, crisps, packed juice etc. The menu variety in packed lunches can be limited compared to hot meals. Based on your preference, we can plan for arranging hot meals for lunch at the hotel (may not be possible on some of the days/itineraries) or use a lunch hamper and request the hotel for preparing a custom menu for packed lunch - like rice/pasta/boiled vegetables/curries etc (this needs to be planned in advance).

10. Food requirements/restrictions: When there are any food preferences or restrictions or allergies, we notify the hotels in advance and get their consent. We remind the hotels again before clients arrive. But we rely on hotels to adhere to these food requirements and we are not in a position to inspect if the food prepared by the hotel is per the requirements specified by us. In cases where hotels do not follow the food requirements, we request our clients to inform us immediately so we can discuss with management and try to get the hotel to follow the food requirements for future meals. We request clients to pay attention to Tripadvisor reviews from previous clients for the hotel that discuss food and make sure the hotel they select is up to their satisfaction.

11. Lunch on Day 1/Last day: All our standard safari tours include 3 meals a day starting from lunch on day 1 till lunch on last day while on safari. We book all hotels during safari on a full board basis (so 3 meals per hotel - breakfast, lunch, dinner for each night on safari). So one lunch (either on day 1 or last day, depending on itinerary) in our standard tours is usually not provided by any of the safari hotels and we arrange this as a packed lunch or hot lunch from the starting point or at a restaurant on the way, depending on the itinerary.

12. Safari Vehicle design: Our purpose-built Safari vehicles allow for excellent game viewing, equipped with pop up roof hatch and large sliding windows. Same vehicles will be used for both game drives and for transfers between parks. However, our vehicles are not open vehicles. You can check the pictures of our safari landcruiser here. If you need side open vehicles, we can hire them at some parks like Masai Mara at an extra price. This needs to be planned during the booking stage.

13. AC in Safari vehicle: Our Safari vehicles do not have Air Conditioning. During game drives pop roof hatch & windows will be opened. For other drives, windows can be opened to allow for fresh air. However, there are some sections on the way to national parks where windows need to be closed and the vehicle can get dusty and hot for a brief duration. More information on Safari vehicle can be found here: https://monkey.travel/de/help/safari-vehicles

14. Problems with Vehicle or guide: We work with top guides who are hired after a tough recruitment process. Our safari vehicles are regularly maintained, serviced and replaced after a few years in service. But if for any reason, you are not happy with the guide or vehicle assigned, we request you to inform this by the evening of day 1 of your tour to your operations manager or sales representative. We will then assess the situation and try and send a replacement guide or vehicle as early as possible.

15. Vehicle breakdown: The extreme safari driving conditions mean there are chances that your vehicle can get stuck/breakdown in the middle of safari. Given our vehicles are well maintained and regularly inspected, vehicle breakdown chances are small and your driver guides are trained and equipped to deal with most breakdown situations. In a breakdown scenario, if the vehicle is not back on the road in 10 minutes, we suggest you contact (or request the driver to connect) the operations manager. In rare cases where the vehicle is not immediately repairable, a replacement vehicle will be sent within 1-2 hours.

16. Issues with itinerary: While we recommend itineraries based on our experience to clients, these are general recommendations based on feedback we received in the past but not all clients might find the itineraries we suggest to be the best fit for their travel style. For example, some clients want to spend more time in the same park, same hotel and make the tour relaxed and explore fewer places in more detail while others prefer to explore as many parks as possible in the available time. Some prefer tours with minimal transfer times while others prefer tours that cover the popular parks, even if it requires long transfers. So we request clients to thoroughly review the itinerary we suggest and request any changes they want us to incorporate in the plan.

17. Spotting wildlife in parks: While our safaris in general offer memorable wildlife experiences, we cannot guarantee specific animal sightings. Since animals are free to move inside (or often even out of) the huge national parks, we can never know what animals we are going to spot in advance. Our dedicated driver-guides will do their best to find rare creatures like the black rhino in Ngorongoro, tree climbing lions in Manyara but sightings are not assured. Check Tripadvisor reviews for feedback on our exceptional wildlife encounters. Remember, booking more days increases your chances of witnessing remarkable wildlife moments.

18. Seeing Great migration on Safari: Not all our tours going to Serengeti or Masai Mara allow you to see the great migration. Migration moves around the Serengeti-Mara Ecosystem throughout the year and many safari tours in Tanzania go only till Central Serengeti while migration could be upto 4 hours drive further. Migration can be seen in Masai Mara between Mid July to September/October. If you wish to observe The Great Migration, please inform your sales consultant in advance so he might suggest one of our Migration Safaris which takes you to different corners of Serengeti at different times of the year. While booking a migration itinerary maximises your chances of seeing migration it still doesn't guarantee spotting migration as sometimes the herds can deviate from the predicted migration pattern. Since the hotels are booked months in advance, in case you book a migration itinerary and the migration is not at predicted location, it may not be possible to dynamically change the itinerary last moment or even if possible, it would cost extra as changing the accommodations last moment will incur cancellation fees. Check this to know where to see migration in Serengeti based on usual patterns.

19. Single entry park fees: All of the national parks in Tanzania and some in Kenya (like Lake Nakuru or Tsavo Parks) have a single entry park fees system, which means the park fees expire when clients exit the park. In a tour where game drives in a park are mentioned only for one day, we enter the park only on the day when it is mentioned in the itinerary. These park fees will expire either in 24 hours or when we exit the park, whichever happens first. For example in a tour that includes game drives at Tarangire NP (or Nakuru NP in Kenya) on Day 1, with a different park planned for day 2, if the hotel for day 1 is outside park, we exit the park in the evening and do no re-enter the park for game drives on day 2. Clients whose hotel for day 1 is inside the park get an option to do game drives in Tarangire (or Nakuru NP) on day 2 (till 24 hours from time of entry on day 1) before exiting the park, without extra park fees for Tarangire (or Nakuru NP). Some parks in Kenya, like Amboseli, Samburu, Shaba allow multiple entries as long as there are valid park fees for the duration of stay in the park.

20. Transfer time between parks: Transfers between parks can be anywhere from 2 to 8 hours. Some of these drives can be on corrugated or poorly maintained roads. Depending on the itinerary, there can be multiple days that require you to travel between parks by road for several hours. Please make sure you are aware of transfer times applicable for each day in your itinerary. Transfer times are usually mentioned in tour pages on our website or it will be shared by your sales consultant by mail. But in case you are not aware of transfer times specific to your tour, please ask your sales consultant for this information. If you wish to avoid some of the long transfers in your itinerary, we can plan and book flights between parks. This costs extra and needs to be planned and booked in advance.

21. Change of itinerary while on tour: In some cases, we get requests from clients for modifying itinerary while already on the tour. We might be able to accommodate this in some cases but not in all. When clients want to end their tour midway for whatever reason, we won’t be able to issue refunds as vehicle fees, accommodation fees, park fees for the remaining part of the tour would have already been incurred.

22. Delay/changes in local flight schedule: If your tour includes local flights(either to national parks or between cities) that are booked by us, we share the flight details(timings/prices/airline name) during the sales process and share the flight ticket before the tour departure. But sometimes flights in East Africa, especially bush flights, get delayed or sometimes get preponed or postponed due to weather conditions. In such cases, we try our best to stay in touch with airlines and keep clients updated about the change in schedule but we are not responsible for delays/loss of time caused due to change in airline schedules. So in cases where clients have international flights or other important events scheduled based on bush flights schedule, we suggest to plan sufficient buffer time so they don't miss their international flight in case the local flight is delayed by a few hours.

23. Bush Flights: If your tour includes flights from/to national parks (called Bush flights), please note most of the aircrafts used are small, propeller planes. These flights are often not direct flights and have multiple stops on the way to destination. The airstip they land at might be anywhere from 10-60 min drive away from your accommodation.

24. Luggage limitations for bush flights: If your tour includes flights to national parks (called bush flights), please check the baggage policy of these flights on their respective websites as these are strictly implemented and excess baggage would be charged extra and in some cases, might not be allowed.

25. Details in Voucher: All the details discussed during the sales process, including itinerary, accommodations, number & type of vehicles, price details, payment details, inclusions/exclusions, pickup/drop off timings, special requirements, meal plan, food preferences, language spoken by guide, our contact details etc are added to the voucher we create during the booking confirmation process. While we have a review and verification process to minimize mistakes, since it is a manual process and depends on consolidating information discussed over several email/phone/whatsapp conversations, mistakes can sometimes occur from our side. Please pay attention to every detail mentioned in your voucher including dates(of hotels, flights, briefing and other events), airport transfer times/pickup locations in particular. We request you to review and point out any mistakes/omissions in the voucher as soon as you notice it. In case you notice that something promised during sales was not provided while on tour, please bring this to the notice of our operations team immediately so we can work on finding a solution at the earliest.

26. Balance payment: For balance payment we offer 3 options. (a) Pay by wire transfer, at least 2 weeks before tour starts, (b) Pay by card with 5% surcharge (c ) Pay with cash in USD notes printed after 2009, before the tour departs on day 1. We sometimes have clients bring Euros or other currency to pay balance or who initiate wire transfer just a day before the tour departure. We are unable to accept balance payments in non USD currency or wire transfers done close to tour date and require clients to pay balance by card (with surcharge) and we refund the wire transfer whenever it is received. To avoid the hassle, we request clients to please follow the balance payment options mentioned before.

27. Off Roading in national parks: Off road driving (to get close to wildlife or otherwise) is not allowed in national parks and we strongly discourage our guides from going off road while on safari. We request clients to not pressure our guides to go offroad. For clients interested in off roading we recommend to visit private conservancies located around some national parks like Masai Mara. In some parks(like Masai Mara), it is possible to get a filming permit (at extra cost) which allows vehicles to go offroad. This permit is not included by default in our tours and it is meant for professional photographers and we do not encourage regular clients to get this permit as too many vehicles going off road can disturb wildlife inside the parks.

28. Group activities in Private tours: In Private safari tours, clients have exclusive access to safari vehicles and guides. But for add-on tours or for activities conducted through third party, like Gorilla tracking/Chimpanzee trekking tours in Uganda done through park rangers, or Hot air Balloon tours or Maasai village tours in Kenya/Tanzania or night game drives booked through lodges in certain national parks, etc, there can be more clients doing the activity and sharing the services of guide/balloon/vehicle.

29. VISA delays: We advise clients to apply for online VISA (required for Kenya/Uganda and optional for Tanzania) through official websites only and more than a month in advance from their arrival date. Usually, VISA is issued within 2-3 days after application But we come across cases where it takes longer or application is kept on hold pending for some information. In case VISA is not issued in more than 2 weeks after application, or till the last 7 days before travel, we request you to get in touch with the authorities through numbers/email ID listed on their website. When there is a delay, we might be able to help through our contacts in immigration department in some cases but we do not guarantee that our contacts will be able to help and where they are able to help, it might cost additional.

30. VISA/Travel requirements: We do not arrange VISA for clients. Most clients need VISA to enter or transit through the East African countries where we offer tours and this VISA often has to be applied in advance(for Kenya/Uganda/Rwanda) online. In case of Tanzania, both online VISA (eVISA) and VISA on arrival are available. Citizens of some nationalities might need referral VISA that can take over 2 months to process. Effective from 1st October 2024, Zanzibar requires mandatory inbound travel insurance cover from the Zanzibar Insurance Corporation. We expect clients to check all the requirements for VISA/entry to any of the countries in their itinerary from their side. This can also include vaccination requirements (Yellow Fever is required for clients visiting Kenya/Uganda from certain nationalities and for clients visiting Tanzania after Kenya/Uganda and clients from the Indian subcontinent need Oral Polio vaccination to visit Kenya) that can keep changing from time to time. We share the requested information about vaccination/other international travel requirements to the best of our knowledge when asked but we expect clients to verify this information from their side and to make arrangements accordingly.

31. Misplaced/lost/damaged items on tour: We request our clients to be always vigilant about their valuables and not to carry any valuables that are not required for the safari. Please use the lockers provided in the room, reception to store your valuables. Please double check all your personal belongings are collected from the vehicle before alighting. Monkey Adventures or its employees or agents will not be responsible for any lost or stolen or damaged items while on Safari. In the unfortunate event of any theft or robbery, we will help our clients lodge a complaint immediately with park rangers and the tourism police department. In the event of lost items, if our team is able to locate the items, we will promptly inform clients. But any charges incurred in sending the lost items to clients, will be borne by clients.

32. Insurance/Emergency evacuation: Any kind of insurance is not included in our tours. We strongly recommend clients to arrange travel insurance to cover trip cancellation or interruption coverage, baggage and personal effects coverage, rental property and rental car coverage, medical coverage, theft coverage and accidental death coverage. Emergency medical evacuation cover can be bought here: https://flydoc.org/maisha/products/. In the event of any medical emergency, we will help clients get to the nearest health facility available in the region. But clients/their insurance provider have to take care of transportation fees in case an air evacuation is required. However, it is to be noted that out of several 10s of 1000s of safari clients we served on safari till date, emergency evacuation on safari has not been required till date, though normal evacuation by landcruiser or scheduled flight has been done on some occasions when clients fell sick on tour.

33. Cancellation policy: Please pay attention to the cancellation policy applicable for your tour. This is shared by email where we share booking instructions and also mentioned in your voucher. In the event of cancellation for whatever reason, cancellation/refund as per the mentioned policy would be applicable.

34. Pickup at Airport: Where airport pickup is included in the tour, it is the client's responsibility to share with us flight number, arrival time, arrival terminal (applicable for Nairobi airport). We see that sometimes our drivers, especially at Nairobi airport, end up waiting at the wrong terminal when they don’t have information about terminal/flight number, which can cause delays. We request clients to contact the numbers mentioned in their voucher if there is any confusion during airport pickup.

35. Change of briefing timing: Although rare, sometimes our managers can run a little behind schedule (when there is unexpected traffic or when a meeting with another clients party gets extended beyond planned time) in meeting clients for their tour briefing. In such cases, we usually keep the clients informed of the expected arrival time of our manager. We request the clients to be a little patient and flexible by about 15 min regarding their briefing timing and to contact the Whatsapp numbers shared in clients voucher in case of delays.

As we said at the beginning, 97% of our tours are executed without any kind of problems and often our clients tell us their tour with us has been a lifetime experience. But being aware of all the potential problems, however remote the chance of them occurring on your tour, can help you to be better prepared and avoid even small disappointments. And our customer support/operations team will be around (for 14-16 hours a day) to quickly assist in case you face any problems or need any support while on tour.

By proceeding to make payment, you agree that you have read and understood and agree to all the points mentioned above.