4-Day Best of Tanzania Safari

I paid cash to this agent which was a mistake. Kitau just sells safaris. They contract out to Earths Heart Safari The Safari car provided from Earth Hearts Safari was unreliable from the start. It had a dead battery in the parking lot when dropped off. Men showed up with a new battery that was also dead. I had to help push the car to jump start it. After we got out of town on the highway, it would not go over 50 KPH and kept dying, but would restart. I started texting Rhamadi Kitau but no answer. We pulled over to put water in the radiator because it was running hot. Another text, no answer. I asked the driver for another vehicle but his boss said no. We crawled for hours reaching Tarangire very late. The lunch provided was stale and tasteless. No one ate it including the driver. We toured the park and headed to the camp. It was past sunset and we were met by strangers in a van to take us to the camp so we could still get supper because we were so late. More texts to Kitau with no replies. It was all on Whats app and you can see if someone views your texts. He had. Same safari vehicle showed up with new fuel filter and running fine so we hit the road to Serengeti. Going up the mountain pass we had a flat tire. The jack did not work because it was so caked with dirt. Other vehicles kept passing us so we had to keep stopping trying to change the tire. I finally got the jack to work enough to get it up enough to change the tire but it would not go down all the way and the driver ended up driving off of it as soon as we could get the tire to touch the ground. 2 hours lost. Spare was about half full of air. More texts, no reply. We pulled over on the road about 2:30 for lunch, far short of the "Serengeti Park gate at Noon" lunch described. 3:15 the low spare tire blew out. More time lost and got to the park gate 4 hours late. Another text, still no reply from Kitau. Headed for the the camp. There would be no promised game drives today as it was now dark. Boom. Third blowout. No spare. Stranded in the desert and pitch black. One of the women in the group began crying. Our driver reached another in the camp and he headed to us with another tire. A different vehicle came along and offered one of their spares. Changed tire 3 and headed to camp. after just a few minutes we hit a big bump and the headlamps went out. We had to drive with the lights from the vehicle behind us. We almost struck a hippo crossing the road because we could not see it clearly with no lights of our own. WE got to camp very late, the only ones in the dining area. Missed entertainment. I finally tried to call Kitau but he would not answer. We all got together and demanded another vehicle. The driver was talking to his boss at Earths Heart but he refused to talk to me. I tried to take the phone out of his hand. but he hung up when he heard my voice. The driver said he could only get another vehicle for us in the morning while he got ours "fixed". Still no answered calls or texts from Kitau. We were forced to accept this offer. The vehicle in the morning was good and superior in every way than the one originally provided. We insisted we wanted to continue in that one. He said he would ask but he drove off while we were eating. The original vehicle showed up with new tires and working headlights. Off we go. It wans only then that Kitau first texted me (2 1/2 days later) and said he was "sorry and was working on it". No more game driving. We had to get on the road to Ngorongoro. Missed the sunset over the crater. No surprise as we had not seen one yet as promised. He had to take two riders over to another campsite as they needed to go back to Arusha. More calls and texts to Kitau. No answer. The driver ended up spending the night there so we missed the early game drive waiting on him to get to our camp. We started down into the crater 2 hours late. When we got to the floor of the crater he announced the clutch had gone out and the safari vehicle would not move. Still no help or answered phone from Kitau. They started putting us in other safari vehicles that had empty seats so we could continue and there would be no "fixing" ours. A replacement vehicle showed up at lunch time and they picked us all up from the other vehicles. The left door did not open and neither did the cargo door in the back. We had to put our luggage on the seat or on the floor so it was hard to move around to take a photo.. This vehicle had no radio to listen to, to hear where animals were being spotted in the park, so we just drove around aimlessly till it was time to leave. Believe it or not, this is not the full story of everything that went wrong. The total apathy by Kitau and Earths Heart Safari was inconceivable to me as a seasoned traveler. There was never any offer of a refund, even a partial one for all of the game drives missed ( probably a full 8 hours) anxiety and fear for our safety. There was no excuse for putting us in a vehicle that was both unsafe and unreliable. I have been all over the world and have never experienced such an irresponsible and apathetic service as I did from the companies of Kitau Tanzania Safaris and Earths Heart Safari. Through 4 days of this constant mayhem neither company had the guts so talk to me or provide an answer or resolution to the problem. We all were taken advantage of and if you spend your money with either of them, do not be surprised it this happens to you as well. There are plenty of other companies out there and it is hard for me to think they are as bad as these two. Don't waste your money with these tow companies. Travel is my passion. It still lives, even though these two tried to kill it.

The trip was excellent and well organized. The entire team helped us with everything we wanted before and after safari.