Discover South Africa Seat Sale
Go Touch Down Travel & Tours
- Offices In:
-
United States
- Size:
- 20-50 employees (Founded in 2010)
- Tour Types:
- Mid-range & luxury tours that, when possible, use accommodations owned and operated by them
- Destinations:
- Price Range:
- $6,938 to $10,841 per person per day (MXN, excl. int'l flights)
Reviews
Email Greg and Jen | 65+ years of age | Experience level: first safari
Start to finish communication, coordination, transportation, accommodations & staff were outstanding
We have both traveled extensively internationally for business and pleasure but never to South Affrica. In Jan 2024, we booked a trip of a lifetime with GoTouchDown tours, at the AZ Travel show. The no pressure sales associate Lucia was very helpful. Lucia and Deon spent time getting to understand who we were, what we were interested in, the type of activities we liked and our budget. They made recommendations on what would be the best trip for us, including what time of year would be best, time spent in each location, overall travel times and budget. We decided on a 17 day, Big 5 Safari, West Coast of South Africa, and Vitoria Falls adventure in late Oct 2024. Start to finish the communication, coordination, transportation, accommodations, and staff were outstanding. Flights are long from the Southwest US, but worth it.
I apologize for the length of this review. It was a long trip, but it was amazing and well worth it. I would recommend and use GoTouchDown in the future for you travel to South Africa.
The Royal Murubisi game lodge was amazing. This is one of two small (6-8 rooms) resorts in the entire Kaingo reserve (41,000 Acres +). The accommodations were first class and then some. We had twice daily game drives (early morning and Sundowner / Happy hour). Our guides were fantastic. Z and Yolanda were truly knowledgeable about the reserve, the animals, and the research on the reserve. The entire staff was friendly, and beyond helpful and attentive. They made us feel like we were the only ones at the resort. The food was amazing, and plentiful. At times we had to skip meals and snacks because it was simply too much for us.
The shuttles between airports and hotels and flights coordinated flawlessly by the GoTouchDown South African travel support specialist Anisa. Our drivers were always waiting for us right as we got off the plane. We did not have to worry about anything. The most people we had on any tour and transfer were five plus the driver.
The western Cape was extremely beautiful. All the hotels were genuinely nice boutique hotels with amazing facilities, staff, and service. We spent several days in of the three locations. Each location brought a unique perspective of this beautiful country. Shark Bay is in a small fishing and resort area. Absolutely amazing accommodations overlooking shark bay and the area. Ladybird vineyard lodges was located on a wine farm in South African wine country. Again, very nice accommodations, but least favorite as proximity to other things in the area. Last stop was Belle Maroc on the beach on the western cape. Again, very amazing accommodations, with great staff.
Our excursions were included in this portion of the trip and were incredibly fun and informative. Our driver / tour guide was deeply knowledgeable, friendly, and accommodating. He made the trip very enjoyable. I would suggest that you look closely at the excursions, with possible alternate plans for some of them. For example, we were unable to get up Table Mountain for 5 days due to the weather, which was one of the excursions. We had to wing it a bit during this time.
The shuttles and flights to Victoria Fall and our hotel were flawless. Shuttle drivers got us through border crossings between Zimbabwe and Zambia. The Avani hotel was again first class, and right at the gate to Victoria falls. The staff and the accommodations were beyond what was expected. Wildlife walking by the pool, a very attentive staff, and amazing natural beauty made the ending of the trip even more memorable.
We highly recommend the trip and GoTouchDown!
Email Bob L | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Very knowledgeable in the tracking of the animals and had a fantastic personality.
This was our once in a lifetime vacation and it didn't disappoint. The staff was very friendly and helpful while we were there. You'll never go hungry because they feed you four times a day and the food was great! We saw were able to see almost ALL of the animals and get plenty of pictures. Would highly recommend this to anyone.
Email Lisl B | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
We had an incredible experience with Go Touchdown Tours at Tshukudu Game Lodge!
We had an incredible experience with Go Touchdown Tours at Tshukudu Game Lodge. The staff was wonderful, always friendly and attentive. The guides were knowledgeable and made our game drives unforgettable. The food was delicious, offering a variety of tasty options. The accommodation was amazing, providing comfort and stunning views. Highly recommended for an unforgettable safari adventure! Price was great and worth every penny. Communication with staff beforehand was on point, while at the lodge staff kept us informed. Very reliable and we can't wait to go again!
CA
Email Clyde | 65+ years of age | Experience level: first safari
They were very professional
I booked a trip with Go Touch Down Travel for a Kruger safari and Victoria Falls tour. Angie and her staff were very professional. The accommodations provided were top notch. Meals were well prepared and tasty. The tour guides were very knowledgeable and friendly. I gave them a four-star rating as part of the safari required me to take a flight to one of the safari locations, however only a last-minute observation prevented me from being left at the location after the safari. The flight did not include a return. This return flight became an additional expense. Notwithstanding the return flight mix up, I would recommend Go Touch Down Travel to others.
Email Gillian | 65+ years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Very helpful
It was very well organised. All food provided was excellent and there was plenty of it. There was so much to see. I think that an overnight stay in Kruger would have been beneficial so that we could see the wild life in the early morning as well. There was again so much to see and very little time when we were only there for the day. The tour guides were very informative. The staff were very friendly and accommodating. It is unfortunate that we were unable to walk outside of the reserve itself because they do not have a gun licence. The scenery and wild life were breathtaking.
Email Cynthia | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Diligent, accommodating, friendly, professional, best travel agent ever
I thank Go Touch Down travel for providing me with the most exhilarating journey of a lifetime. Go Touchdown was flexible with my payment plan & helped me to meet my travel goals. Angie & the Go Touch Down team took care of ALL the details. Everything I needed was provided in a timely manner. Angie, my travel agent was available to answer questions and take care of all of my needs before and during my journey. The hotel arrangements were exceptional. All tours & excursions helped me to discover and learn the beauty of South Africa, Capetown, & Zimbabwe. I highly recommend Go Touch Down to everyone I talk to about my trip and to anyone consider the journey. Go Touch Down is definitely a highly professional travel company and I will call on them again for more trips to Africa.
Email Erica | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Beware of contract language!
My family’s experience with Go Touch Down for our “safari tour” was a complete disaster. I would absolutely NEVER book with them again, even if offered a trip at a fraction of the cost. They are able to lean heavily on clauses in their stock contract that allow them to entirely modify their itinerary.
Taken directly from the contract: “Go Touch Down shall not be responsible or held liable to secure the originally intended vacation package, which in many cases may not be available or its procurement may not be practicable due to forces of nature, market factors, or other related reasons” and “…when deemed necessary in its sole discretion reserves the right to: (1) cancel any itinerary or any part of it for any reason; (2) make any alterations to the itinerary (including, but not limited to, alterations or substitutions of hotels).”
In other words, they can promise WHATEVER they want and then dump you into whatever itinerary they come up with! I stupidly assumed this was boilerplate language that we’d have no choice but to agree to in order to sign up for any safari. But even if it is common contract language, most of us have to trust that tour companies wouldn’t dare abuse it; our experience with Go Touch Down revealed that this is not a company worthy of our trust.
My story is a long one, but here is the gist of key issues (though there were many more, too numerous to cover in detail). Go Touch Down closed one of our two safari lodges six months before our trip. They did not reveal this to me, but I instead discovered it on my own…even as I was having multiple phone conversations with our agent (the owner’s wife) about our stay at that very lodge because I was trying to make some arrival arrangements. Of note, Go Touch Down manages the lodges they use on their South African tours, so they knew of the closure, and I found they’d actually removed this lodge from a prominent corporate branding image months prior. When I asked our agent about the lodge closure, she became extremely rude and combative. Go Touch Down then used contract language to prevent us from getting a refund even though this was going to cut the safari portion of our trip in half and dump us at a freezing cold trout fishing timeshare they manage instead (this was the unfortunate fate for months of guests; we got last-minute lucky when they opened a new lodge just before our arrival and spared us the fish pond).
While we may have gotten a safari in the end (after so much grief and stress), it wasn’t the one we were sold. The number one reason I chose this tour had been the promise of a maximum of six people on game drives. In fact, the brief Go Town Down self-written bio on social media is “small group tours of max 6 people.” Upon arrival, we discovered that we would have ten people on our game drives – every seat in the truck filled, including the one up with the driver. Those squished into the middle seats could barely see anything, especially since nearly all of our drives were in covered-top vehicles and some fellow passengers were quite tall. Even the most barebones budget safari packages generally guarantee an outside seat. One high-level staff member brought up specifically how unacceptable this was and explained that many game drive vehicles no longer even have middle seats and instead place storage compartments down the middle! (I’m intentionally leaving out specific details like staff titles and names because I don’t want any of these wonderful people to get in trouble – we encountered so many who were very candid with us about their extreme frustration with Go Touch Down, and it is a testament to their own professionalism that they did not take out this frustration on their guests.) The entirety of our Morubisi stay was packed in like this, as was our full day in Kruger (even though in the latter case, we were assured the day prior that we would all ride together to Kruger and that a second game drive vehicle would be waiting to collect half of us for the smaller tour we’d been promised, but this didn’t actually happen).
Once again, Go Touch Down chose to lean heavily on contract language as an excuse. We certainly were not the only ones on our tour who were extremely upset, as many had chosen Go Touch Down for the six-person cap just as we had. One fellow traveler then astutely observed that the final documents we received the week of departure had been tweaked to state that any “outsourced” activities, including game drives, may have more than six people. First of all, Go Touch Down runs the game lodges, so the drives are hardly “outsourced.” Furthermore, this left only the transport from the airport and between lodges as what they’d deem non-outsourced. Who cares how many people we ride from the airport to the hotel with, it’s the game drives where that actually matters!
There were numerous other key advertised features of the tour that never came to fruition. For example, there was supposed to be a cultural music performance that never happened. There was also supposed to be a walking safari, but this was never offered. In addition, we were supposed to traverse the Panorama Route, a famous region of South Africa, when we were going to travel from Humala to Tshukudu. With the closure of Humala, we still faced a six-hour drive (not including a lunch stop), but we lost the morning game drive that was supposed to happen on that day and traveled a rather dull route to Tshukudu without scenic stops. And when we learned we’d be going to Morubisi, we were told of a wide variety of optional activities to choose from, such as a river cruise, to fill the long period between morning and evening game drives. But when we asked about this on site, we were told that only the reserve owner could drive the boat, and he wasn’t available to do so. In the end, there were no activities offered to fill the mid-day hours at Morubisi. Lodge staff were very apologetic and told us that Go Touch Down had frequently shifted financial priorities and was in the process of opening multiple new lodges which was causing not-atypical disruptions that were frustrating for them as well.
To be clear, this review is about Go Touch Down and why I would never recommend booking with them. The staff at the properties were almost uniformly lovely, and they were very candid about their own hatred of Go Touch Down management and about how guests constantly arrive having been entirely misled and taken advantage of. “They only know hotels” said one frustrated high-level staff member who was doing everything possible to give guests the safari experience they thought they’d purchased in the context of a management tour agency that seemed to think we were there for fancy rooms and meals that they attempted to spin as “upgrades.” So if your goal is to book an African safari, I would say this is NOT the company with which to do so – their contract is written in such a way that they may ultimately decide not to bring you to a safari property after all, and even if they do, it doesn’t have to be the safari you were promised.
South Africa is a lovely place, and there were many wonderful staff, animals, meals, fellow tour members, and hotel amenities that allowed us to make the most of our trip despite its many uncertainties and unkept promises. I have a lot of travel experience and love discovering joy in even the worst of situations. But ultimately what it comes down to is that Go Touch Down is a company that repeatedly made excuses for not delivering what we as clients were sold. Maybe they sometimes pull through, but it doesn’t seem like a risk worth taking when there are so many other options out there. This review has nothing to do with whether I would return to South Africa for a safari or whether the lodges we stayed at were nice. It is instead about warning people that there are thousands of actual SAFARI booking agencies, so I would highly recommend staying away from what was in our experience the unreliable, contract-abusing Go Touch Down when booking something as special as a safari.
Reply from Go Touch Down Travel & Tours
Posted on Sep 29, 2023Dear Erica,
Yes, Humala Lodge came as a surprise to all of us, but I know we made the right call.
My team and I are surprised to read the context of your review, and sadly we do not agree with you. Below are the facts on your file:
1. you bought a safari for 8 days that included 2x lodges (both 4 star). Humala Lodge was not big 5 reserve and has no lion or cheetah (keep that in mind, as that's what you paid for)
2. in Nov and Dec of 2022 there was ongoing unrest in the village outside Humala and Go Touch Down made a decision to stop sending clients to Humala (for safety reasons)
3. Jan 13th, 2023 Humala closed its camp. You were informed of this on *Jan 19th, 2023 (6 days later - we have the recorded call). *remember this date because we will address it again below.
4. Your new itinerary was going to incl. Dunkeld Estate for the 1st 3 days and it included a full day in Panorama Route plus Gumboot Dancers in the evening (you were not happy about this new change and wanted a full refund)
5. We then changed your itinerary and upgraded you to the 5-star Royal Morubisi (Big Five reserve that incl. Lions, cheetahs, and many wildlife that Humala did not offer).
6. The 5-star lodge opened June 2023 and you traveled July 2023. The Riverboat (was not included in the sale) was not available during your visit as it needed a qualified captain on that river (hippo's, rocks, etc.). (this is no longer an issue as we have a full-time staff that can)
7. Your sale docs are very clear about "Groups and Transport", and in addition, this sentence was included in your itinerary under Docs before you traveled to SA - I quote: "Our fleet of vehicles consists of Hyundai H1 9 seater vehicles. Our tour bus seating will not exceed 6 passengers; excluding your driver, for all our Exclusive Safari and Cape Town tours. However, outsourced excursions such as Table Mountain cable car, Robben Island Ferry, Cultural Township Tour, Game Drives, and airport transfers may exceed 6 passengers. Please be considerate and rotate tour bus seating with fellow travelers daily"
Your family of 3 would have occupied an entire row on your own during safaris. On the 4 days on safari at Tshukudu, you were only 5 people total on the jeep (your family of 3 and 2 others).
Regarding your comments about the Resort staff hating us and giving their opinions about our financial responsibilities - I have no comment, other than:
We asked the GM at Tshukudu about 'hate' statement, and he replied "These international clients from Go Touch Down are our bread & butter. The rangers and guides will never speak badly or get involved in politics. There are always cameras and videos around that can record ill behavior. We are not stupid to bite the hand that feeds us. This client is stirring".
The GM at Royal Moribisi replied and said: "Please get names from the client because we would never say that. The client told us that she only found out about Humala in the van on the way to Royal. We would like to know who she is quoting."
Go Touch Down's statement: "We send 2,000 + travelers from North America, Europe, and Australia to these lodges each year and we have never heard any other client say what you just did"
Covid and the 2 years that followed was a huge challenge for us. Many suppliers, airlines, and vendors closed their doors. So many tours had to be honored in the years that followed, and we made it all happen, and 'none' of our clients lost their investment they made pre covid.
9 out 10 clients are happy with our product. We are sorry that you did not see the value in this tour.
In closing: We sent you all the links and details prior to the trip, and Your email reply to us on May 2nd, 2023 said (and I quote): "Thank you for your very helpful responses! I've reviewed all of the materials, and only two quick additional questions come to mind....." You then continued to ask general questions, one of which was about the cost of the riverboat.
Sincerely,
JC - Corporate
Email Lisa Ashton Mattioli | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Exceeded expectations
Our South African adventure was way better than we expected it to be. Johannesburg is amazing and our tour guide James helped us navigate what we wanted to see and showed us how the locals enjoy their city as well. Our guide Bill took us everywhere and shared stories about each amazing destination. There were stops on the tour that were simply incredible and really showed us how diverse South Africa is. The Humala and Tshukudu game lodges were beautiful and very clean. The food is very good and they offer food for everyone's tastes. The game drives were more than we expected and we saw everything. Winter is a great time to visit because the animals are easier to see. Our guides and hotel team were like family and were equally excited for us for seeing so many species. Special thanks to Blessing at Humala Lodge and Shaddy at Tshukudu Lodge. Wonderful. We finished our trip in Cape Town where Jonathan, our guide, was simply amazing. He was knowledgeable, fun and made our tour of Cape Town so memorable. We cannot wait to return. Go Touch Down Tours did a great job helping us have the adventure of a lifetime worry free. We saw everything including the Big Five, we visited Kruger National Park and so, so much more. Excellent vacation for sure.
Email Grace Baylor | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Our tour operator was very knowledgeable, answered all questions and left nothing unturned.
This was a trip of a lifetime! We had such a remarkable time each day, each adventure, each meal, each safari, each sight seeing tour we took.
We were busy from the rising of day, until dusk most days. Oh, the shopping was an adventure all of its own:) It was breath taking.. We are planning to return.
CA
Email Mark G. | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Friendly & knowledgeable staff, a diversity of activities to enjoy & an overall awesome experience.
My sister Kim and I thoroughly enjoyed our 10 day Signature Tour (Safari & Cape Town) of South Africa with Go Touch Down Tours in April & May, 2022. All of our tour guides - Bill on the Safari portion, Lindo at Humala River Lodge and J.P. in Cape Town were friendly, informative, knowledgeable and went above and beyond to help us enjoy each activity. All of the other staff at each of the resorts where we stayed were also awesome, as were the accommodations and all the meals we enjoyed, especially the bries! Also, the small size and cohesiveness of our tour group made the trip that much more enjoyable.
The Safari experiences at both Humala - Songimvelo Game Reserve & Pilanesberg National Park were amazing and Cape Town and surroundings were a beautiful area to explore, and we have some awesome photos and memories to last a lifetime. Great value for the money and I would highly recommend Go Touch Down to anyone, young or old, wanting to enjoy an awesome, complete Africa Tour experience.