Trip Advisor Africa Safaris
- Located In:
- Size:
- 10-20 employees (Founded in 2012)
- Tour Types:
- Short mid-range tours (½ to 3 days)
- Destinations:
- Price Range:
- $1,735 to $5,205 per person per day (MXN, excl. int'l flights)
Reviews
FR
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Changed itinerary in the morning of the tour.
We booked a 4 day safari with two nights in Seronera, Serengeti. They changed the itinerary in the morning when the safari started. We ended up having 1 night in Seronera and therefore no full day in the Serengeti. This way it is cheaper for them as we spent the first night outside the parks, that is why they did it. Given this change we wanted a discount of around 100$. They said we can have 20$ discount and if we do not accept we can have all the money back and leave. That was in the morning when the safari should have started. They could well have informed us the evening before when we paid, but they did not. As the choice was between no safari and changed itinerary we decided to join. The car was the oldest moving thing you can imagine and broke down in the middle of the savanna. They did not have tools with them to repair it. They did not have walkie talkies to call somebody for help. They did not have a rope in the car to tow away the car by another bypassing car. Imagine you get stuck in a water hole? In the end they repaired the car with the leather-man of another tourist who was in a car which stopped to help us. We ended up missing the last hour of our late evening safari because we had to bring other passengers to their camp. As we were very lucky we ended up seeing all the animals the next morning, but that was really pure luck. The parks are great and the guide was very friendly and did his best given the means he was given by the company. Again this was pure luck, all the other guides of the same company seamed not very competent. Food was ok. The overall organization done by the company was horrible. We booked with Trip Advisor Africa Safari, but basically this internet companies are selling their costumers to a Tanzanian operator. Ours operator was Sandland tours of Abraham Shaidi. The itinerary change was apparently the fold of Trip Advisor Africa Safari and its owner Seth Vincent. The bad equipment of the car is the fold of Shaidi. So even if you book with other companies ask for the operator and check its reviews.
Reply from Trip Advisor Africa Safaris
Posted on Dec 26, 2017Dear Stafan,
Thank you very much for sharing your experience with us during your successful safari which has just ended .
We are really sorry for all that happened while on your trip,we confirmed your trip expecting to deliver our quality and best hospitality services.We understand that you had some shortcoming during your trip period even thought you contradict yourself that our service is beyond comparison in terms of good service, here below are your statement, ''As we were very lucky we ended up seeing all the animals the next morning, but that was really pure luck. The parks are great and the guide was very friendly and did his best given the means he was given by the company. Again this was pure luck, all the other guides of the same company seamed not very competent. Food was ok "" please stop misleading our guest, you confirm safari last minute and because you wanted to see Animals, we decided to advice your accordingly and at the end of it , you ware very happy and am happy you mention that, I hope to serve you next round.
Regards
Seth Vincent
Director
PT
Email Bob | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
My worst experience, ever
I have travelled all over the world, and this was not my first safari, indeed. But I never found an operator that avoids its responsabilities in such a way like this one. There were services not provided to us, and when we asked the operator for a solution, he just said "no problem", and nothing else. They will tell you "no problem" to everything you ask, but actually they will do nothing, they will not accept any responsability, they will not compensate you for any service not provided. Maybe others have had a better experience than us, but I would never recommend this operator.
Reply from Trip Advisor Africa Safaris
Posted on Jul 4, 2016Dear Bob,
Thank you very much for sharing your experience with us.
We are really sorry for all that happened while on your trip,we confirmed your trip expecting to deliver our quality and best hospitality services,however your delayed payment to confirm your safari and others who were interested confirmed earlier, hence meeting the required maximum number of pax to depart.We were not in a position to add more people in the bus, since the Van was at required capacity,due to circumstance,we came up with un alternative of securing for you private tour for the same program,however to involved we had to request you to add more money to facilitate your trip.We did not know this was going to happened,but to get other people doing the same program was a night mire,please it was a quick decision which we thought to be the best solution.We Kindly apologies for all that inconvenience and such decision will not be repeated.
Kind regards Seth Vincent.
UA
Email Alex | 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!
ES
Email Paloma | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Worst than worst!!!Police do something!!
My first safari. I was saving many months and now I feel robbed! The owner still writes to me today asking not to write wrong review but doesnt care that everything went wrong , is a liar and like the rest of the comments said, is true he does not care. I did ask before booking if he had partners in Tanzania and said no, well that is a lie, Mr.Seth Vincent is partner with SANDLAND ( Abraham Shaidi who also ruin us). I see on another review that he lies again, he still has same partner. Same story first you pay (for us was 1750euros each for 8days safari) then he changes the itinerary. we did less than half of the games we paid for, one day car broke, (waited 5h) another day no entrance to park paid waited 4h, even we were stucked half a day on one accommodation Panorama camp"because it was not been paid for, the police had to come to rescue us, sounds incredible but this are only a few examples, I am sure I will get a reply full of lies but this company needs to be stopped , people save money to come to this beautiful countries to have the dream holidays and they are ruined like this is not right!
Email María | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
The worst experience of my life
I don’t recommend this agency at all. I work in tourism and travelled around the world and never in my life I got such a bad experience. Seth Vicent the one who sold us the package Safari Kenia and Tanzania just Cheat on us with many lies regarding our tour. He was not paying the entrance at the parks, accommodations were never the ones we agreed and the last day we couldn’t check out of the hotel because he didn’t pay it. We paid everything in advance. We were having such a bad time. He was all the time aware of that but he didn’t fix it he was just playing with us telling that he will refund the services that we paid for and we never get. Now we are dealing with the police and embassy for some justice , and also because this type of no -professionals are not good for a country neither for tourists that want to enjoy.
Reply from Trip Advisor Africa Safaris
Posted on Oct 10, 2018Jambo Maria,
Thank you very much for sharing your experience with us.
We are really sorry for all that happened while on your trip,we confirmed your trip expecting to deliver our quality and best hospitality ,we even came up with un alternative of securing for you private tour for the same program without extra charge just to give you the best,thought at long last our Tanzania counterpart did not keep his promise, after you have cross border,Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience cause during this period and this will not happen again since we are know having our branch office in Arusha.
Kind regards Seth Vincent.
Email Andy | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Lies lies lies- false promises and overpriced
Promised amazing accommodation totally private Safari . Originally priced competitively but when Seth received his payment the details changed . Different accommodation outside of the reserve instead of inside as agreed. Then charged even more for accommodation he originally stated was inferior . Which we paid because we couldn’t trust him anymore but we had already paid a lot and money to this con artist. Told me balloon Safari was private, wasn’t . Changed our dates of balloon without our consent after we arrived having previously stated we couldn’t have money back as already booked and paid for. After our Safari we travelled back to Nairobi and heard many more stories about this company but that is for other travellers to comment. There are so many genuine companies out there don’t use this one
Reply from Trip Advisor Africa Safaris
Posted on Feb 4, 2020Hi Andy,
Thank you you very much for your review, to be honest what your saying is not correct and please stop misleading other guest who want to see this beautiful country,we promise to take you to mara serena lodge but due to Natural calamities, ( Talek river which destroy talek bridge a day to your safari due to prolong heavy rain ,the Land cruiser could't manage to pass,it was even in the daily nation magazine where most of the guest ware airlifted from Masai Mara to Nairobi) due to this we came up with giving you Ashnli mara luxury mara camp https://www.ashnilhotels.com/mara/ same standard, your safari was private with the exception of hot Air balloon .
We are sorry if we did not meet your expectation, but remember things like natural calamities no human being have control over the
Regards
Seth Vincent
Director
Email Jack | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
SETH VINCENT IS A CON MAN, AVOID THIS COMPANY
We have had the most miserable Safari experience organised by Seth Vincent.
We booked on a tour of Masai Mara and Lake Nakuru with this tour operator ‘Trip Advisor Africa Safaris’, operated by Seth Vincent.
We have spent our trip being harassed through calls and texts from the tour organiser, Seth Vincent. He is persistently asking us for extra money for previously agreed services and ended up cutting our trip short and not providing half the pre-agreed services. Our hotel was downgraded and filthy.
From further research into Seth's practices, we have found significant volumes of similar reviews of his practices on review websites and it appears he runs unsafe tours and regularly demands money or changes services offered.
This man has sent us 50+ messages, constant calls and leveraged the rangers as well to take us to unagreed places at unagreed times.
Avoid this man and company at all costs
Email Diana | 65+ years of age | Experience level: first safari
Misleading and bait and switch
A group of people went to Kenya and Tanzania from June 24th through July 10th, 2019. The majority of time was spent in Kenya. We had used TripAdvisor African Safaris agent Seth Vincent to arrange for the Kenya portion of the trip. During the booking period, we received several itineraries outlining the accommodation and numbers of rooms we requested to accommodate our party. Although we had received confirming emails outlining where we would be staying and the number of rooms booked, on at least two occasions the number of rooms were shorted, forcing people to double up although people had paid additional money for separate rooms. We can only assume that Seth pocketed the difference himself. We had been promised a lovely place in Arusha, Tanzania at the Mount Meru Hotel. However, Seth had emailed our subcontracted drivers and had them book us into a very poor hotel in a rough area of Arusha. We called the hotel on our approved itinerary and they had no record of any reservation for us. Again, I suspect that Seth deliberately did a bait and switch that probably allowed him to pocket the difference while putting the 14 of us in a very poor hotel. This was the last night he was responsible for so we really had no recourse. We cannot prove that this was deliberate on his part but he would not return any calls at that point.
The bottom line is DO NOT use this person for your safari experience. Do go with a firm that has lengthy track record and positive reviews.
Email Laura | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
I feel he is a fraudster and liar
Where do I begin.
I wouldn’t trust Seth as far as I could throw him! He has lied to me for the last year and took me over 9 months to get a refund on my deposit after cancelling our trip (took a month for him to accept the cancellation we were told to do for various reasons) even though he informed me of his refund policy of 7 days.
Every email I got from him was false promises and lies. Safari bookings were the only reason we managed to get our money back and I wouldn’t want anyone to go through the stress I went through and the sleepless nights of having to deal with Seth.
I’m glad to be done with him, he lied about everything!
MX
Email Adriana | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Seth is possibly a scammer! AVOID!
I contacted this man to make a Safari, because contact him I had checked out other options with other companies.
Long story short he offered a Lodge called AA Mara for all my group, all the other companies told me this lodge was not available but he said he had it and that the lodge was already booked for my group, I called the lodge to ask about this “booking” under my name or Seth name or company name and they said they didn’t have any booking from this man.
We gave 500 USD deposit and he said that he wasn’t going to give us our money back when we didn’t confirm to him about this, we were talking about either going to the safari or only make a city tour in Nairobi.
He was very bad replying to us and we said like we wanted to go to the police and he just made fun at me.
I lost 500 USD which I don’t care but hopefully I DIDNT transfer the rest of the money… he was very very very very insistent to make all the transfer,
WATCH OUT! The bank account is in Uganda not Kenia and this leave every one unprotected because once you transfer he stops replying you
*Screenshots removed for privacy reasons.
Reply from Trip Advisor Africa Safaris
Posted on Sep 1, 2023Hi Andriana,
I apologize for the inconvenience concerning reservation deposit of $ 500 which you send to our bank account . I understand that this cause a lot of inconvenience a above all money without proper reason is also very painful, especially the money which was meant for your group vacation.
After doing a lot of investigation even after your group arrive, to day morning, I visiting my web hosting, and I found that indeed you send the deposit, however there are some one who hack our account, and you were talking with someone else but not me.
Currently Mr Roman and the three others people are in Masai Mara, though they paid full amount , I am waiting for them tomorrow so that we can solve this problem, We will agree on how you will get your money back since the mistake is on our side,Please may I also get your account number so that I can refund this money back, since the mistake is on our side,you sand the deposit as per our agreement but our account was hacked by someone else. We have alredy move with speed and our web hosting has already change everything concerning this, and I hope this will not happen again.
Sincerely
Seth Vincent
Director