On Tour luggage restrictions

jimandjane

Our 9th Tauck tour but first to Africa. We are on the May 4th trip. Would appreciate any expansion re: on tour flights. Not clear if a hard side Samsonite can be checked on the "on tour" flights to and from game preserves. Also, are we limited to one checked bag per person? How aggressive is the local airline on weight, both checked and carry-on? Thanks for any info.

smarks50

I did this trip several years ago. On several of the included flights guests were called to the check-in desk and had to pay extra fees to the airline because their luggage exceeded the bag limit (one checked bag per person) and/or overweight. We were told this is arbitrary - sometimes the airlines enforce these limits and sometimes they don’t bother. So unless you want to be subject to these extra fees, I would strictly adhere to the guidelines Tauck sets forth in their communications. You really only need casual clothes (maybe one “country club casual” outfit for the first and last nights) and it was easy to get laundry done at several of the hotels/lodges - you should easily be able to say within the guidelines. Guests will be so busy enjoying the city sights and animals on safari they won’t notice if you wear the same thing several times.

AshvEd

We did this trip last September and would echo what smarks50 indicated about overweight baggage. It was completely arbitrary at checkin about who got a few extra kilos at no charge and who had to pay. We were slightly over on one suitcase and got the evil eye of the agent however he didn't charge us. It is our understanding that excess weight is charged by the kilo and not a flat rate however the best advice is to stay within the legal weight.