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just back from great trip! part 2 random thoughts
if you start here see other post with day by day notes.
Random thoughts tips and musings:
This is a group of thoughts that I know some have given in the past and may be helpful to you doing this amazing adventure!
To and from Africa
We flew Ethiopian air from Dulles with transfers thru Addis Ababa. No problems. We were only Tauck people on plane.
6 people out of 30 did not have luggage arrive, but all got it by by 3rd day. All had multiple carriers which played a role.
Tour guide/ Tauck
We had a great tour guide, who was unbelievably knowledgeable, friendly and helpful.
We had three major medical problems which he took care of- a fall leading to severe soft tissue injury to back and thigh leading to wheelchair and crutches, a back problem leading to Flying Doctors evacuation to Nairobi, and a woman who was convinced she had appendicitis, refused to see doctor at Mt. Kenya lodge and flew back to London ‘to check into hospital.
Tauck is supporting several projects in Africa to improve lives, especially children, without any expectation of recognition.
Tauck, as always, had multiple surprises and extras that we have come to expect. Chris responded to and anticipated every need and request.
African game drives
Very bumpy= African massage, but not unbearable. Dusty but I didn’t use scarf (wife did)..some had dry eyes and irritation from dust.
None of us really had to stand on seats to take pictures as pop-up was sufficiently high to allow good camera shooting.
I had a Canon old DSLR with 300 mm telephoto lens. 400 would have been much better.
No problem with everyone getting good photos and people can airdrop good photos to each other with smart phones.
Had small binoculars but more powerful would have been much better.
Bathroom stops 90 minutes to 2 ½ hours at most.
Animals
You will likely see everything with different ones at different places.
Leopards and cheetahs were difficult.
Also did not see lion pride close up until the end.
Arusha National Park is very worthwhile. Saw giraffes best there with 6 or 7 crossing road right in front of us. Also saw black & white Colobus monkey. Hotel will arrange- pricing is as others have noted in earlier posts.
Drivers
Incredibly knowledgeable, friendly, with superb command of English language.
6 of us per Jeep with daily group rotation. Water on board.
Back seats most room but felt bumps and often not able hear driver/guide commentary.
Very easy to bang head getting out of Jeep.
Lodges
Arusha I thought was a little primitive.
Four Seasons was beautiful and others were hunting lodges upgraded. Disappointed in Mt. Kenya lodge.
Last 3 days were tents, but quite unique with en-suite bathrooms, outlets, etc. However, early on internet basically didn’t work, nor did telephone; email was somewhat better. All improved a bit towards end of stay.
Miscellaneous
Sunscreen and hat- I didn’t use much but should have done a little bit more.
Bugs no problem. The tsetse flies- never saw one. Told not wear blue or black 2 days at Four Seasons.
Most rooms had mosquito netting ? Needed.
Electricity everywhere with adaptor needed- bring multiple outlet apparatus
No TV but who cares with news being what it is.
We had wi-fi at all lodges except last one. See above. Telephone calls basically no problem, but some dropped calls. T-mobile great with unlimited data and text; $.25/minute in both countries with no special plan.
Some had GI upset thought possibly related to malaria pills but ours went away without stopping it.
Save slippers from 4 Seasons as the tents at the last stop have cold floors.
We had beautiful weather throughout, cool in mornings and at night but not unbearable. Wearing some layered clothing is appropriate but usually had too much on by afternoon.
Random thoughts tips and musings:
This is a group of thoughts that I know some have given in the past and may be helpful to you doing this amazing adventure!
To and from Africa
We flew Ethiopian air from Dulles with transfers thru Addis Ababa. No problems. We were only Tauck people on plane.
6 people out of 30 did not have luggage arrive, but all got it by by 3rd day. All had multiple carriers which played a role.
Tour guide/ Tauck
We had a great tour guide, who was unbelievably knowledgeable, friendly and helpful.
We had three major medical problems which he took care of- a fall leading to severe soft tissue injury to back and thigh leading to wheelchair and crutches, a back problem leading to Flying Doctors evacuation to Nairobi, and a woman who was convinced she had appendicitis, refused to see doctor at Mt. Kenya lodge and flew back to London ‘to check into hospital.
Tauck is supporting several projects in Africa to improve lives, especially children, without any expectation of recognition.
Tauck, as always, had multiple surprises and extras that we have come to expect. Chris responded to and anticipated every need and request.
African game drives
Very bumpy= African massage, but not unbearable. Dusty but I didn’t use scarf (wife did)..some had dry eyes and irritation from dust.
None of us really had to stand on seats to take pictures as pop-up was sufficiently high to allow good camera shooting.
I had a Canon old DSLR with 300 mm telephoto lens. 400 would have been much better.
No problem with everyone getting good photos and people can airdrop good photos to each other with smart phones.
Had small binoculars but more powerful would have been much better.
Bathroom stops 90 minutes to 2 ½ hours at most.
Animals
You will likely see everything with different ones at different places.
Leopards and cheetahs were difficult.
Also did not see lion pride close up until the end.
Arusha National Park is very worthwhile. Saw giraffes best there with 6 or 7 crossing road right in front of us. Also saw black & white Colobus monkey. Hotel will arrange- pricing is as others have noted in earlier posts.
Drivers
Incredibly knowledgeable, friendly, with superb command of English language.
6 of us per Jeep with daily group rotation. Water on board.
Back seats most room but felt bumps and often not able hear driver/guide commentary.
Very easy to bang head getting out of Jeep.
Lodges
Arusha I thought was a little primitive.
Four Seasons was beautiful and others were hunting lodges upgraded. Disappointed in Mt. Kenya lodge.
Last 3 days were tents, but quite unique with en-suite bathrooms, outlets, etc. However, early on internet basically didn’t work, nor did telephone; email was somewhat better. All improved a bit towards end of stay.
Miscellaneous
Sunscreen and hat- I didn’t use much but should have done a little bit more.
Bugs no problem. The tsetse flies- never saw one. Told not wear blue or black 2 days at Four Seasons.
Most rooms had mosquito netting ? Needed.
Electricity everywhere with adaptor needed- bring multiple outlet apparatus
No TV but who cares with news being what it is.
We had wi-fi at all lodges except last one. See above. Telephone calls basically no problem, but some dropped calls. T-mobile great with unlimited data and text; $.25/minute in both countries with no special plan.
Some had GI upset thought possibly related to malaria pills but ours went away without stopping it.
Save slippers from 4 Seasons as the tents at the last stop have cold floors.
We had beautiful weather throughout, cool in mornings and at night but not unbearable. Wearing some layered clothing is appropriate but usually had too much on by afternoon.
0
Comments
doctorbj, glad you had a great trip! What you experienced pretty much tracked our experiences in 2015.
So, how did Ethiopian work for you. Except for both of us not having direct aisle access on the 777, we thought their flight experience (in business) was darn good and equal to any major carrier. Cheaper flight, only one stop, and arriving at Kilimanjaro earlier in the day than other carriers were real pluses for us. As I mentioned in one of the older posts, we were considering them again for Botswana next year, but we ultimately went with Delta mainly because there were issues created because ET's flight terminates in Victoria Falls, not Livingstone and their prices had gone up a bit.
As Sealord observed first hand and mentioned, experiences can vary from tour to tour. We actually encountered a number of lion prides, the first at Ngorongoro was actually a male and a few females on what our TD and guides termed a "honeymoon" engaged in x-rated activity. The last one was on balloon day (the last day) in the Mara. Some were up close and personal (within feet of our vehicles), others a bit farther away, at the top of kopjes.
It sure sounds like you had a few people who were physically not up to a safari. That sure can make it tough on the TD. Thanks for stopping back and posting (twice!).
My opinion of Mt. Kenya falls between yours and Sealord's. It was a very nice place and nice to have two days there - a mid-tour rest as it were- but I would have also liked to spend another day in the Mara. We relaxed, went horesback riding, I swam, and both of us toured the little animal rescue park- where we we allowed in the enclosure to pet a Cheetah, and hold/pose with a Colobus monkey and baby!
Correction to your other post- the Fairmont Mara Safari Club overlooks the famous Mara River not the Snake river which is in Idaho : ) And yes, the hippos and Howler monkeys made for an effective alarm clock!
You should have stayed at the (Dulles South) Hampton Inn- free parking for up to 14 days, when I made our reservation, I asked and was permitted to park there for 15 days.
Or Four Seasons. But one thing for sure is we definitely did several more Safari rides than you guys did and I think the tour was longer too. The roads are paved a lot more on the way to the hotel in Arusha than when we were there the first time, then it was all dirt road, not just the last mile. We did not fly back to Arusha to fly to Kenya, we did a road trip, a very rocky road trip, which for us was one of our most favorite memories of our tour.
We never focus too much on hotels as long as they are clean and food is well cooked and safe. Oh and in a good location. Admittedly you do spend more time in the safari hotels than on most Tauck tours.
Doctor BJ, your description of the safaris sounds a little disappointing, we have always been able to get close to most animals. But all the medical emergencies sound very exciting and I am alarmed that someone was taken to a hospital in Nairobi. I thought they took you to South Africa, unless I guess it was life and death.
If you think Arusha is primitive, boy you haven’t been to parts of Africa we have been to on quite a few different occasions, you would be shocked by the homes we have been in and I don’t mean the Masai homes but the shanty towns.
As regards to parking near the airport, these days, for a long Tauck type trip, we always get a limo, especially in the winter, we do not want to come back to a snowed in vehicle etc. or find it is the dead of night to drive back home, the driver also helps with the bags. We live about 45 mins or an hour away from the airport depending on traffic. Of course we don’t always travel business class, every chioce has its trade offs.
Drivers speaking Good English, well I can’t remember about Tanzania, but in Kenya, English is the official language.
Television, I don’t think we have ever turned on a TV on any Tauck tour. And believe me, I love myTV for PBS and BBC America.
Phone service. Who on earth were you making all the phone calls to? I can understand it if someone is ill or something of that nature, but in general we rarely make calls on Tauck tours, in fact, most of the time my phone is entirely switched off.
So, would you go to Africa again. I could rate each of the Tauck Africa tours for you in my preferred order these days.
James- seeing Kilimangaro depends. It was totally obscured by clouds the entire time we were in Amboseli (June 2015). The only photo I got of it was one I took of the sign on Lookout Hill : ) looks pretty good? For the sake of transparency, I tell people what I did.
British a 5 hour limo ride was not an option even if there were any where we live. When we lived in the DC suburbs that probably would have been our choice.
I can see here that some people really appreciated the ‘detailed’ descriptions of the trip. I do think that these ‘details’ may affect the ‘expectations’ of future travelers. We have done the trip twice, and the trips could not have been more different unless we had done a different itinerary. There are just too many variables to read one or even several detailed accounts and expect that a future traveler will have the same experiences. Weather, migration patterns, airplane schedules, TD and guest preferences, room availability at the various lodges, and many other factors affect the ebb and flow of the adventure. And the personalities of the various guests can definitely affect the trip. The green book will give you the schedule of your travels, the ‘white’ book you get upon arrival will give more detailed information, and even that will be modified by the TD and events, on almost a daily basis. A future traveller’s experiences are almost guaranteed to be different from what you have read here. We were only a few weeks ahead of the safari described in this thread, and we had a different type of experience on almost each day of our journey. We were ‘surrounded’ by lions on several occassions, once in a picnic area where we went to use the restrooms. We saw leopards up close and personal on several occassions. We saw a jackal kill, a new born gazelle, and we went to the Mara River to see the migration gathering, and some crossings. This was decided by a vote, and some folks did not go. There are many more differences but you should get the idea. What any traveller experiences, much will be a surprise, and preconceived expections I don’t think will improve your trip. Just go for it with an openness to the adventure.
Additionally, there are normally five safari vehicles on this trip, and they don’t normally travel in a caravan. They often travel independently, and even though the drivers talk to each other on the radio, it often happens that people in different vehicles will have significantly different experiences. For example, at the rest stop, one vehicle was in and out before the lions arrived, so they missed that entire adventure. The rest of us watched the show, and then went to a different rest stop.
What you missed. I took the photos from our room window. Mt. Kenya has a totally different shape than Kili. I waited too late in the day and had to use my 300mm telephoto for the last two shots, but one of its 11 glaciers was clearly visible. Due to global warming and the snow not being replenished, all glaciers are predicted to be gone in less than 30 years:
Doug
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