We have always been very diligent about preparing well in advance for tours because we travel so much. So we decided to apply for our Tanzania visas yesterday because as SeaLord has mentioned, we could find nothing on the Tanzania visa website that mentioned you could not apply more than 90 days ahead as the Tauck website mentions. We will also be out of the country within that 90 day timeline and as we have visas to procure for the entire family, we wanted to get ahead. Last week, we successfully obtained our visas for an upcoming Vietnam tour, so felt confident.
I left my husband to it, he does those sort of tasks. I heard him talking. He had been stumped by a couple of questions, so had called one of the two Tauck agents who specialize in group tours. They are always lovely and helpful. The agent gave him the answer to the first question but was not sure about the second, so she put him through to the Tauck agent who answers Visa questions. It turns out that the first agent had given him the wrong answer. He also pointed out that on the website for the Tanzania family safari, when you go to the ‘Important Info’ page, the hotel for the first night’s stay is incorrect. This info is required for the visa. As far as I know, the hotel mentioned has never been used for the family safaris. Most recently it was another small hotel, but now it is the new Grand Melia hotel which is used by the K and T tour. We stayed in the hotel mentioned in the info in 2019 for our K and T Rwanda tour. Since then, the Grand Melia hotel has been used for that tour too. In addition, the info mentions two countries, our tour only goes to Tanzania…..so confusing, and incorrect! We told the agent, she was going to get it changed. Meanwhile, she strongly discouraged us from getting the visas before 90 days, saying most people don’t apply until the final payment for the tour has been made. She also said that too far ahead, the country could change its rules or payment etc. she said the visa comes back in about three days, but on the Tanzania visa website, it mentions a longer period.
The lesson here is do your own research and don’t always trust the Tauck website. This is not the first time we have experienced the Tauck info of tours being incorrect, especially when you click on the links. Someone is not being diligent enough to update everywhere when the itineraries change.
As said, I don’t know the rules for your daughter’s visa with the British passport. But, US citizens must get the multiple entry visa. I got mine this week. It took only a few days, but the TZ visa website said to expect it to take ten. I’ve got the visa in my hand. It is good for one year from the date I gave them for our expected arrival. Make sure that date is correct cuz the visa is not valid until the start date. After that you can stay up to ninety days at a time. My visa is good for one year, and it expires on May 17, 2025. Tell me what questions were ‘stumpers’, and I can probably tell you what worked for me. You do need the street address of the Gran Malia which you can find on their website. Some of the ‘family’ safaris were staying there when we were last there. It is a very nice hotel, and it has some interesting features on the grounds. Things do change, but I think the rules and the prices argument does not hold water. Those things likely would apply to new visas. I’ve got the visa in my hand and it is good for one year.
British is only going to Tanzania this time, so I’m making a separate post about Kenya. The Kenya visa is valid for 90 days from the date of ‘issuance’. So my Kenya visa was issued on Mar. 11, and it is good until June 11. I waited to apply to make sure the visa was valid until ‘after’ I leave the country. I don’t know if that interpretation on my part is correct, but I did not want to be in the country with an expired visa. I did not want to discover a problem when trying to exit from Nairobi in the middle of the night. This is OVER CAUTIOUS on my part. I’ve researched visas ‘in general’ and they are valid for entry until they expire. The immigration officer at the entry point determines how long you can stay.
Thanks SeaLord about the reassuring that the Tanzania visa is valid for the year from the entry date. Like I said, the start hotel is wrong, it has not been the Serena for a while. I’m going to check if they changed it since we informed them. I’ll ask my husband if he has everything, if not, we will pick your brain. Our daughter’s visa will be $50 instead of the American $100.
My intent is not to be flippant, but with all this angst wouldn't it be easier and less stressful to hire a professional agency to handle all the visa documentation? Is it that cost prohibitive?
Not flippant at all. For our first trip my first inclination was to use VisaCentral. The determining factor then, when you had to mail away your passport for several weeks, was that VisaCentral at that time charged a hundred bucks per visa … and you had to provide them with exactly the same information that you could provide the embassies on your own. Now, they are evisas, you can do the whole deal online, and you can have your visas in less than a week. The do it yourself cost for four visas is about $270. The VisaCentral cost (I’ve not checked in ten years) would make it $670. Not a prohibitive cost to most here, but a waste of money in my opinion. If you don’t feel confident in your computer skills, go with VisaCentral. I’m retired. I can spend a few hours on the computer to save four hundred bucks or more. My only real problem was the uploads. I could not get to the next page because my uploads were more than 300 kb. When I got them resized, zoom, no problem.
It’s cost and having to send your passports away for a significant amount of time.
We know how to reduce the size of the uploads. For Visa Central, you have to provide them with the same information as if you are doing it yourself. We’ve used them in the past and it would cost hundreds of dollars. That was before Evisas became the norm for many places. What we don’t like most of all is sending our passports away. Anyway, we can’t, we are traveling abroad too near the Safari time., we only have a few weeks between trips.
So I was curious. I checked VisaCentral and the VisaCentral fee for Tanzania is $188 (I’m assuming Kenya would be similar) plus the TZ fee of $100. So if you are going to use VisaCentral to get visas for K&T it will cost around $1,022 instead of $270 if you do it yourself. As said, you will have to provide them the same information you could enter on your own computer, but you will pay $752 dollars to have someone hold your hand while you do it.
So almost $300 each just for Tanzania, plus registered mail proves to send your passport….although I think you just get proof of delivery these days. So do the math, that much times 9 people.
Thanks for the information. I would not wish to be without my passport either. I still hope to experience Africa someday soon. I'm still trying to convince a friend to join me but I'm not having much success.
I think the K&T safari is probably one of the best for solos. You spend all day in a safari vehicle with five other people and the group changes every day. You meet everyone in your group of thirty. We are not getting any younger, and 2024 is basically sold out. There are a few places still available. I don’t know about single supplements. Africa is a do not miss place.
Yes, for our tour it’s the same, but when you read the Important info it says
…. All travelers to Africa should be in reasonably good health. There is a significant amount of walking on this tour, frequently in warm weather, as well as climbing in and out of safari vehicles. Tauck strongly advises that guests who require assistance walking or travel with oxygen tanks may not fully enjoy this very active journey.
Where do you walk! You don’t, you do the same as on K and T and Tanzania Zanzibar…you sit in a safari vehicle for hours.
As British says, there is very little walking. On our last K&T they did not park the vehicles by the front door of the Four Seasons, we had to walk a hundred yards to the parking lot. Then, you do have to walk to ‘check the spare tire’. And the one special ‘secret’ event that does not always happen involves a bit of walking. But, I will let that remain a secret. The one thing I’m trying to figure out how to avoid is the ‘Coriolis’ demonstration. What they do is basically a parlor trick caused by the shape of the pan. Coriolis does not affect small bodies of water. Plus, at the Mt. Kenya Safari Club, they may have calculated that the equator runs down the sidewalk that leads to the bar when they built the place, but according to my iPhone their calculations were off by at least a couple hundred yards. So both pans they use in the demonstration are actually on the same side of the equator. The equator monument near Quito, Ecuador is also in the wrong place.
Comments
We have always been very diligent about preparing well in advance for tours because we travel so much. So we decided to apply for our Tanzania visas yesterday because as SeaLord has mentioned, we could find nothing on the Tanzania visa website that mentioned you could not apply more than 90 days ahead as the Tauck website mentions. We will also be out of the country within that 90 day timeline and as we have visas to procure for the entire family, we wanted to get ahead. Last week, we successfully obtained our visas for an upcoming Vietnam tour, so felt confident.
I left my husband to it, he does those sort of tasks. I heard him talking. He had been stumped by a couple of questions, so had called one of the two Tauck agents who specialize in group tours. They are always lovely and helpful. The agent gave him the answer to the first question but was not sure about the second, so she put him through to the Tauck agent who answers Visa questions. It turns out that the first agent had given him the wrong answer. He also pointed out that on the website for the Tanzania family safari, when you go to the ‘Important Info’ page, the hotel for the first night’s stay is incorrect. This info is required for the visa. As far as I know, the hotel mentioned has never been used for the family safaris. Most recently it was another small hotel, but now it is the new Grand Melia hotel which is used by the K and T tour. We stayed in the hotel mentioned in the info in 2019 for our K and T Rwanda tour. Since then, the Grand Melia hotel has been used for that tour too. In addition, the info mentions two countries, our tour only goes to Tanzania…..so confusing, and incorrect! We told the agent, she was going to get it changed. Meanwhile, she strongly discouraged us from getting the visas before 90 days, saying most people don’t apply until the final payment for the tour has been made. She also said that too far ahead, the country could change its rules or payment etc. she said the visa comes back in about three days, but on the Tanzania visa website, it mentions a longer period.
The lesson here is do your own research and don’t always trust the Tauck website. This is not the first time we have experienced the Tauck info of tours being incorrect, especially when you click on the links. Someone is not being diligent enough to update everywhere when the itineraries change.
As said, I don’t know the rules for your daughter’s visa with the British passport. But, US citizens must get the multiple entry visa. I got mine this week. It took only a few days, but the TZ visa website said to expect it to take ten. I’ve got the visa in my hand. It is good for one year from the date I gave them for our expected arrival. Make sure that date is correct cuz the visa is not valid until the start date. After that you can stay up to ninety days at a time. My visa is good for one year, and it expires on May 17, 2025. Tell me what questions were ‘stumpers’, and I can probably tell you what worked for me. You do need the street address of the Gran Malia which you can find on their website. Some of the ‘family’ safaris were staying there when we were last there. It is a very nice hotel, and it has some interesting features on the grounds. Things do change, but I think the rules and the prices argument does not hold water. Those things likely would apply to new visas. I’ve got the visa in my hand and it is good for one year.
British is only going to Tanzania this time, so I’m making a separate post about Kenya. The Kenya visa is valid for 90 days from the date of ‘issuance’. So my Kenya visa was issued on Mar. 11, and it is good until June 11. I waited to apply to make sure the visa was valid until ‘after’ I leave the country. I don’t know if that interpretation on my part is correct, but I did not want to be in the country with an expired visa. I did not want to discover a problem when trying to exit from Nairobi in the middle of the night. This is OVER CAUTIOUS on my part. I’ve researched visas ‘in general’ and they are valid for entry until they expire. The immigration officer at the entry point determines how long you can stay.
Thanks SeaLord about the reassuring that the Tanzania visa is valid for the year from the entry date. Like I said, the start hotel is wrong, it has not been the Serena for a while. I’m going to check if they changed it since we informed them. I’ll ask my husband if he has everything, if not, we will pick your brain. Our daughter’s visa will be $50 instead of the American $100.
My intent is not to be flippant, but with all this angst wouldn't it be easier and less stressful to hire a professional agency to handle all the visa documentation? Is it that cost prohibitive?
Not flippant at all. For our first trip my first inclination was to use VisaCentral. The determining factor then, when you had to mail away your passport for several weeks, was that VisaCentral at that time charged a hundred bucks per visa … and you had to provide them with exactly the same information that you could provide the embassies on your own. Now, they are evisas, you can do the whole deal online, and you can have your visas in less than a week. The do it yourself cost for four visas is about $270. The VisaCentral cost (I’ve not checked in ten years) would make it $670. Not a prohibitive cost to most here, but a waste of money in my opinion. If you don’t feel confident in your computer skills, go with VisaCentral. I’m retired. I can spend a few hours on the computer to save four hundred bucks or more. My only real problem was the uploads. I could not get to the next page because my uploads were more than 300 kb. When I got them resized, zoom, no problem.
It’s cost and having to send your passports away for a significant amount of time.
We know how to reduce the size of the uploads. For Visa Central, you have to provide them with the same information as if you are doing it yourself. We’ve used them in the past and it would cost hundreds of dollars. That was before Evisas became the norm for many places. What we don’t like most of all is sending our passports away. Anyway, we can’t, we are traveling abroad too near the Safari time., we only have a few weeks between trips.
So I was curious. I checked VisaCentral and the VisaCentral fee for Tanzania is $188 (I’m assuming Kenya would be similar) plus the TZ fee of $100. So if you are going to use VisaCentral to get visas for K&T it will cost around $1,022 instead of $270 if you do it yourself. As said, you will have to provide them the same information you could enter on your own computer, but you will pay $752 dollars to have someone hold your hand while you do it.
So almost $300 each just for Tanzania, plus registered mail proves to send your passport….although I think you just get proof of delivery these days. So do the math, that much times 9 people.
Thanks for the information. I would not wish to be without my passport either. I still hope to experience Africa someday soon. I'm still trying to convince a friend to join me but I'm not having much success.
I think the K&T safari is probably one of the best for solos. You spend all day in a safari vehicle with five other people and the group changes every day. You meet everyone in your group of thirty. We are not getting any younger, and 2024 is basically sold out. There are a few places still available. I don’t know about single supplements. Africa is a do not miss place.
Yes, for our tour it’s the same, but when you read the Important info it says
…. All travelers to Africa should be in reasonably good health. There is a significant amount of walking on this tour, frequently in warm weather, as well as climbing in and out of safari vehicles. Tauck strongly advises that guests who require assistance walking or travel with oxygen tanks may not fully enjoy this very active journey.
Where do you walk! You don’t, you do the same as on K and T and Tanzania Zanzibar…you sit in a safari vehicle for hours.
As British says, there is very little walking. On our last K&T they did not park the vehicles by the front door of the Four Seasons, we had to walk a hundred yards to the parking lot. Then, you do have to walk to ‘check the spare tire’. And the one special ‘secret’ event that does not always happen involves a bit of walking. But, I will let that remain a secret. The one thing I’m trying to figure out how to avoid is the ‘Coriolis’ demonstration. What they do is basically a parlor trick caused by the shape of the pan. Coriolis does not affect small bodies of water. Plus, at the Mt. Kenya Safari Club, they may have calculated that the equator runs down the sidewalk that leads to the bar when they built the place, but according to my iPhone their calculations were off by at least a couple hundred yards. So both pans they use in the demonstration are actually on the same side of the equator. The equator monument near Quito, Ecuador is also in the wrong place.