Grand Family Safari
in Africa
My understanding is that the adults will receive a duffel bag which is to be used as their "suitcase" And they will bring a soft sided carry on weighting no more than 15 pounds. The kids will receive a back pack....is the back pack for their clothes or is that to be used as their carry on and they should bring another duffel type bag for clothes. Do any of the hotels provide laundry...ok if you have to pay
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Most lodges will do,laundry free of charge, but they will not launder your “smalls”.
We all get duffels including kids. Those kids backpacks are huge too. I thought we could take suitcase but not on the safari part of the trip and retrieve them when we are back in Arusha like the regular equivalent tour.
Are adult backpacks accepted or do we need to bring specific duffel bags?
The whole idea of the duffels is they will all have to same shape for ease of fitting into the small planes. Plus they are identifiable as belonging to Tauck especially when there are other groups staying at the lodges on moving day. We use a backpack as our hand carry.
We just received our duffels for this tour yesterday. Here is one, plus the child backpack, which is bigger than my backpack.
Lisa, which date does your tour begin?
Very nice! What is in the yellow/lime box above the water bottle?
@kfnknfzk - kids always get a backpack, water bottle, and a deck of playing cards (the lime green box). Our bridges Tanzania backpacks arrived yesterday along with the 4 duffles. So excited!
Thanks for the clarification, dogdoctor. I bet the children are very excited. What a wonderful experience for them!
Hello, it’s a pack of playing cards. They come with every bag. Last year on our Bridges tour, the main color of the backpack was blue. I don’t know whether the ones for Africa avoids blue because blue attracts tsetse flies. The backpacks are huge.
It looks well constructed. You won't lose the kids with the lime green.
Hi, I’m on the same Bridges tour date as English. It’s good to see the duffel and backpacks as ours haven’t arrived yet. I guess it takes longer to get them out west to California . I have one daughter in the Boston area and she already has hers. A comment for Sunrise is we will be taking other suitcases not to exceed 44 lbs and certain measurements listed in our Tauck info. The duffle will be for the days that we will be taking the small planes during the tour. It’s usually for just 2 or 3 nights. Our suitcases will catch up with us later. My husband and I were on the Kenya &Tanzania Classic Safari in Oct of 2018 and can’t wait to get back, this time with our kids and grandkids!
What is the WiFi situation for the travel and lodges in Tanzania? If we need to access the internet intermittently for business purposes, is it secure or should we bring a travel router? Do we need adapter plugs type G or D (or both)?
My family will be on the Bridges Tanzania trip right after British and her family. My grandchildren are younger, and according to Tauck, the other children will be older, so there will be more likelihood we will stay tightly in our family pod.
Has anyone taken the hot air balloon ride while in Africa while on a Tauck tour and is it cold, scary, OK for youngish children, and how long does it last?
Will the food be mostly African or will there be young child-friendly foods such as pizza, hot dogs or chicken nuggets?
Hello Polly. Some of this info is on the tour page. One of the lodges does not have electricity overnight and has charging stations in the main area. Another one only has WiFi in the main area. You will need the round and square three pin plugs.
You have to be at least 7 to do the balloon ride which we have done before. It is very cold on the way as you leave about 4-30 am, so you need a warm jacket and hat and possibly gloves. When the sun comes up it gets warmer. If you are tall, I would say you need a hat anyway because the flames from the balloons are quite hot. The balloon trip lasts about an hour. Scary…..that is a personal opinion.
How big is your group? Only 6 people in a vehicle max and it’s usual to mix people up. We are 9. So I’m anticipating my husband I may not even be with any of the family on some rides. All children are encouraged to mix and have fun together on Bridges tours, for my grandchildren that was certainly one of the highlights of the tour for the Bridges tour we took last year.
I sure do hope to see better than the junk food you mention. My granddaughter is a bit picky but grandsons of 7 and ten have eaten everything from snails upwards and will try such things when given the opportunity. We have eaten all types of antelope, ostrich and zebra in Africa, so if they are also offered, they will likely eat them. Last year on our US Bridges tour the children were all on a separate table for the welcome dinner and were give junk. My older grandson was very upset. My daughter made comment to the TD who said the staff should have given him the choice.
Generally there is a good choice with lots of fresh vegetables, soups and Indian influences.
Have you received your final documents yet? We have had ours for several weeks. Most of this stuff is in there
On my K&T (non-Bridges trip), a balloon ride was included. It was glorious! You float in the air! Eons ago when we took our kids (ages 7 and 9)) to Arizona, we took them in a balloon ride over the desert. They thoroughly enjoyed it They still talk about. They were not frightened at all. They loved watching the balloons fill up and take shape!
Have a fantastic trip!!
The balloon ride is included on the Bridges tour too. I don’t know whether they would reimburse you if you decide not to go. When one of our balloon rides in K and T was canceled, Tauck did send us our money back then.
Hi Polly, My family is on the same Bridges Africa trip as British. I have a 7 year old grandson who is a very picky eater so I’m happy to hear that British’s grandson is an adventurous eater. Maybe some of that will rub off on my grandson. They are both 7. The restaurants often have pasta and I remember a lot of rice and beans even for breakfast when we went on the K & T tour in 2018. Hopefully he can fill up on those things because I doubt that they will have his usual chicken nuggets. We did the balloon and it was amazing. My grandson has expressed a little concern on having to get in the basket while it is laying it’s side before it takes off but I’ve been showing him pictures and I’m sure he will be fine. It was so fun to look down at the giraffes below us. We can’t wait!
@Polly6022 sounds like you are on the July 17th tour we are on! Will look forward to meeting you. My daughter is 17 and my son is 14. I haven't checked in with Tauck for the final kid tally and ages yet, but it sounds like you did. We are looking forward to all aspects of this trip!
I think Polly’s tour starts on July 20th.
Well, that's not the tour right after yours! 😂 We've got a 17th, 19th and 21st and I suspect Polly is on the 21st now that I have read some of her other posts.
British - you say the flames in the balloon ride are hot for a taller person. I'm 6'4" so that will be interesting.
I'm 6'1" and on our K&T balloon ride, I positioned myself at the end of the gondola (which was rectangular) so well away from the burners which are at the center.
All this is good information—thanks for the responses. My grandsons are 7, 10 and 12; there will be six of us. Our tour officially begins on July 21. According to Tauck, the three other “children” on our trip will be 15, 19 and 19. Consequently, as much as my grandsons would like it, there will likely be little interaction between my grandsons and the older children.
I asked about food options as there are some issues—one of the children is a vegetarian and the other has sensory issues with food textures. I am not going to worry about it very much as his parents are on top of it; just really wanted to get a sense of what to expect.
If any of the children don’t want to go on the balloon ride, one of the three adults will have to stay back. I’m hoping all will decide to be adventurous that morning. Wonderful to know to expect cold weather and to dress accordingly.
Our final documents did not have specific info about the WiFi in each space; it was more general. We don’t plan to spend a lot of time on the internet—again, just trying to get a sense of what to expect. If possible, I do like to download my photos from my digital camera to the cloud so as to free up space on the SD cards. If WiFi is primarily non-existent, then I will need to plan to bring more (or larger) SD cards.
The Tauck documents suggest that we NOT use the duffles as primary luggage, but that is exactly what we’d like to do and use them as our carry-on with pretty much everything we will need for the trip as we are packing light. We will likely check one or two smaller roller bags with extra shoes, jackets, and the family-size cans of sunscreen and bug spray. If anyone thinks that would be a HUGE mistake, please let us know.
Thanks again, and for everyone traveling on this trip, I hope you have a great time! I did not realize the different tour dates were so close together—I mistakenly believed they were spaced about a week apart. Sorry that none of my trips overlap with any of yours.
dogdoctor - I'm 6'6". I stood at the end like Portolan described. The burner heat wasn't an issue.
If I recall correctly and not mixing up, the balloon baskets in Tanzania are divided up in separate little single pods. So be sure to pick an outside one
If you are taking roller bags to check in, then I would say you are not just taking carry on.
I thought we could manage with just one medium suitcase between us but my husband doesn’t want it totally full, so we are taking a small hard side what I would describe as carry on sized bag and checking that. I am using my Tauck duffel as carry on because our bags have not arrived twice now on our way to Africa.
My position on our last balloon ride was right next to the pilot. I found that to be a good and interesting position.
This was I believe Christmas Eve 2019 hence the Santa hat in the background. Oh, and our goofy hats. I have a bright orange hat for our upcoming balloon ride We finally splurged on Tilley hats last year, so those will be for the safari.
The guy with the Santa hat, his wife passed away not long after the tour, early sixties. Everyone, don’t delay dream travel. They were wonderful people.
Something you might want to investigate- maybe someone who has taken the balloon flight on a Bridges tour can answer. Do any of the cubicles in the gondola have a place for short people/kids to stand so it is easier to see out?
This gondola has turned upright, but the ground handling crew holds it down until the balloon is fully inflated and vertical just before launch. This is why they fly early in the morning when there is almost no wind. (trouble loading images today)
Here’s a picture of us in the Basket. Not sure if it will be the same as it was in 2018.
That’s a good question about if the 7 year olds will be tall enough to see out.
Here’s another one that gives you an idea how tall the basket is. I’m only 5’2”. The person in the blue looking over the edge was pretty short. Maybe about 5 feet tall..
