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Things I wish I had known...
Here's some pearls for those of you going on the Tanzania/Zanzibar trip. Hope it helps. 1) I wish I had invested in good binoculars before I left. I spent the money on a new camera, and brought marginal binoculars and regretted not upgrading the binoculars the whole trip. 2) It was warmer than I expected in June. I had checked the websites, and knew we would be chilly on the crater, but still brought too many long sleeved shirts. Wish I had brought mostly short sleeved shirts. 3) I needed to have taken my swimsuit on the whole trip, not leaving it in the suitcase for Zanzibar. There are pools out in the Serengeti part of the trip that are very inviting! 4) Leave your valuables at home -- two of the accommodations (the two tents) will have no locks since there really isn't a door! You won't always have a safe, either. The one time I used a safe (in Zanzibar during the snorkeling outing, to leave my passport and wallet behind) the safe malfunctioned and had to be physically destroyed to be opened! 5) Bring something like Benadryl cream for bug bites. No matter how careful you are, something is likely to bite you, and you'll be a lot more comfy if you have something for itching. All the rooms had mosquito netting, but I think I got bit by ants, and my husband got jelly fish stings in the ocean! 6) Read my post under "Internet Access". The trip is fabulous despite all these dour sounding things -- you will have a great time. I would go again in a minute and highly recommend it.
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What I would like to ask and compare is, that last year we were asked to carry all our valuables with us on every safari, including passports, we have never been asked to do that on Tauck safaris before and it made our little original light backpacks quite full with our iPads and phones. There was a bombing in Tanzania while we were there and more stuff like that than usual, so we wondered whether it was a precaution for a quick getaway by Tauck in the event of an unforeseen occurrence, we have always been encouraged to leave everything in the safes before. Just wondering for the next time?
Yes, the water in the pools was a bit nippy, but I and a few others braved it, at least at the Four Seasons Serengeti and the Mount Kenya Safari Club (fyi, I didn't find out til later that the Mount Kenya pool had an underwater viewing window!).
Except for the placement of the back two seats, we had no problem seeing everything while standing on the seats in the vehicles with pop-up top. Our vehicles in the Masai Mara had no windows. When a close-in lioness looked my wife in the eye and appeared to get in a tighter crouch, my wife, the report of the recent lion attack in South Africa fresh on her mind, dove for the deck on the other side of the vehicle. The lioness didn't move and our driver just laughed.
Mossies find me delectable so we brought a topical bite treatment. I treated our clothes with Permethrin before we left, but I was never bitten nor even saw or heard a mossy. So, after the second day we stopped applying Deet. We didn't see any Tsetse Flies either. (This was a June 13-25 K&T)
Another suggestion- on a less than delicate topic. Though our TD said it was safe to eat everything, I was cavalier about eating fresh veggies, especially lettuce which I had at almost every meal except breakfast. Later I realized lettuce is one of the hardest foods to properly clean. Needless to say, I had an attack of you know what in Amboseli during week two. I immediately took some Lomotil which took care of the symptoms. I didn't miss any activities or game drives. I still had gas and a bloated, rumbling stomach a loss of appetite and fatique and one or two meals. Our TD advised not to take Lomotil "prevents your system from purging itself." I wasn't willing to take that chance, however. Anyway, I probably suffered with gas and rumbling stomach longer than necessary. The original symptoms went away, but reappeared on the way home so I took Lomotil again. It took care of it again. After we got home we visited (my wife was ok the whole trip until we got home!) the clinic and were diagnosed with "travelers diarrhea." A couple of days on Cipro and both of us were fine.
So, I guess my bottom line is, you are taking a chance if you eat fresh, uncooked vegetables, regardless of what is said about rinsing (cleaning?). Lomotil handles the symptoms effectively, but may do little for the underlying cause. If you can, bring some Cipro, just in case.
As far as the food, my husband and I are vegetarians, so we ate lots of fruits and vegetables while we were there, by necessity, many of them fresh. Neither of us had any GI problems at all. I do think Tauck does a good job of monitoring the hotels' kitchen practices, but where you really need to be careful is on your few meals out. Where we almost messed up was ordering mixed drinks in the local beach bar in Zanzibar and realizing we were getting ice (ooops!). Tossed that right out! Maybe it would have been OK, but maybe not. Always a good practice to take Ciprofloxacin with you. I have had to use it in Vietnam and India (non-Tauck trips).
Thanks for your review, really interesting
Their business class fares significantly beat all others I checked. From Dulles we flew non-stop to Bole Airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, ET's home and a little intimidating the first time through. We had a 2+ hr layover there before flying non-stop to Kilimanjaro- this may not have been normal, our short, 2+ hr flight to Kili was on a spanking new Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner! Our return routing was, Nairobi, where K&T ends, via Addis again, a very brief (< 1 hr) stop for fuel (no deplaning) in Dublin, Ireland, then to Dulles. If you are taking the Tanzania to Zanzibar trip, I believe the Addis to Kilimanjaro flight continues on to Zanzibar and returns to Addis via Kili.
*The business class seats were actually better than what is shown on their website, especially on the 787-8!!
I made reservations including all arrangements (payment and seat selection), using their website.
Some of the ET reviews on TripAdvisor aren't so good but most of the bad ones seem to be several years old, directed at ground personnel (e.g. ticket counter personnel inattentive/playing with their phones), by people flying coach, or with an axe to grind.
We would fly on ET again in a heart beat.