Ground transportation experience on K&T Classic Safari

DarrenK

Hi,

We're thinking of doing the K&T Classic Safari 13 day tour over some other fully land based tours offered by G Adventures, Intrepid, ...

The call centre provided an itinerary for the trip but it didn't provide answers to some of our questions.
I'm hoping that someone who has been on this tour might share their experiences.

We want to know about driving times and vehicles used for each segment of the trip.
Do they use the same/different vehicles for the excursions/safaris and the longer haul trips?

It sounds like safaris will be 5 trucks w/ 6 people/truck.
Do the trucks make an effort to give everyone the same experience or is the first truck always
in the lead and guests in the last truck miss all the sightings?
Do all trucks wait for the last couple who are often late to the designated meeting time/place?

Unrelated to driving, any comments on the "Guest Protection Plan"?
I might use our own preferred travel insurance company if it is optional.

Thanks,
Darren

British

Everyone gets a turn in a different vehicle with a different combination of the group and a different guide. Each of the guides is very knowledgeable in different areas, on our last safari, the Tanzania one, one of the guides had an amazing knowledge of politics, another was a bird geek, that's just an example. The fabulous guides are a huge part of the enjoyment of the tour.
The vehicles do not stay together while on safari, they all diverge, but if one sees anything super exciting, like a fresh Kill or a pride of lions, they radio each other. While on journey to another park, they do keep near each other, for safety, like if one breaks down. I cannot recall drive times. They are so interesting you tend to forget the time. Tauck vacations always always run on time, that's what impresses me.
We always take the Tauck insurance. You ought to get some insurance. Read the Tauck one and compare.

joycesw

And, to tag on to what British has said about the guides ( one set in Tamzania and another in Kenya), the Tour Director will make a point of switching everyone around among the drivers to give the guests a more rounded perspective. On the longer treks (I.e., Ngorogoro Crater to Serengeti) the trucks do travel pretty much together in case of trouble...we had one truck get a flat, fairly common given the roads, and everyone jumped in to change it. These drivers act as a well-oiled machine. And, the story of how they maintain the vehicles is fascinating.
Wait for someone??? Out of 14 Tauck tours the latest person was exactly on time, and that is because she lost her prescription sunglasses (which, BTW, the TD located via phone and were waiting for the lady at the next hotel)!
We usually use Tauck's insurance but have used others. we have found that, while not cheap, their insurance is excellent.

AlanS

British and Joyce covered it pretty well. As Joyce said, the longest 'road' trip was from Ngorongoro (to Oldupai Gorge) to the Serengetti. There were three shorter ones- Arusha to Lake Manyara to Ngorongoro and Arusha to Amboseli (you travel from Arusha airport to the Kenyan border in buses before transferring to safari vehicles)- mostly traveling in a caravan. Almost everything else was a 'game drive' with possibly one or more vehicles nearby but always in radio contact.

You will have three sets of 5 drivers and 5 safari vehicles (stretch Toyota Landcruisers)- all with 'pop tops.' They seat six in back and one in the 'shot gun' position, one of which may be occupied by the TD. The ones in Tanzania and those in Amboseli/Mount Kenya have sliding glass windows, those in the Masai Mara have roll-up vinyl windows.

Restroom break at Lake Manyara:



Lion watching during game drive at the end of the trip to the Serengeti:



Boarding our last set of safari vehicles at the Masai Mara airstrip:

British

On our first safari, which was the K and T tour, we rarely had more than 4 in a vehicle, partly because it was one of those rare tours where there was a group of people who did nothing but complain,for example, there were two lovely ladies who were bird enthusiasts so they wanted to stop and look at birds, that group were with those ladies early on and complained about it and did not want to share with them. So we said we were fine spending time looking at the beautiful colored birds, plus we saw just as many animals as anyone else. So we shared with them a lot, just the four of us. Alan's photos remind me why those aren't my favorite vehicles, I much prefer the ones with the take off separate hatches, like we had on our Tanzania tour, but that's the type they appear to use on the Kenya part of the tour if I remember correctly. Our Tanzania tour was in 2014 when everyone was cancelling because of Ebola and terrorism, so we only had about 16 in our tour.