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Part 2 of my report…much delayed

British

Oh dear, we just returned from our Family Safari and my good intentions to post every day fell by the wayside big time. Once we left the Gran Melia in Arusha, the following four days of accommodation did not have wifi in rooms and what with being with family, lots of unpublished additions to the itinerary, trying to relax and being totally disinclined to even write my daily diary, I’ve only glanced at the forum and writen few comments.
Of course, now it’s barely the middle of the night at home and my sleep is probably over for now.
Here are a few jumbled thoughts on the tour.
We had a fantastic time. Trying to follow on from my original reporting…The welcome dinner at the Gran Melia was held in the buffet part of the hotel, it was an extremely disappointing selection of food both then and at breakfasts there.
There was a great surprise Welcome celebration before that which will remain a secret…but just to say, you will receive the first of many gifts on the tour there, that you will eventually definitely need one of your duffels to put them all in on the way home! Not divulging any more on this! And it may vary what and how much depending on the TD you have.

This was our fourth visit to Tanzania and we still think of all the countries we have visited, the local people there come number one of our most favorite on the planet.
Every safari day in Africa is unique, which is partly why we return. This time, what has normally been our favorite area, the Ngorongoro crater, more correctly as your TD will point out, a caldera, was really cold with far fewer sitings than in the past. But we did go right up to the edges of the lake this time to see the birdlife and hippos, the wind there was very fresh. We also saw, if I remember correctly, the first ever siting of a golden jackal for us, as opposed to the more abundant black backed jackal.
Our accommodation for this area was a one and three quarter hour drive from the crater. Tauck does not stay at the usual Serena lodge because it has no suitable areas for children which I totally agree with.

On the entire tour, we had a huge number of lion encounters!

Now to the accommodations. I note that on the forum in general over the past couple of years, that many people put huge importance on hotels than almost anything else, rarely commenting on tour components. It is never our own priority, tour competent is tops for us, but here goes….to be continued

Comments

British

Cindy, please consider writing a review of your tour, it would be so helpful to others to see if we thought the same.
I won’t forget how immaculate you looked compared to me in my dusty safari garb 😃
I’m off to England in a couple of hours!

the moores

Wow, British! What fabulous photos you took and what a great family trip! Loved Oliver's thank you. It brought back memories of when I took my nine year old son to Europe. It's always interesting to see a place through the eyes of a child.

voikk32

Thank you notes are such a rarity these days. Might be worth framing.

CASueK

I am Sue K from California whose family was on the Bridges Tour with British and her family. My husband and I were traveling with our 2 adult daughters and their spouses/significant others and our 2 grandchildren, a 7 year old boy and 12 year old daughter. Our son in law’s best friend , his wife and 13 year old daughter were also in our group of 11. We couldn’t have asked for a more amazing trip! It was fun reading the messages from British as she covered things very well. I am so glad that I had called Tauck and asked them the ages of the kids that were signed up for the various weeks that we were thinking about. I chose the week we did because there was another 7 year old boy, the same age as my grandson and that worked out really good. The kids all got along so well and it was additionally fun that they all have red hair. What are the chances of that?
We loved both of the Melia hotels that we stayed in. The one in Arusha was such a contrast to the surrounding countryside. The rooms were beautiful and had big balconies with a slider that opened up double wide making it feel like it was part of the room. Unlike British we thought that the buffets were very good with lots of choices. They had the flakiest croissants! We also liked the rooftop bar and restaurant overlooking the beautiful Infinity edge pool.
My husband and I had been on the Kenya/Tanzania tour with Tauck in 2018 but had not been to the Arusha National Park before. I think it was a good “starter” park but felt that we didn’t get as up close to the animals as we did in the other parks. The kids didn’t know better so thought it was amazing. We did spot a Cheetah which our driver said he hadn’t seen in that park for over 5 years. The Colobus monkeys with their beautiful long white tails were so fun to watch.
The kids loved it when we “popped the tops” on our safari vehicles and they got to stand on the seats and hang on as they peeked out the tops searching for animals. The 7 year old was very good at spotting the monkeys up in the trees.
Our drivers were all wonderful as was our Tauck Guide. They were great with our grandkids and our tour guide had provided snacks for the kids in the safari vehicles which helped on our longer drives. By the end of our trip the drivers were singing with the kids as we drove along. It was just like one big happy family. There were very sad faces and lots of big hugs when we had to say good bye to them at the end of our 10 days.
This was a family trip of a lifetime and I highly encourage you to do it with your family. I would recommend going in earlier to get used to the time difference and to rest up from the long travel time. Our family traveled in 3 different groups for a week before, all to different places so it was really fun to compare notes when we got together to start our Bridges Tour. My husband and I went from San Francisco to Dubai for 3 nights and then on to Zanzibar for 4 nights at an Adults only resort on the beach before flying to Arusha. One daughter went from Boston to Amsterdam for a couple days and then on to Rwanda to hike in so see the gorillas before joining us in Arusha and my daughter with their friends and our grandkids went to the other side of Zanzibar from where we were and stayed in a very small place with only 11 small huts on a beach.
More to follow… I’ll come back and continue at a later time but feel free to ask questions.

voikk32

Yes, photos are great!

British

Best wishes to you Cindy!

AlanS

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AmritRao

Thank you for all this information. My family and I are leaving for our Grand Safari in a couple days. Your blog has helped answer many of my questions regarding the safari.