Travel Review: Africa Safari, Botswana, Zambia, South Africa, Chobe, Victoria Falls

Review by traveler

Beverly L.

11.16.2017

General Info

Traveler Review

Which Country (Countries) did you visit on this trip?

Botswana

South Africa

Zambia

Your overall comments on the trip and the travel company:

Our safari travel planner was very thorough and attentive. My questions were answered quickly. The itinerary booklet was a nice feature.

What were the most enjoyable or memorable parts of your trip?

Botswana's Chobe River Lodge was amazing. Elephants, elephants, elephants! So much fun to see them come down from the hillside to play in the water. The only negative was that no refreshments were served on the morning or evening game drives. Our other two safari places did provide those.

If you could take your trip again, what would you do differently?

I would NOT recommend Madikwe. The terrain is very flat and uninteresting. We were at the Madikwe River Lodge, which was on a dirty and stagnant river. The game driver was not interested in providing good commentary. If the itinerary includes Victoria Falls, fly the travelers directly there. The border crossing from Zambia took 1 1/2 hours while the driver took our passports to border control and left us sitting on the hot bus. We had to pay $35 for a visa (Brits paid $50) which allowed us to walk from one side of the border to the other side of the border, about a 50 step walk. Waste of time and money.

Travel Company Comments:

"We do recommend the Greater Kruger and Botswana over Madikwe for game viewing you can count on.

One member of the family was pregnant with twins and there was a young child. A malaria free zone was required for the safari segment. Madikwe is malaria free. We are surprised that the viewing and service was not better, when we have booked the region, we have received excellent responses. We are so sorry this segment did not prove more successful.

They wanted to avoid an overnight in Johannesburg and the only way to do this was via Livingstone. There have been border waits due to running out of ‘official’ stickers by the government. This caused an unorganized situation and long waits.

We are so sorry for the inconvenience at the border and the disappointment in Madikwe."

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