Travel Review: Luxury South African Safari with Zambia - Londolozi Tree Camp, Cape Town, Victoria Falls, etc

Review by traveler

Mardelle K.

4.19.2011

General Info

Traveler Review

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

South Africa

Zambia

Zimbabwe

Your overall comments on the trip and the travel company:

Working with our travel planner at this African safari tour operator was a great experience. We started Jan 10 and after numberous emails, phone calls, recommendations, revisions over 2 week period we were very satisfied that our trip would be exactly what we wanted.

However, they did not stop working after finalizing our customized itinerary. We were in contact our entire trip via email and phone calls with our travel planner.

For example,when we were in Zimbabwe and saw Victoria Falls we wondered if Zambia side would be even a better view. We emailed our travel planner that we'd like the opportunity to see Victoria Falls from the Zambia side on the way to the airport in Zambia. She had us picked up 2 hours earlier with excellent guide/driver to tour Zambia side of falls. That's service.

The guides/drivers were all excellent. We could never have found them on our our.

We got outstanding value for our money. All the drivers /guides were excellent.

We will treasure our memories for our lifetime.

Also, Zicasso is a great service. Perfect for people like us. We don't like group tours. We love reading tour books ,watching DVD's on country we will be visiting and doing a general outline on what we want to do and see. Then having opportunity to work with true professionals to make suggestions and all arrangements is perfect for us. When we determine where our next international trip will be, we'll check Zicasso first.

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

The trip was the perfect blend and balance of outstanding sights, accommodations, and activities. We had exposure to beautiful landscapes and seascapes, art , architecture, history, delicious food, culture, birds, mammals and people .

We chose South Africa to go on Safaris and that was our favorite part of the trip. Having a skilled ranger and tracker find clues to track the elusive animals was exciting. It was a "hunt mentality" that I never experienced (my husband has).The longer our search, the greater the reward as the animals awaited us. We saw successful kills by both a leopard and a lion.

If we had to pick a favorite from the 6 places we stayed it would have to be at the Nature preserve in South Africa. The suite was spectacular w/ private pool and deck high up in very old beautiful trees. The common areas were like an art museum. The professionalism of the staff from the guiding team of talented , seasoned ranger and tracker, butler, cook, to the manager made every effort to make our stay one to always remember. We felt that we were part of a very special family on this legendary property .

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

The only part we'd change is flying South Africian Airlines. We choose SAA to experience SA as soon as we departed US soil. We were satisified with our flights to Africa and flights within the country.

However, when we went to board our plane home ,we noticed that it did not have SAA Logo. It looked old and unkept. We suspected it was a borrowed/leased plane for this trip. We departed and had a refueling stop in Dakar Senegal . When we stopped they announced (after over 3 hours) that the plane had a major engine problem and that we'd be bused to airport hotel to wait for a replacement plane. We waited in hotel room and departed 19 hours later. The 17 hour trip from Johannesburg to Washington DC took 36 hours! The replacement plane was much newer and did have SAA Logo.

We made our own air arrangements so no one to blame but SAA and us (i.e. not this safari operator).

How did you find Zicasso?

Zicasso is a great service. Perfect for people like us. We don't like group tours. We love reading tour books ,watching DVD's on country we will be visiting and doing a general outline on what we want to do and see. Then having opportunity to work with true professionals to make suggestions and all arrangements is perfect for us. When we determine where our next international trip will be in 2012 we'll check Zicasso first.

Photos

Travel Review: Luxury South African Safari with Zambia - Londolozi Tree Camp, Cape Town, Victoria Falls, etc

General Info

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

Your overall comments on the trip and the travel company:

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

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

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