Luxury Safari in Kenya & Gorilla Encounters in Bwindi

From start to finish, our experience with Discover Africa Safaris was exceptional. The communication throughout the planning stage was prompt, clear, and incredibly thoughtful. We felt truly listened to, and the itinerary was tailored exactly to what we wanted – every detail was perfectly planned and executed.

Susan, our consultant, was absolutely outstanding. She was available to us the entire time we were away, which gave us so much peace of mind. Her knowledge, support, and attention to detail made the entire journey feel smooth and stress-free.

The service, value for money, and overall reliability of Discover Africa Safaris exceeded our expectations. It was the trip of a lifetime, and we wouldn’t change a thing. Highly recommend – 5 stars from us!

Friends of ours worked with Susan at Discover Africa to arrange our trip. We visited Tarangire, Ngorongoro, Serengetti, and Masaai Mara. The accomodations were all very pleasant, and the service, both at the accommodations and on our safari drives were all wonderful. The food was great. And we saw so many animals (and so many other tourists seeing so many animals!).

I booked mine and my wife’s honeymoon and to say that our experience was unforgettable would be an understatement.

The agent I worked with Megan W. was fantastic. She took into consideration what my wife and I were looking for from experiences to types of rooms we wanted to where would spend more money and where we could save. She even took into consideration the style of traveling we do personally.

Megan really made the tour for us, it was truly special, she was also accommodating when we wanted to add extra time to our trip to do gorilla tracking in Uganda and made it work.

If all the employees at Discover Africa are like Megan then there is nothing to worry about when booking other than getting your camera gear ready and bags packed.

I found Discover Africa via a Google search and sent them an email. Within 24 hours I had a reply (due time difference) and then a phone call with Antoinette and we planned the trip. Antoinette was so easy to work with and had the patience to keep changing the itinerary due to the pandemic and flight cancellations and more. She is a pleasure to work with and I highly recommend her to anyone looking on planning a trip to Africa.

The tour itself was arranged with Wild Frontiers. We did a 4 night Gorilla trekking trip in Uganda and then a 9 night safari in Tanzania. All the arrangements went exactly to plan and then some. From the moment we arrived at Entebbe Airport with the VIP meet and greet which had been arranged I knew we were in good hands. The VIP meet and assist off the aircraft on arrival is a life saver. With all the requirements to have a covid test on arrival and navigate the airport and the various stages of entry into the country, it simply is a must.

Our flight to Entebbe had been cancelled so we arrived a day earlier than scheduled. Arrangements were made to move the transfer a day earlier and we spent the day at an airport hotel. This had not been planned as we were going to fly direct to Bwindi – however in hindsight it was a blessing. Having the day to recuperate was awesome. A representative of Wild Frontiers, Evelyn, met us at the hotel and went over the itinerary and handed over tickets and gave us lots of tips. She even arranged to have our baggage, which had been delayed, sent to Bwindi when it finally arrived two days later. I could not ask for any better service, they were simply incredible.

On arrival we were met by our guide Echy. What can I say about him other than he was one of the best guides I’ve had on trips to Africa. Charming, funny, and full of information on what to expect. He is well known in the area and it was delightful to see how everyone greeted him. He made you feel at home and comfortable. Ask for him – you will not be disappointed.

Accommodation and Buhoma Lodge is simply awesome. Right at the start of the gorilla trekking area so close to everything. Food and service are awesome and the accommodations are superb – though there are a lot of steps to the rooms so bear this in mind.

From Bwindi we flew to the Serengeti via Entebbe. This is pretty much a full day affair on charter flights so be prepared. One suggestion I would make is to have a packed lunch sent with you as there is no time at the airports to grab a bit to eat.

Again all arrangements were superb with not hitches whatsoever. On arrival we were met by our guide, George. Again another super person who was full of knowledge. He immediately realized we loved birding and was awesome in spotting them. He was flexible with game drive times and length which was wonderful.

Kiota Camp is a wonderful camp overlooking the open plains of the Serengeti. Lying in your comfortable bed at night listening to the sounds to of the bush is incredible. Again service and food are wonderful and the staff went out of their way to look after us. In the evening after our game drives and we had all showered and freshened up we would head to the dining tent and sit around the camp fire and have a pre-dinner drink and just talk about the day. One night the staff asked us if they could move our chairs for a moment. We were not sure what they were doing but the next thing they had brought our dinner table from the dining tent and put it at the fire so we could have dinner there. It was super night.

One comment I do have on this – when going out for the game drives a packed lunch is provided. These were always put on the floor of the vehicle and sat there for a good number of hours before we stopped for the lunch break. Recommend this be put into a cooler box rather than left in the open heat. There was a cooler box on the vehicle but it was not working so that didn’t help.

After 4 nights in the Serengeti we moved to the Ngorongoro Crater area and stayed at the Bougainvillea Safari Lodge. A wonderful place to stay with awesome meals. The food was incredible.

Unfortunately this is when I fell ill with gastroenteritis and severe dehydration and ended up in the hospital! George, our guide, was magnificent at handling all of this and still making sure our friends traveling with us would continue with the safari. They throughly enjoyed their game viewing in the crater and then moved onto Honeyguide Tarangire Camp, which they just raved about. I was sorry to have missed that part of the trip.

We ended the trip at the Africa Tulip Hotel in Arusha. A great hotel to end or start your trip if starting in Arusha. Highly recommended.

I highly recommend both Discover Africa and Wild Frontiers. All arrangements were exceptional and the constant communication through-out the trip made for a well executed safari. Thanks to everyone for all their help and look forward to seeing you on the next adventure.

My wife and I scheduled our honeymoon through Discover Africa just by finding them through a simple Google search. A client of theirs called us right away and then over the next several weeks helped us figure out what package of travel we wanted.

We ended up going on a safari in Tanzania for 10 days while the wildebeest were migrating and then 5 days on Zanzibar to relax. We scheduled all of this in 2019, and when the pandemic hit Discover Africa was kind enough to allow us to simply reschedule to 2021. Once we finally did get to go on our safari we were with a guide almost the entire first 5 days of the trip, which was AWESOME.

A guide was there to immediately meet us after getting of the final airplane’s stairs to walk us through the Tanzania customs and Covid protocols. A guide was then there to drive us to the first hotel and was super informative and great to talk to after a long plane ride. We then met with our actual safari tour guide that night to walk us through what would be happening starting the next morning since we were getting up early to check out OH, and The African Tulip hotel was amazing and they treated us to a surprise, private honeymoon dinner by the pool as with our own little fire pit.

The next morning we went to Lake Manyara with our guide and were blown away right away with all the animals we saw. 5- 10 minutes in we saw a group of giraffes followed up almost immediately by 2 elephants crossing the road only a car’s length behind us. Absolutely surreal. The rest of the day was full of different types of gazelle, babboon, huge baobab trees, water buffalo, dik-diks, and others I’m forgetting. We saw several elephants very close to the car which was awesome. We ate a prepared lunch for us on the top of the overlook of the Lake. Nothing fantastic about the food but they were all designed to be “safe” food choices for everyone’s diet and sensitivities. The safari took up the entire day and we were exhausted and happy as the tour guide took us to our next hotel where we had our own little condominium room. This next place as well put flowers on the bed and treated us special for our honeymoon.

The next morning we had the same tour guide (who had 17 years experience by the way) and went to Ngorongoro Conservation. He drove us up the jungly, misty, crater outer mountain and stopped to look over the massive bowl. Then we descended into the crater and immediately saw zebra, tons of wildebeest, and a RHINO (from a distance). Again a day full of tons of HERDS of gazelle, ostrich, zebra, wildebeest and LIONS laying on the very side of the road, without a care in the world about us getting up close. We ate lunch by this body of water and even it had a herd of hippos popping their heads up out of the water looking at us eat our sandwiches! Again another exhausting, exciting day with elephants as well. Our tour guide took us back to the same hotel that night.

The next morning our tour guide took us to the airport and walked us through the little bit of security that they had to get on a small plane to head to the Serengeti. The plane was small but never felt unsafe. Once we arrived in the Serengeti we were given some tea and were immediately whisked off onto our next safari. There were a heard of hippos basically AT THE AIRPORT. Then we drove off and had lunch with a group of 20+ elephants and baby elephants drinking in the Mara river. Then we were abruptly told to hold onto our lunches to go see the RIVER CROSSING of wildebeest going nuts on the Mara and dodging crocodiles. The day was full of eagles, wildebeest, zebra, giraffe, a duo of MALE LIONS, and much more. The night was at a beautiful, huge tent with our own tent with a shower and double vanity mirror and huge bed. We fell asleep to the sound of wildebeest “moos” and hyena yelps.

The next morning we woke up at 4AM for a morning HOT AIR BALLOON ride. It was around $300 a person but so worth it. The safari car ride can be very bumpy so it was nice to see the Serengeti from a higher vantage point with a smooth voyage. We got the balloon up just as high basically to be above the trees and look down on the herds of animals from above. We also got maybe 15 feet from the center of the Mara river as we hovered directly down the center of it. We even got to see a LEOPARD from above! We landed smoothly and had mimosas to celebrate and were taken off to a hot breakfast in a place surrounded by trees. We got to meet other people safariing from all over the world and the staff everywhere was always so nice.

We then went off to Zanzibar for the last 5 days which was such a different pace than constantly safariing that it was a little hard to pump the adrenaline. The beach was nice but hard to relax with a pretty steady flow of people trying to sell you things or get you to go on excursions with them. We did go diving with DOLPHINS which was probably $120 and was absolutely worth it. We also went scuba diving briefly. Zanzibar was mostly for relaxing, which we definitely did, but looking back on it we wished we had spent more time safarring and maybe only two days on the beach.

All in all,everything with Discover Africa was fantastic. We would highly recommend to anyone willing to travel there.

The whole travel experience was amazing.

Since the arrangement with all Discover Africa Technology providing us a special travel web site until the last mile arrangement that put us face to face with Gorilas in Bwindi, Uganda was just perfect. Special attention to the field team that was just perfect with all details and always on time and helpful.

Great job with sales team flexibility to attend all our requests in this so complex travel.

On behalf of my family thank you and congratulate on this great job.