Camping Serengeti Review

We camped for four nights and stayed in a resort just outside Arusha… I can’t remember – a lake near Arusha.

What were the camping facilities like?

It was good. It was very dry, there wasn’t much water but that wasn’t their problem. The campsites have no fences around them so there were some nocturnal visitors.

We saw footprints of a big cat, probably lion. We saw footprints a couple of times. Once it was lion and another time we weren’t sure what it was… it could have been a cat.

What did a typical breakfast and dinner on your Serengeti review safari consist of?

Breakfast was continental. Dinner was like spaghetti or a curry or something like that. The food was quite good.

It wasn't all that good. The animals were good but the service and whatever wasn't all that good… too many people in the vehicle.

There were 5 people in a Toyota twin carrier, but there was the cook and the driver as well so it was 7. It was pretty cramped and we were all big people.

They weren’t terribly easy to negotiate with. In the beginning, when we were still trying to get our point across that there were five big people which was too many for the vehicle that they didn’t really care. That was while we were still in the town near Arusha, I can’t remember the name of the town. Anyway we were still there. They still had the opportunity to change the vehicle but didn’t bother.

Did you book this trip before you went?

No, in Dar es Salaam.

Four of the “big 5”… didn’t see leopard, but saw lion – yes, 4 of the big 5. In the Ngorongoro we saw plenty of wildlife. It was a particularly good morning that we had there. In total we saw about 80 or 90 birds and about 28 or 30 mammals.

What would you say the wildlife spotting highlight of your Serengeti review safari was?

Probably some lions in the Ngorongoro. Oh and just after a kill in the Serengeti National Park. Well, immediately after the kill, the lions had a zebra. I didn’t see the kill but saw it, like maybe five minutes later.

What would you say the most useful item in your luggage was?

Digital camera, and bird book.

We were ushered to breakfast, or a cup of tea or coffee first, then breakfast and then usually a game drive straight after and then we were on the road a fair bit.

After the game drive it was usually driving to somewhere else. Had lunch on the way somewhere, stop about 2 or 3 o’clock, set up camp.

They’d do a late afternoon game drive and then have a late dinner, we had dinner at about 8 o’clock, usually in the darkness, and then go to bed. They weren’t a terribly sociable lot, so it was to bed fairly early, and we got up early.

Ask questions about who you’re going with and how many people, what’s the vehicle size and that sort of thing.

More tips on choosing a good safari operator...

And see if you can ascertain how much the other people are paying because we found discrepancies in our group – I paid the cheapest, but some of the people in our group paid like 60-70% more than I have. There were two Irish people that had bought in Ireland, the other three of us bought in Dar es Salaam. We all paid different prices.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your Serengeti review safari overall?

I’ve done a few trips, probably about 10 trips to Africa…this Serengeti review, out of ten, I’d say about 6.