[vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1623927211024{padding-top: 5% !important;padding-bottom: 5% !important;}”][vc_column][vc_column_text]Friendly Adventure Safaris is a Tanzanian tour and travel company that specializes in organizing honeymoons, romantic getaways, student vacations and holidays, group safaris, family safaris, charity tours, big five safaris, mountaineering adventure, cultural escapade, and beach holidays. Safaris to the Masai Mara, Serengeti, Uganda, Rwanda, and Congo are also available.
With all of the fantastic safari activities and attractions in the East African area, you may combine numerous safari activities while riding in one of the top safari cars in the country.
Actually, we wouldn’t call ourselves tour companies in Tanzania if we didn’t support safaris in all of East Africa. So, in essence, we would describe ourselves as an all-around inbound destination management firm and tour operator in East Africa. Choosing many safari firms to manage different aspects of your vacation might be a pain at times, especially when it comes to coordination time during transfers. Because they already have your travel schedules, if you utilize a single travel agency, they can easily coordinate your transportation between places.
Our safari guides are not only informed, but also well-spoken, ethical, polite, and cautious.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Strongly reccommended on Trip Advisor
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Tony, our driver and tour guide, was absolutely wonderful. Not only is he a kind high-character person, he is very knowledgeable about Uganda and really took the time to answer... read moreall of our questions. Tony took the time to go the extra mile to ensure our entire trip was special, and to show us his culture and beautiful country. Every minute, from when arrived early to pick us up to when he helped us with our luggage at the airport at the end of our trip, we felt completely taken care of by Tony. Friendly Gorilla Safaris was wonderful, from Anthony promptly responding to all of our emails and questions, to Tony making our trip great. Definitely recommend them!
The Gorilla hike was absolutely amazing and a once in a lifetime experience, I could not recommend it enough! You have to do this tour and you have to ask for Tony to make it even more wonderful.
A couple tips:
- Ensure that the hotel is close to where your permitted hike is located. I did not know that there are 5 locations where you can hike to see the Gorillas, depending on where your permit is for. Double check that the hotel you stay at is convenient to your permit hike site. Our hotel was the Rushaga Gorilla Havens Lodge, which was absolutely Wonderful and you can check out my review of them, and they are close to one of the hiking sites but it turned out that our permit was for another location so we had a 2 hour drive in the morning to get to our permit hiking site. It made for an especially early morning and a closer hotel to our hike would have been nice. Though the Rushaga really was wonderful.
- If there is a way to choose where you hike and what group of gorillas to see then you should 100% ask for the Nyakagezi group. That is the group we visited, and it was Amazing. The hike was only about 1.5 hour to see the family of gorillas which had 3 silverbacks and 2 babies. The rangers we were with were all lovely. They were so helpful to ensure we got amazing views and photos of the gorillas, and they answered all of our questions. We felt completely safe with them and had a wonderful time.
Once in a lifetime trip with our awesome tour guide Tony, definitely recommend it!!
CM2909
January 11, 2020
We hired the company for a 7 days and 6 nights tour in Uganda, including chimpanzees and gorilla tracking. The itinerary was agreed and confirmed by email the second week... read moreof February. We paid a total of $6.820,40, canceling more than 40% by bank transfer on March 3rd. I can honestly affirm that it’s not worth doing business with Friendly Gorillas Safaris. I will only give three reasons that I hope will convince other travelers not to contact this company:
1. Permits for gorilla tracking were not acquired on time. A day before the tour started, we even received an itinerary and activities totally different to those agreed: different dates, different hotels and gorilla tracking planned for the day we were supposed to leave Uganda because the company “was not able to get permits for August 4th” (the date we agreed on March!). After complaining bitterly through WhatsApp, we received confirmation on the correct itinerary with gorilla tracking on the 4th. The first days of our tour, the company complied with the initial offer. However, the night before the 4th our guide informed that he got permits for the 6th and that the next day we will “go to Bwindi very early to try to convince the guard to allow us tracking gorillas”. Next morning was a nightmare: our guide trying “to convince the guard”, the rest of the groups excited to live a once in a lifetime experience (some even got the permits the day before!) and us hidden in a corner “so the guard doesn’t see us or raise suspicions”. When all the groups started to leave, our guide informed us that we were allowed to track on the 5th. Given that we had a very early flight the 6th, the gorilla activity was planned to end at 2pm and the travel from Bwindi to Entebbe takes more than 10 hours, we refused and asked our money back. Minutes later, the guide informs us that “the guard has allowed us to track today” but we need to pay $300 to a company that had free spots. Even though the company offered to pay this, the guide only had $100 and we put the remaining $200 (luckily, after the guide insinuated we was going to pay us back in Ugandan Schillings, we received our 200 USD minutes after taking our flight back home). At the end of the day, we were able to track gorillas as promised (we didn’t have time to hire a porter) but we couldn’t live the experience fully due to Friendly Gorillas lack of planning.
2. The company lacks a proper infrastructure. The owner seems to be an entrepreneur with multiple interests. He doesn’t have time to pay attention to the details a professional travel agency needs. Friendly Gorillas Safaris doesn’t even have its own guides: they hired as needed. This explains the last-minute arrangement of our tour (the first night, the hotel said there was no reservation under our name, or the company’s..... fortunately, they had a single room available, when we paid a double). When asked about the pending balance, they gave an incorrect amount and I needed to tell them it was actually more! The owner acts as “travel consultant” but he barely knows commuting times or proper hotels and need to ask to guides recognized by the governmental office.
3. Even though Friendly Gorillas Safaris apologized for their many mistakes (the guide was annoying, forcing us to take pictures of things we were not interested, dangerously stopping in the road, making us having matooke when we didn’t want to), it doesn’t compensate the terrible experience we had in Uganda. They offer a discount in future trips, as if we were interested in hiring them again! Apologizing and promising to be better next time is not enough for us. I advice other travelers to select another company to visit Uganda. And keep track on the different names they may used (verify that on their Facebook page).
Fabrizio_ec
August 30, 2019
A must for any wildlife enthusiastic. It was such an unforgetable experience. The trekking insearch for the gorillas started at the bwindi impenetrable forest consetvation meeting point with a wonderful... read moretraditional welcome by the staff. All trekkers were segregated in to groups of 08 and were assigned to a see a particular family of gorillas. Trekking took us around 03hr of ascending the steep mountains to finally spot the big gentle beasts. It was such a awesome sight to have experienced.
At the meeting point, for those who require assistance in ascending and descending the mountain during the trekking and to help with their back packs, you could request to hire a local residence for a minimum cost of US20/= who will assit you throughout. Hiking sticks are avaiable free of cost. There will be 04 rangers escorting the group in to the mountains and at the end of the trekking once back at the meeting point depending on how you would want to appreciate them you could tip the head ranger. Do not forget to collect your memorabilia. An official certification of gorilla trekking.
Lake bunyonyi was where I headed to thereafter it was such a pictureque site to see. I would recommand Arcadia Cottages, as this place is at the cliff of the mountain with the view of the lake. Every cottage has the lake view and the cottages were exceptional amazing. The staff too were great.
The tour and the permits for the gorilla trekking was arranged by a company named "car rental uganda" info@carrentaluganda.com. Contact name is Mike. I had to provide the payment upfont for the 01 day permit US600/= which was paid online. Once he had your permit arranged for the day you would want to do the trekking the rest of the itinerary is based on your request. Lake bunyonyi is a must.
I would place 100% of my trust in Mike and the guide/driver who was George.
SANJEEVA J
October 20, 2019
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