Welcome back! Glad you had a great time. The price of $5300pp doesn't sound out of line for your itinerary. Your 3 nights at Il Moran (including park fees and flights) alone probably accounts for around $1800pp.

As for the day room add-on, I probably would've booked directly with KIA lodge if the price difference was $120. You mentioned similar padding throughout. Can you give other examples?

Welcome home Sue -

The rate for KIA probably also included the transfer from Arusha to JRO which is easily 45-min to 1/hr drive. This transfer can run $60 (vehicle, driver, insurance, petrol), leaving $120. And $60/person for a day-room is a usual rate (many other hotels charge more).

Even if you had booked KIA Lodge yourself, you would have had to arrange the transfer to JRO from Arusha or if included by the operator, would cost $60+/-.

On a $5,300/pp trip, $60 you feel you overpaid, amounts to 1.13%. Not much in the scheme of things of having the entire itinerary put together, ascertaining availability, making the numerous changes you did (as indicated in your earlier posts).

For a 16/day trip in high season, with the very high price at Il Moran, all but 2/meals and your flights - avg. daily cost $331/person. A darn good deal.

I had thought about the possibility that the price quoted included some transportation cost too, but if that's the case, the tour op should have said so to avoid any misunderstanding since it's easy to find out the actual room rate yourself. I would find a response of "such is the price you pay for convenience and nice facilities" more irritating than the cost difference itself (if that's literally what was said and all that was said).

I will reiterate, however, that I think the overall cost is very fair given the itinerary.

I think $5300 pp is a good price for a 16-day itinerary at the accommodations you mentioned. Yes you probably could have saved a little bit by booking your own dayroom at KIA Lodge but the price quoted you directly by the Lodge was certainly for room-only, not including any meals or transportation (I don't know if you had a meal at KIA, we did). Anyway, glad to hear you had a great time!

What were your thoughts on Amboseli Serena?

Did you like Amboseli as a game park?

I think our initial price quote also included the transfer to the Kili airport so I assume we just paid triple the amount for Kia ($180 total). I also had the nagging feeling about being ripped off because whenever I asked about specific rates at the places we were staying, I didn't really get a straight answer. I would have booked myself because I generally plan my own travel but I thought the operator just gets 15% of the booking, and passes on the rate we would pay by ourselves anyway. I wondered how so many people could have been involved in our planning and have it not cost extra -- which they assured me.) Oh well, you live and learn.

Wasn't that amazing about Porini? We couldn't believe it. Perhaps these things happen all the time but it really freaked us out . . . a close call.

As far as Amboseli, it was our least favorite park. Mind you, we had just come from the Mara where there were tons of animals all over the place. We had just to go 50 feet from our camp. And you can go off-road in the Mara and drive all over the park. Amboseli, on the other hand, is extremely flat with very short grass and you can't go off road. It seemed very artificial in comparison. Although, we did see both ostriches and lions mating there which was really cool. If I were to plan it again, I would skip this park.

The Amboseli Serena is a really nice hotel. Very colorful -- almost Polynesian looking -- with monkeys running around all over the place. Elephants also came onto the grounds when we were there. I would definitely recommend the hotel.

Welcome home.

Glad you had such a wonderful time.

"Perhaps these things happen all the time..." No fortunately they do not. Nonetheless, I can see why you are freaked out.

Please post some more about your trip when you are able.

Sue:
Glad you enjoyed your trip and switched to Il Moran. How was the central Serengeti?

The Serengeti was nice but we didn't see nearly as many animals as in the Mara. I think we were also a bit spoiled by that point, already having seen so much. We did see a leopard, albeit briefly. But even in the Serengeti, I missed driving off-road.

We were really pleased with all of the properties we stayed at -- but were a little disappointed with Kirumuru. The decor was much more rustic/basic than the others and the service was not as "enthusiastic" as at the other properties. I really do think we were spoiled by Il Moran -- and that was our first stop!

Elephants crashed the campsite at Il Moran and it was pretty exciting. At the Serena in the Serengeti, a buffalo was drinking out of the pool when we arrived at dinner. At Kikoti, we had a little late night emergency when we found one of those large hairy spiders and one of those large African beetles on the mosquito netting over our beds. It was 3AM and we were pretty freaked out. My friend tried to spray the spider with Deet . . . This didn't work very well because we were screaming and after yelling "jambo" several times out the window, we blew the whistle that was attached to the flashlight in our hut. After about 15 minutes of this (maybe they thought we were a hyena?), three of the staff came into our tent and thankfully killed both. We hated to disturb the other guests but we were terrified!

Your emergency was so funny (I know--not at the time) that I was laughing out loud and showed my husband. I can just picture you shouting Jambo out the window.

What dates were you in the Mara and in the Serengeti.

Ha! Just think of this from the night-watchman's perspective!!

Some crazy muzungu's start yelling and screaming in their tent at 3am. Then they stary yelling "hello, hello" out the window (at 3am !!). Finally, when they decide to see why you are so eagerly greeting everyone (at 3am) they see that the cause of all the commotion is a tiny little spider on your mosquito netting!!

No wonder they think we're all crazy !!

We arrived in the Mara on 8/24 and the Serengeti on 9/2.

mzungu - single
wazungu - plural

- took me a few times over the years to get it right!

Yes, wazungu for plural... but muzungus still has that nicer 'slang' sound to it !!

Speaking of Swahili, (or should I say Kiswahili !!), I heard a great saying the other day.

"Swahili was born in Tanzania, grew up in Kenya, and died in Uganda"

Very true.

Never heard that before. Interesting and likely so true.

Well, when a mzungu unfamiliar with the word first speaks it - does manage to come out as muzungu.

Welcome back, sueblue. I'm glad you had a great time.

Sue,
Karibu nyumbani. I’m happy you weren’t staying at Porini and that you had a great trip. I’m very sorry for the spider and the beetle though.

Thanks everyone. I know it's irrational but I would probably have been less frightened if I came up against an elephant or a lion instead of a spider!

Glad you had such a good time, and with so many special stories and memories.

For what it's worth, we booked our trip to Kenya more or less independently and did not include the booking of a day room for the final day. The hotel let us have a "late check-out" - 7p.m. at no additional charge, whereas we would have had to pay $75 for the room if we had booked in advance. On the other hand I've been in situations where I've done the same and found the day room booked at reception cost as much as an extra night would.... if you can work out how hotel pricing works you can save a fortune but for most of us there is no point crying over spilt milk. It was overpriced - no question, but it was probably not sensible to enquire about the price after you had paid

I too feel sorry for the spider, but especially for the beetle - how can beetles be frightening? I have a feeling the poor thing was "collateral damage".

I also wouldn't go spraying insecticide on my bed - call me peculiar if you like....

And you do realise how funny your story is, right? "Jambo" is solely a greeting - it cannot be intrepreted to be calling attention. They must have thought you were high as kites. You're lucky they came at all... if you'd been in town they'd have called the police

Beetles can be very frightening -- they were about the size of the large NYC cockroaches . . . 3 inches? Anyone, they were disgusting!

Someone asked me to provide more info on my trip. I'm not sure what is the most helpful because so many readers on this site are real veterans. But for what it's worth, I will provide some of my thoughts on our various accomodations:

IL Moran: This camp was our absolute favorite. It was small and intimate, we loved the decor within the tent -- very elegant, the service was incredible (every dining table had their own waiter which remained with you your entire stay), there was electricity after 3PM and outlets for our blowdryer and hair-iron (which broke on the first day of our trip -- I looked like Gilda Radner's Rosanna Dana character on SNL for the duration of our trip -- talk about scary!) Our only problem there was with our hot water. As this was our first trip to Africa and we were staying in a tent, we figured everyone else had lukewarm to coolish water. WRONG! We ended up speaking to them several times about this and they finally got it working for ONE hot shower. Apparently, there was a serious problem with the apparatus? in our tent and we were the only ones to have this problem. In fact, when elephants crashed the camp on the morning of our departure, I told my friend to pass them the message "No Water in Tent #2". (This was really exicting by the way. They walked right by the breakfast area and moved in front of the tents. Two pairs of us were leaving that morning and needed to get our luggage, so the staff started throwing rocks at the elephants to get them to move on. One of them started to CHARGE -- it was all very exciting!

Because I am neurotic and did so much research for this trip, I asked our guide to show us Governor's Camp and Lil Governor's since they are owned by the same people as IL Moran and extremely close by. (That way if I liked those better, I could keep smacking myself the rest of the trip . We liked the main Governor's because it had a large bar area and we thought it might have been more social than IL Moran (my friend and I are two single woman and we were hoping to meet some fellow compadres . . . ). Lil Governor's was particularly "African" and "nature-like" as you have to take a short canoe ride (maybe 50 feet) to get to the property. After that there is a bit of an uphill walk to get to the tents, restaurant, etc. It was really charming! In the end, we decided IL Moran was the most elegant and upscale, and we did meet one German solo male traveler who ended up joining us at every meal.

Amboseli Serena: I really liked this lodge. The exterior was very Polynesian-like with each of the units painted a bright red color, trees all around, vervet monkeys running around all over, lots of socializing going in (this hotel was the most social of the Serenas we visited -- people drinking, listening to the entertainment -- perhaps this was maybe the largest Serena?). Apparently, there are some newly renovated rooms there and we got one -- it had a ceiling fan which apparently is not present in the old ones and was decorated very nicely. My friend put her backpack down to take some pictures of the monkeys in the walkway and one went over to it and started taking out the items from it! It looked almost human with its well-defined hands and coordinated movements! It was all very exciting but my friend had some very expensive stuff in the bag and when she moved forward to retrieve it, the monkey boldly showed us his teeth -- it was pretty wild. We called a housekeeper out of one of the rooms and she started waving a cardboard carton at him and he ran away. Who would have thought? It was very funny!

Kikoti: We also really liked Kikoti. We had tried to get into Swala even at the last minute because we heard it was really nice and owned by A&K. (For Il Moran, we had to pay a supplement of $75 per night/pp to change from Porini or $225 for the three nights. We thought we could do the same with Swala because after all, what's $225 when you are paying upwards of $5,000 for your trip anyway? Sort of like buying a car -- sure, throw in the heated seats, sports wheels, etc.) Swala is also inside the park. However, it was fully booked. We loved the "hut on the stilt" look and the inside was also very elegantly appointed (and I am a pretty tough critic). It differed from IL Moran in that there were no electrical outlets in the room (except for shavers I believe) . . . Imagine double Rosanna Dana . . . in this case, no hair iron and NO BLOWDRYER . . . suffice it to say that I stayed out of all pictures taken during our stay there! There was electricity though. We were supposed to have cold water at all times, and hot water upon request. (Someone would come and play with the tank and we would have it 10 minutes later.) We seemed to be cursed with water problems on this trip, however, and the cold water wasn't running most of the day. (This also impaced toilet flushing.) We mentioned it to the staff, but I guess their are gaps in their English -- so they kept getting the hot water ready whenever we mentioned we had no water! Of course, at that point, you couldn't get cold water because the hot water would come on. Oh well, next time we will study Swahili beforehand . . .

The food was very good at Kikoti but they were a bit less flexible in "custom catering", shall we call it. My friend and I are two NYC babes, and true to the stereotype, try to watch our girlish figures -- i.e. light on the sauce, plain salads, you may know the type. At IL Moran, they offered us substitutions and were happy to do so. Kikoti seemed less equipped to do so.

One other thing that was truly amazing! We were the only people staying at Kikoti the first day we arrived. We thought they were kidding when they told us, but when we arrived at dinner . . . it was only us! Pretty nice if I was with a boyfriend or on my honeymoon -- oh well, needless to say, the service was great that evening and the next morning!

Shall I go on? Is anyone finding this helpful? I am soon going to have to wean myself off of this site as I am becoming addicted. I am thinking of planning my next trip to Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

The reason for the mossie net is to keep out what is supposed to be out; specifically mossies, but other of god's creatures find their way, especially if you had lights on while inside the netting. And, never spray insecticide over my sleeping area... in the room/tent, yes, but not over the bed linens.

From a fellow New Yorker, Sue, I'm sure you've seen cockaroaches and even itty-bitty mice*; they're here and in some of the finest buildings. Though a beattle wouldn't get me to turn an eye, I'll give you the woolly spider, though never a Daddy Long Legs.

"Jambo" "Jambo", how funny! At least you come home with a tale to tell and you survived. Besides, they take such small bites!

*whenever new construction goes up in this city, the mice go a running - high or low rent; believe me, they like peanut butter on the traps I set.

OOPS. When I was talking about loving the hut on the stilt look, etc. -- I was referring to Kikoti and not Swala.

Sandy -- I think our postings just crossed. I just posted some more detail about the trip.

Cockroaches are pretty disgusting but bettles are completely cute (although the flying ones give me a bit off a shudder when they land on my head). It's the difference between handling dried elephant dung, sniffing it and staring into the distance - which looks cool as long as you're on safari - and doing the same with fresh doggie-dos, which looks totally gross.

Please tell more stories - it's really a very interesting trip and we'll put it all together later. So far I've got a lot of good information, a couple of minor shocks and at least two very good laughs!

Yes, please continue. This is not only informative but very entertaining!