Good Earth Tour
 

Please advise if you have use this company for tanzania safarias. what is you opinion of the company. Please let us know your trip adventures. Thank you

While you await responses....do a search in the search box, you might find some trip reports.

Hari

Hey Mutt,
I agree with Hari. The best way to find out is to do a search on "Good Earth".

We decided to use Good Earth for next July based on trip reports. I just read a lot of trip reports and learned a lot along the way. We were torn between Africa Serendipity and Good Earth. From what I've read and experienced, both offered good prices and good customer service.

Another thing I liked about them is that when you call you can talk to the owner, Narry at Good Earth and Sandi at Africa Serendipity.

Enjoy,
Duane

We are using good earth and depart this saturday. However, we have only spoken to Joe Aikambe, never the owner Narry. Overall our experience designing the trip with him has been good, but wondering if either anyone has had dealings with Joe? Just getting nervous as the day of departure approaches I guess...

em27,
Make sure you give us a report when you get back!

It is probably very normal to be nervous, I know I am going to be.
enjoy,
Duane

We went on our first safari with Good Earth last month to Tanzania. During the planning stages, we talked to both Narry and Joe. Good Earth did a superb job and the whole trip went without any issues whatsoever. We intend to go back soon and will definitely use Good Earth again.

We went with Good Earth and had an amazing time. To see photos and read our trip report, go to homepage.mac.com/lisaandmarktravel

we went with GoodEarth last november. They were fantastic! Narry was easy to deal with and very prompt. he was the most responsive of all companies we dealt with. the guide, Rafael, was great! car was in excellent condition. All transfers were smooth (they also organized part of kenya itinerary, border corssing, interal flights, and transfer to zanzibar). Price was good and i was happy to give the money to a local company. Let me know if you have any questions.

We (i.e., my husband, son and BIL) have used Good Earth and I believe they went above and beyond the call of duty. Due to expired passport issues, hubby couldn't leave with son, but did leave 3 days later. Because the safari had already started, Good Earth arranged to have hubby fly to the Serengeti to meet son and BIL. Well, things didn't go so well -- somehow hubby ended up in ZANZIBAR!!! and missed the safari altogether. When he FINALLY got back to Arusha, he had a day to himself and Good Earth sent a rep to take him to the Arusha National Park for his own personal safari! As an aside, I believe someone else on this forum had a similar situation at the Arusha airport and trying to figure out what plane to get on and ultimately ended up in Burundi instead of Rwanda. Well, hubby's story is very similar!! Needless to say, despite hubby's travel snafu, I would definitely use Good Earth again - they certainly made me feel like they were taking care of my brood while in Africa.

jill h,

It is exactly those kinds of snafus where the agent rises to the occasion to rectify the problem that are important to relate. That is what you really need the agent for--when things go awry on your once in a lifetime trip. Just contacting camps/lodges and keeping the dates straight is not that big of a deal. But coming through when there is a problem is a huge deal in my opinion.

I am impressed with Good Earth's treatment of you. Thanks for sharing that story.

What a terrible disappointment that must have been when you first learned of the passport dilemma. And what a stressful start to your safari, being in the wrong country, then at the beach instead of on safari. Quite a tale!

atravelynn

Disappontment doesn't begin to describe ALL the raging emotions at that point! But what can you do? Screaming wasn't going to rectify anything. THEN to put the cherry on top, when we were working on the passport paperwork, we realized his driver's license had also expired!!!

jill h,

Did you or your husband do a trip report? With all the upsets it could be a doozy that at least has a happy ending. With one documentation problem after the other, it reminds me of nightmares I get ever so often.

we haven't done a trip report of sorts, but have documented the "events". We will probably post something soon, as it is now a funny story, whereas before, it was a very sore spot.

I returned from a 10 day Tanzania/Kenya Good Earth Tour on Sept 20. I was impressed with the customer service at Good Earth-- Joe and Narry were very quick to respond to all my questions and they made the planning very easy. The tour guides were the most well educated and personable guys. They say the tour guide makes the trip and these 2 (we had 1 for Kenya and 1 for Tanzania)definately went out of their way to make sure we saw every animal possible.

The downside to Good Earth was that of our of 9 hotel nights, they changed 5 of the hotel nights (3 out of 5 hotels)after we arrived. In one instance they upgraded us but the following night we were downgraded to tents with no electricity and no water. I called the local office in Arusha and they were not helpful at all when I voiced my disatisfaction with the rooms. It seemed like the old "bait and switch" that tour companies are sometimes known to do. We made our reservations 9 months ahead and when I complained about the tents and demanded we be put in the hotel we booked-- guess what-- there was plenty of room at that hotel!! Good Earth was trying to make up for the upgrade of the night before. (To us it was not an upgrade--we all got food poisioning!!)

That was our experience with Good Earth!

Busybee -- That sounds awful. I hope you take it up with Narry.

busybee,
Sorry to hear about the accomodation changes. Would you mind telling us what you booked and what it changed to?

busybee, i am so sorry to hear that! and nervous too, since we have booked with good earth & are very attached to our lodging choices... :(

please do tell what changed - and also, were you on a group safari or private one?

thanks!

Oops!!! sorry you had to endure the changes in accomodation....but, didn't their confirm your choice of camps at the time of booking?

hari

We used Good Earth this past summer and everything went wonderfully. Our accomodations were never changed, all of Narry's suggestions were right on, too. Have a great trip!