Nomad Serengeti 3 day minimum?
 

Hi there,
My husband and i booked a safari including a 2 night stay at Nomad Serengeti in Feb. 2007, but i've since been informed that Nomad is requiring a minimum 3 night stay.

Our options now are:
1. Switch 1 night at Serengeti Serena for an extra night at Nomad for an extra $280/person.
2. Switch both nights from Nomad to EMC for a $40/person discount.
3. Switch to 3 nights at EMC for a $290/person discount.
4. Stay somewhere else for 2 nights.

Nomad was going to be our splurge, so i'm pretty inclined to stick with them, though it's not really in our budget. Does anyone know much about EMC, or have suggestions for other options? Thanks for reading!
Annabel

Hi kilisafari:
My first reaction was that you should never have been put in this position--your agent should have known about the 3 night minimum.

I can't give you a comparison but I can tell you that our stay with Nomad at the Ndutu camp in Feb 06 was the highlight of our trip. If you stay with Nomad, I would recommmend Ken and Emmanuel as guides. Rocco liked his guide and I think that he will mention his name also.

The other option to EMC would be Olakira. I recall that someone recently stayed at Olakira (in a different part of the serengeti I believe) and thought highly of it.

If it were me, I would add the Nomad night and try to figure out a way to save the extra $280pp between now and final payment.

btw, re EMC, eben has stayed there and it would be in one of his reports on the East Africa Index I think. Plus you can look at his website www.go-safari.com for info. Perhaps he or someone who has stayed there will post for you.

I stayed at EMC for two nights this past June. I found the quality of accommodations to be prettty good. The tents were very large, and the beds were comfortable. I liked the ensuite bathrooms.

The service was also good, except for the table service. I don't think the guys serving as waiters had ever been trained in the job because they seemed to have difficulty serving the food sometimes. (e.g. spilled food transferring from their platter to my plate) They were well-meaning, but could have used some training. The food was good.

Were you going to use the guiding services at Nomad? By reputation, I understand them to be very, very good. We were with Roys, so we didn't use the guiding services at EMC.

My guide at Nomad was Chediel and he was excellent. However, I think all Nomad guides will be a step ahead of most East African tour operators as they visit a variety of parks not only in the northern circuit but also Katavi, Selous and Mahale, the destinations of Nomad's other camps.

I found the Nomad vehicles to be very well maintained and nicely stocked with food & drinks as well as beanbags for photography. Best of all, the vehicles were Toyota Land Cruisers than than Land Rover 110's which I found to be very uncomfortable.

Honestly, I think only 2 nights with Nomad Serengeti would be cheating yourself out of an excellent safari experience. The 4 nights I spent with Nomad Serengeti in the Ndutu area has been the gameviewing highlight of my 5 African Safaris, thus far. There are fancier camps out there but for a pure gameviewing experience, Nomad would be hard to top.