JNJ

I want to warn prospective travellers to Tanzania of a bad experience I had recently with a large arts and crafts store in Arusha, Tanzania. This is the Oldonyo Orok Arts and Gallery Co. which is located west of Arusha on the road to the main safari destinations. On January 24, at the sauggestion of my guide, I stopped in this store and bought four 18" teak giraffes in individual poses, paying for them and shipment by air express with my credit card. The manager assured me that I would receive them in "three or four days". When after two weeks they had not arrived, I emailed the store but did not receive a reply. A week later I tried another email; still no reply. Finally, when I reached him by phone on March 7, the manager admitted that the giraffes were not shipped until March 3, five weeks after my purchase. When the package arrived on March 10, I found that they shipped four identical giraffes not the individual specimens I had purchased. So stear clear of the Oldonyo Arts and Gallery Co. in Arusha.

LizFrazier

JNJ-<BR>You can refute the charges through your credit card company. LIz

rsnyder

JNJ, was this the store at the Cultural Center or am I thinking of the wrong place?<BR>Dick

JNJ

No, it was not the store at the cultural center. This place is farther out of town to the West.

BillBJR

We too are experiencing problems with a purchase from Oldonyo Orok Arts, while on safari we purchased (7 Oct 2005) a teak engraving for a substantial price. The proprietor told me that he would send us carving by FEDEX. To date we have not received the package.

I charged the purchase with my Visa card, and am about to cancel the purchase.

Could someone please send me this stores phone number and e-mail address? I would like to talk to the proprietor before I cancel the card.

thegogoj

My dealings with Oldonyo Orok Arts and Gallery Co. have been fine. September 18th I bought and shipped 26 items. They told me it would take two to three weeks but I knew better than to believe that timeline since I haven't even gotten shipments from Europe within that time frame. It actually took 8 weeks but when I checked up on the shipment status in late October both Oldonyo and the shipping company returned my call. Everything was carefully wrapped and crated and arrived intact including some very fragile pieces and a heavy carved elephant table with fragile little &quot;tusks&quot;. The email I contacted them through was [email protected] and the phone number was 011-255-27-2538348. It did take me a few minutes to get the phone number dialed correctly because I was using the wrong country code instead of 011 which was not on their business card. Janet

BillBJR

At long last we received the mask from Oldonyo Orok Arts. It took about two months for the shipment to arrive at our home in Ohio.

We received a message from a safari agent (the company that took us to Oldonyo Orak Arts) indicating that a new law required fumigation of all wood products and therefore the shipment was delayed.

Unfortunately, the store’s management never responded to our e-mails. Proactive management responses to our messages would have alleviated some of our frustration.

A word of advice, if your safari provider or one of their camps takes you to a store, contact the safari provider and or the camp if you are unable to resolve the issue with the store. It is in the safari provider’s/camp’s best interest to help resolve your complaint.

In that regard, we appreciate the assistance of Mr. Nick Jenkins at African Travel Resources, http://www.africatravelresource.com/. His diligent assistance surly assisted in the resolution of our issue.

bat

Hi BillBJr--you traveled on an ATR arranged trip? How was it? Where did you go?