volcanoes gorilla safaris: scheduled or tailored?

Old Mar 27th, 2007, 01:24 PM
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volcanoes gorilla safaris: scheduled or tailored?

Has anyone done the tailored gorilla safari? It's about $500 more per person than the scheduled, and I'm wondering if it's worth it. I know you get handed off to the Park Service in both cases for the trek itself - but are there likely to be fewer people? Any other advantages?
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Old Mar 27th, 2007, 03:25 PM
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I went on a tailored trip with Volcanoes Safaris in August 2003. I was able to customize my own trip, visiting Queen Elizabeth NP, Bwindi and PNV, and I was able to travel without strangers -- only my guide and myself on my trip.
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Old Mar 27th, 2007, 03:46 PM
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I and my husband did the tailored or private safari with Volcanoes last December. It sure was nice to have our own guide just for ourself for 16 days. We pretty much followed their Classic program, but could stop and deviate as we pleased. And Francis, our guide was superb.
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Old Mar 27th, 2007, 04:37 PM
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But did this include your own personal trek to the gorillas? Or were you with the Park Service guides and a group at that point?
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Old Mar 27th, 2007, 04:51 PM
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If you are doing nothing more than going to the gorillas for a couple of visits, I think a scheduled trip would make the most sense in Rwanda, considering the cost of $500 more for a private trip. You'd be sharing an approximately 3 hour ride to and from PNV with others.

If you want to do more than 3 treks, you might need to do a private trip because finding others who share your interests could be hard.

If you are driving from Entebbe or Kampala, Uganda to Bwindi and stopping along the way at Queen Elizabeth or elsewhere, then there are more options and you may want to be in control with your own trip. The $500 may be worth it.

When you ask are there likely to be fewer people with your own trip--The number of people on your gorilla visit is not related to the number of people in your vehicle. More people can be added or vehicle members can be divided up among gorilla groups. Spouses and travel partners would stick together usually.

I did a hybrid of what you are proposing in 2002 and in 2004. I designed my own trip that was not typical of the scheduled itineraries, but then wholeheartedly agreed to have it marketed to others to make it more affordable for me. I agreed to pay the whole cost as a solo if no one else joined me. In both cases others did join me and the trip cost substantially less than going alone, which helped me out a lot.

In 2002 the trip included chimp habituation walks in Kibale and 4 gorilla visits in Bwindi. In 2004 the trip included the bat cave in Queen Elizabeth, 2 Kazinga Channel trips at different times of the day, 4 Bwindi visits, and 4 PNV visits in Rwanda.

If you do chimp walks (whether habituation or not) in Kibale, Uganda you are handed off to the Park Service people and 4-6 people can go, as I recall. Same for the swamp walks there where you are handed off.

The Kazinga Channel cruise in QE, Uganda is on a boat with its own captain and channel guide and people other than those in your vehicle. You are handed off.

If you do the chimp walks in QE's Chambura Gorge, you are handed off to Park Service people and 4-6 people can go, I believe.

To answer tailored or scheduled, I'd like to know what the itinerary is to determine how much more per day it is. Also how many of you are going. The $500/person is for the whole trip, right?
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Old Mar 27th, 2007, 06:24 PM
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We did a scheduled safari with Volcanoes in January of this year. The way it ended up, we were with one other couple (from Vancouver), so we traveled with them for the duration of the trip (8 days). Our trip included 4 gorilla treks (2 in Rwanda and 2 in Bwindi), but the treks themselves are conducted by the park rangers, not Volcanoes, which means that we could have visited different gorilla groups than our Canadian companions (and we did), and there were additional tourists from other tour companies who accompanied us on our treks (since each group gets 8 visitors and they were fully booked every day we were there). The advantage of a tailored tour, I think, is that you would travel alone with your guide (if you don't want to deal with other people) and you could deviate from their pre-planned itineraries (if you wanted to do that). But it won't impact your gorilla trekking experience, because that is controlled solely by the ORTPN or UWA guides.
By the way, Volcanoes is an excellent choice. Every part of our trip was superb with them.
Chris
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Old Mar 27th, 2007, 06:41 PM
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Your question was answered by several posters. Nobody can do a personal trek to see the gorillas unless of course, you're Bill Gates! He did this on July 17, 2006 with Francois at VNP in Rwanda. They have this fact pinned on the announcement board at ORTPN.
We did a private tour of the chimps in the Budongo Forest because we changed the itinerary in the last minute. Francis was able to arrange this for us. That's the beauty of a private trip. Your Volcanoes guide does not track gorillas with you, unless you buy him a permit. He waits for you wherever you emerge after the trek.
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Old Mar 28th, 2007, 04:17 AM
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Thank you everyone - this board is so amazingly helpful (I planned a month in Australia using this forum and found the same thing!). One more question (and I'm sure I'll have more about the other parts of our trip (South Africa and Botswana) later): the two time frames we're considering for the Rwanda portion are late June/early July (2008) or late September. What are the pros and cons of each time?
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Old Mar 28th, 2007, 10:29 AM
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I did a personal solo trek in Uganda once! Couldn't believe it. I was supposed to go with about 3 other women who were part of a group of 6. They could not bear to be broken up, so their guide got them back together which left me all alone!

Late June and early July have been outstanding times for me.

Deviating from the topic at hand... BobbieHarv, Did you do lots of wildlife stuff in Australia too? Do you know about a place called something like Pebbly Beach where the kangaroos hop around on grass in front of a beach with surf? I was there once for a brief stop but can't remember the specifics of the place.

That makes me a tourist. "A traveler doesn't know where he is going and a tourist doesn't know where he has been."
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