dgenep

My son and I are planning an Oct safari. Does anyone have experience using the following outfitters: UK company Tanzania Odyssey and Tanzania company Tanzania Adventure. Please give me your thoughts on best or must see/do places for Oct timeframe. thanks

waynehazle

I was in Tanzania in October 2005. (don't know this company) Great weather. Didn't see the migration, but saw enough wildebeests. Saw LOTS of everything else.

Crater was great. Have your guides get you down there as EARLY as possible.

lerasp

we went to Tz with Good Earth. They were excellent - price was very competitive, the guide and the car were both great and they were very responsive during the planning.

BillonSafari

Our family (2 adults and 2 children aged 14 and 17) used Tanzanian Odyssey for our safari in July 2006. On their recommendation we overnighted in Dar, went to Selous Safari Camp, then flew to Mwagusi in Ruaha and ended up in Zanzibar (staying at Ras Nuwngi and Emerson & Green).

All of the arrangements were excellent and we all felt that we benefited from their excellent local knowledge. While we did have some delays on local flight from Dar to Zanzibar, their local operator, Coastal Aviation was able to reschedule our flight and even volunteered to phone Ras Nuwngi to reschedule our pick-up.

In short, we were extremely pleased with Tanzanian Odyssey and will use them for our next trip to Africa.

If you want any further details please let me know.

dgenep

What are the "must see" places in Zanzibar for a 3 night sidetrip as extension to our safari.
Thanks to those responding so far.

Leely

re: Zanzibar. It depends what you want to do. We stayed in Stone Town for two nights and on the beach on the east coast for three nights. At the beach we just relaxed and decompressed, not to mention de-dusted, from the safari. Stone Town has a fascinating history but is a bit intense. I liked it but not everyone does. People say it's "touristy."

Jozani forest.

Spice tour. I didn't care for this. Not my bag.

Diving--depends on time of year and easier from certain spots on the island.

Cruise through the mangrove forest.

Tours in Stone Town. I didn't arrange this and wished I had. Really would have appreciated doing more in the town itself. I was just so tired of arranging things ahead of time at that point. Then we got to Stone Town and it was hot hot hot and I didn't do/see as much as I would have liked.

Have fun. Tanzania's a fantastic country. I've been twice and would go back in a heartbeat.

worldarc

we also used Tanzania odyssey for our honeymoon safari last year and they were just amazing. I needed to get this trip just right and with their help it was !

allycb

Was in Tanzania in Sep 2005 for a Northern Circuit + Zanzaibar extension tour. The safari we organised with Bobby Safaris, a local Tanzanian operator and we organised the Zanzibar bit by ourselves.
The itinerary was:
Lake Manyara (1 night)
Serengeti (3 nights)
Crater (1 night)
Tarangire (2 nights)
Stone Town (2 nights)
East Coast resort (3 nights)
As the previous posts have implied, this is all very personal, but my advice based on the experience of the holiday would be:
- try to fly into Kilimanjaro International Airport and leave from Dar-es-Salam. I believe you can do this with KLM on an open-jaw ticket.
- do include Tarangire. October is an excellent month due to the elephant population and I especially enjoyed this park.
- if I went to Zanzibar again, I would just stay in Stone Town which made a real change to the days on safari (ie being able to get out and about). My essential trip would be to Jozani forest and the Kizimkazi trip to see the dolphins. This can be a full one-day trip.
- book your flights asap especially the connections with Zanzibar. We ended up having a very bad last day connection from Zanzibar to Nairobi, which effectively made us lose half-a-day's holiday - a precious item when you are trying to make the most of limited time.
If you would like to ask any further questions, please feel free!!

Treepol

Leely,

could you write some more about the mangrove forest cruise - what did you see and where did you book this? I've not heard of this activity before and it is something that I would be interested in doing.

Thanks,

Pol.