My husband and I have just got back from a safari in Kenya which turned out to be nightmare in which we were ripped off by Mount Safaris. I hope that my review will ensure that no-one else has to have the same experience. We booked a 7 day lodge safari which cost $US 200 per day per person.

On the first day while we were still in Nairobi, Jeremiah (the owner of Mountsafaris) informed us that the lodge safari that we were doing actually wouldn't involve staying in lodges - rather it meant that we would be staying in permanent tent camps. This was the first time that he had told us this - in all our previous correspondance he had said that we were staying in lodges or budget hotels, so we felt as though we had been lied to and tricked into doing a camping safari. We were not prepared for camping or staying in tents - we had packed for staying lodges not tents.

Jeremiah also told us that a girl that he was training would be coming on safari with us because she was doing a tourism course. We found out later that she was actually his girlfriend and that she was just coming along for the ride - she was not studying tourism and he was not training her.

We stopped at Lake Naivasha to do a hippo safari which was not included in the tour price. We had to pay an extra $100 for a 1hr boat ride on the lake. We later found out that the boat company only charges $40 and that the extra $60 goes to Jeremiah!!

We stayed at the Fisherman's Camp near Lake Naivasha in a banda which costs $40 per night yet we were paying $400 a day for our safari.
While at the Maasi Mara we stayed at Mara Springs Camp in one of the basic tents without an ensuite. These tents cost about $80 per night, before booking we had been lead to believe that all accomodation that we would be staying in would have private facilities. We couldn't understand where our $400 a day was actually going - certainly not on accomodation!!

For the last two nights of our safari we were told that we would be camping. We told Jeremiah that we were unhappy about this because we had booked a lodge safari and not a camping safari. He said that he might be able to change the booking and get us into a 3 star hotel - which would cost us an extra $100 per night - on top of the $400 a day that we had already paid. Upon arrival at the hotel we went and asked the staff how much a double room costs and they told us that it was only $44 per night. So Jeremiah was going to charge us a $100 a night for a room that only costs $44 per night!!! So you can see that he was just trying to take advantage of us.

Fortunately the driver that we had was excellent and really made the game drives worth it. Our cook was also great. These two guys did all the hard work and made the experience worth it - but they were hardly getting paid anything.

I wonder if anyone else has had similar experiences to us.

We just felt as though we were lied to by Jeremiah for the whole trip. We would never have booked the safari with Mount Safaris if we knew that we would be camping - we would have booked with another company.

we would like to know more of such complains.