Travellers' Reports from Botswana

This is what some of the people who have travelled to Botswana with Rainbow Tours report:

‘SERVICE FROM RAINBOW TOURS: Excellent.
Stanley’s Safari Lodge (Zambia): Excellent comfort, service, location & facilities; good meals. We would have enjoyed the opportunity to try more local food.
Muchenje Lodge, Chobe: Excellent service and location; good comfort, meals & facilities. Fabulous Location.
Pom Pom, Okavango: Excellent. Fantastic guide who really made our holiday.
Deception Valley Lodge, Kalahari: Excellent.
OVERALL SATISFACTION: Excellent.’
P. Gadie & H. Alderson, March/April 2008

‘SERVICE FROM RAINBOW TOURS: Excellent.
DOCUMENTATION & SURFACE HANDLING: Excellent.
OVERALL SATISFACTION: Excellent.
Lisa, many thanks for an excellent trip!!'
Craven & Halsall, March 2008

‘SERVICE FROM RAINBOW TOURS: Excellent. Very fast turnaround time re answers to any questions.
OVERALL SATISFACTION: Excellent.
Duba Plains: Excellent comfort, service, meals, location & facilities. Great stuff.
Kwando: Excellent location; good comfort, service and facilities. The guide was so-so, especially compared to Duba. The food was OK, not spectacular.
Table Mountain Lodge (Cape Town): Excellent comfort, service, meals, location & facilities.
Great trip. I would definitely recommend Rainbow Tours.’
Mr & Mrs H. Roy, September 2005

'SERVICE FROM RAINBOW TOURS: Excellent. Couldn't have been any better - amazing honeymoon.
OVERALL SATISFACTION: Excellent.
Stanley Lodge: Excellent. We were the only guests - fantastic place.
Selinda Camp: Excellent.
Walking Safari: Excellent. Highlight of holiday - great recommendation.
Zibalianja Camp: Excellent.'
Mr Lund, April 2005

'SERVICE FROM RAINBOW TOURS: Good.
OVERALL SATISFACTION: Excellent.
Stanley's Camp: Comfort, location and facilities excellent. Service was at times a little overbearing - staff cleared up after us too quickly at meals.
Chief's Camp: Comfort, location and facilities excellent. Service as above.
Chobe Chilwero: Comfort, location and facilities excellent. Service as above.
Tongabezi (Victoria Falls): Comfort, service excellent. Location better than excellent. Our favourite hotel/lodge.'
Mr. Bell, April 2005

'SERVICE FROM RAINBOW TOURS: Excellent.
DOCUMENTATION: Excellent.
OVERALL SATISFACTION: Excellent.
[Botswana 12-day Bush Safari] It is difficult to know where to begin because the safari was so amazing. Where did you find Ian? What a great guy. From the time he collected us, we knew the trip was going to be exceptional, and it was. Ian made us feel at home straight away. He was professional in everything he did yet the whole experience was like being with a close friend. His knowledge of the fauna and flora was exceptional and he catered for our every need. We wanted for nothing. His assistants Reuben and Gibi worked hard, were courteous and attentive. They were a great team. We spent many hours talking about the wildlife and the different areas and environments we visited.
… Ian found us a cheetah kill on Tau Pan in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. We didn’t see the actual kill, but had seen the vultures gathering in the distance. He quickly drove us to the scene where we found a cheetah with her two cubs (quite small) feeding on a springbok – an experience of a lifetime. …
He also found us a pride of lions, and three large Kalahari male lions. Amazing. The camp at the Boteti River was beautiful, tastefully equipped. It was as though we had walked into Hemingway’s Botswana! David was an excellent host.
The two lodges we stayed in, Modumo and Camp Okuti, were luxurious. …
Modumo was the first visited. What an incredible lodge! After being collected from the landing strip and a short drive, we had a journey of 30 minutes in a mokoro … (exceptional rains had flooded the normal approach roads). The view of the lodge and cottages as we approached along the channels was breathtaking, picturesque and exciting. The staff … gave us a warm welcome, singing a greeting. A moving experience. The lodge was very comfortable, fabulous in the way it had been built and furnished, the staff polite and attentive and the food delicious and plentiful. The view from the veranda of our cottage could not have been better – facing west, we saw fabulous sunsets across the lagoon. Ola, chief guide, managed to find us 5 different cheetahs in one day of game drives.
Camp Okuti brought our trip to a luxurious end. Again the welcome awaiting us … was warm and loud, the staff lining up and singing a greeting. …
Steven Stockhall (relief manager) was on hand to welcome us … He was a mine of information and we spent many hours talking … about the problems facing wildlife in Africa. His knowledge seemed inexhaustible, and readily supplied us with reading material about the wildlife we saw… Allan, our guide, found a pride of 12 lions on our first game drive, a huge male, lionesses, young male and female cubs. A task he repeated the following morning.
… Thank you for suggesting the safari in the first place.'
Mr & Mrs E. Evans, May 2004

Looking back, I can say that for me, the trip you helped arrange to South Africa and Botswana ranks among the best vacations I have ever had. The lodge in Cape Town was charming and the Wilderness Tours people were great. We saw two prides of lions, some 7-day-old cubs, scads of elephants and giraffes, numerous impala and red lechwe and birds and warthogs and such, and even caught sight of a leopard. Linyanti was my favorite camp. K. liked it too, but she also was charmed by Jacana. We were less thrilled with Pom Pom, but the guides there were excellent and showed real concern when K. got a migraine and I developed a sinus cold.
K. and I already are talking about going back to Africa in two years, this time around July '04 to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. As we start planning for that trip, we'll get back in touch with you'
Mr & Mrs C. Webb, Washington, D.C., Nov. 2002

Thanks also for your great advice. Can you believe we had 2 separate sighting of sitatunga at Little Vumbura, and a magic sighting of aardwolf at Selinda - fantastic, and this in addition to my long held ambition to see wild dogs - we spent some magic time with them on several occasions. All this, and leopard, cheetah, lion, elephant - the list goes on and on!! Can't wait to return...
Ms. K. Petrie, October 2002

Service from Rainbow Tours: Very helpful - answered questions and very good information.
Botswana Bush Safari: Everything was very good. Sites were excellent for wildlife, etc. Meals good, cooked over open fire. Toilet & shower facilities were very good. The guide was very knowledgeable about animals and birdlife.
Ms. C. Brady, November 2002

Riding Safari: Service from Rainbow Tours - excellent. Horse Safari: Wonderful time. All was well arranged and could not be better for being in the wild.
Mr & Mrs Edwards, Sept. 2002

Bushman Safari: One of the best safaris I've done. The tour guide, Ian, was very professional, knowledgeable and good fun. A great trip!
M. Lawrence, March, 2002

We have just got back from a fantastic holiday. All of the arrangements went very smoothly and the safari exceeded all expectations. Wilderness Safaris were brilliant and we could not commend them too highly. We saw over 50 lion, including three kill sites, cheetah and leopard. The highlight was definitely a very early morning fight between lions and hyaenas over a zebra kill within 1km of our camp where we were in so close in the vehicle we almost felt part of the action. The kill was made by a lioness and four large cubs, the hyaenas displaced them the next morning only to be removed after 2-3 minutes by two male lions. We returned to the site several times and followed the kill from just after it happened, through the fight the following morning, the lioness searching all day for her scattered cubs and the zebra skeleton being crunched by crocs just after sunset.
The group of 8 people on the safari got on really well together and with the guides and that really added to the holiday.
Thanks for putting us onto this trip and if you need a reference in future we would be happy to recommend the trip.
Peter & Alison Wood, September, 2001