Good morning, Yes, we are back and had a wonderful vacation!  I'll give you our honest feedback.  We just loved Kirkman's Kamp.  In truth we actually saw more animals just driving in our rental car through Kruger National Park ourselves, but the experience of the drive was awesome.  For example, we saw a leopard eating it's impala kill and had the ability to sit under it in our land rover for about 45 minutes while a hyena was nearby.  This is something we wouldn't have seen on our own car drive.  The staff there gave us first class treatment - with greeting us as we arrived and giving us fresh moist towels to clean up with.  For the game drive, we loved the touch of having hot water bottles and blankets to keep us warm! They wound up giving us two game drives (we thought there was just one evening one and a walk). The food there was excellent and the room/accommodations superb.  Everyone needs an escort to their room as animals can be everywhere.  In fact, they said the night before a lion chased an impala through their camp! Too bad we couldn't have afforded another night because we might have been able to spot the only animal of the big five we never got to see, the lion. Riley's Rock was unique.  My sister was disappointed with it initially feeling it was too 'rustic', but the rest of us really loved the look and 'feel' of it.  She wound up coming around to really loving it - who wouldn't with all the dinners under the stars around a fire? We were blessed with having our first dinner with Ted Riley himself.  Apparently he had guests that were in for some important conservation business and it allowed for some very serious and interesting dinner conversation with all of us...a great and memorable experience. Interestingly, they asked about how we booked their hotel and we told them about you (and they were quite grateful).  How had you heard about them?  We also loved the Swaziland excursions we took through Swazi-Travel. Kosi-Forest Lodge though beautiful, was probably our least favorite.   The place was truly lovely yet simplistic. We loved the look of the tiki torches around so we can find our room at night.   It would be a much better place to stay in the spring or summer as it was too cold to go snorkeling.  It was also more geared for honeymoon couples. The food was tasty and it's presentation very nice. Thula Thula was nice, though disappointing for game viewing.  If I had it to do over again, I would have stayed one day there (just because my wife read the book), and two days at a big game reserve hotel.  They don't have the big 5 there - and really the main thing to see is their signature elephants, which are breathtaking.  The tracker and driver were magnificent, but they excelled more on the bush walks.  We only got to see elephants and rhino there...they have no lions and in 3 game drives we never saw buffalo or leopard either.  In fact they hadn't seen a leopard since last December.  The tented accommodations were nicer, in our opinion, then Kosi-Forest Lodge. They were bigger.  Both had family tents, which might have been preferred for us - if less expensive.  The meals were good and we especially liked that there was a game meat option each day. We wound up downloading the South Africa map for our GPS and we are glad we did.  While it wasn't perfect, it did fill in missing spots when using the directions provided. The GPS did wind up giving us totally wrong directions to Thula Thula though. Looking back, it would have been better doing the trip in reverse...as it is hard to top seeing so many animals (Kruger and Kirkman's Kamp). Again, thank you so much for organizing the trip for us - it was really a once in a lifetime experience and our whole family has memories that won't be forgotten! P.S. - your telephone call to us at Kosi Bay was a wonderful touch and much appreciated. The Toro family

Dear Jeffrey and Ilze, We will forward more pictures as we edit them. A friend recommended that we trek a second day, wished we had. It was an incredible experience. Be sure to tell you customers to wear really good gloves, the nettles are bothersome! I had only a knit glove that did not help. David wore very heavy gloves and he had no problem with his hands but those nasty nettles are everywhere. Makes no difference because after a certain point you forget the stings. Our mountain guide, Fidel, was great, very professional and very helpful preparing us for the trek. On the mountain we were met by 3 trackers that were equally wonderful. Our next trip will probably in 2014 unless I can talk David into an earlier one. Thank you again for making this so special. Carol

Hello Liesl Yes we have been home a week now. The holiday was a great success mainly due to you and your company. Everything worked like clock work; all flights were on time, all meet and greets worked well. All of the rangers who were our guides were pleasant and very knowledgeable. The game lodges were excellent and the rooming was ideal in most instances. We have absolutely nothing negative to say. The Children were enthralled by Africa, its people and of course the multitude of animals that they encountered. It will be an experienced that will last. You asked about Alfajiri and it was as perfect as it could be. The owners were out of town and there was no one else staying there,  so we had the whole place to ourselves. The staff were absolutely great ...as you would expect for a place like this...again though, there was a lot of complimentary stuff that we were not aware of  ( i.e all of the massages, the golf, day trips to other beaches)...but it was a perfect end to a great safari holiday. You don't handle driving holidays in Spain by any chance do you? Anne and I are off there next year. Best regards and many thanks for a job well done ! Bob and Anne Robinson

Hi Ilze- Nicole and I are back in the US and wanted to thank you again for all the help that you gave us to make our trip truly fantastic! We're happy to give you some feedback on some places that stood out to us, as well as some learnings for future travelers. I'll also try to address your questions in the respective sections. Below is a quick summary: South Africa

• Cape Town accommodations were fine. Nothing "special" but we knew that going in. It was very comfortable, clean and convenient.
• The lodge in Franschhoek was really nice.
• The Elephant Lodge was a really nice location. Very unique and charming.
• You definitely warned us about the distance between all locations - we probably should of listened. While it was great to see the towns that we did, it was often after a long day of driving only to have to leave again first thing in the morning.
• All in all, the locations and lodges were all lovely in S. Africa.

Zambia

• Everything was amazing! LOVED Islands of Siankaba.

Mozambique

• We've already given feedback here. It was an amazing island. Beautiful, tranquil, etc.
• The Banguerra Lodge had a lot of potential. It was beautiful, the food was good.

Kenya

• We really loved the Stanley.
• Travel time between parks.

Overall Feedback Aside from the above, we were very very happy with all the other elements of our trip (food, boarding, activities, transfers). That said, we thought we’d summarize some things that may have made our trip a bit more seamless so that you can pass along to future customers. Looking forward to connecting at your convenience. Thanks again for your help in planning a truly amazing, life changing trip. I hope the feedback above is helpful, and in the context that it was intended - which is that all in all, we are VERY happy. Have a great day. Colby

Dear Liesl, I just had to write to thank you for the magnificent planning of our honeymoon - this trip was an absolute dream come true. Steve and I loved every second of it, from Cape Town (where we both want to move to now) to the perfection of Lion Sands - you could not have choreographed a more perfect itinerary. Many, many thanks again for everything - it was such a pleasure getting to meet you in person, and I hope that we'll be able to work on a return trip very soon. All best wishes, Erika