Adventure Holiday to Rwanda & Kenya

Overall, our trip was excellent. We score 4/5 rather than 5/5 because: We are aware it was less expensive but the Saruni Mara camp was far inferior to the Elewana Sand River as follows: a) It was a long way to the start of game drives, up to an hour every time we left the camp b) The Land Rover vehicles that were used were very old and very uncomfortable, bordering on unpleasant at times. They had bench seats and no passenger doors, requiring an awkward climb, difficult for older people. The wooden steps used to help the initial climb into the vehicle were unsafe and falling to pieces c) The Elawana Sand River vehicles were brand new Toyota Land Cruisers with a permanent cold box containing beer and soft drinks; there were nor drinks of any kind available on the Saruni Mara vehicles. d) The food was OK, but only OK. There was no choice of starter, main course or desert at lunch and dinner, and we were not advised of the menu until the food arrived, giving no opportunity to ask for a substitution e) Our guide/driver was not great; he was relatively uncommunative and unwilling to consider swapping us to the one vehicle that they had with doors and bucket seats, even for our full day trip and even though our party of four included the three oldest people in the camp at the time. f) The organisation was lacking at times; it just didn't feel a slick as the other camp and the hotel in Rwanda g) The staff came across as surly at times The rooms were very good. The representatives in Nairobi, Cheli and Peacock, were excellent apart from they stored our luggage in their office at WIL when we went to the Maasai Mara; they were supposed to liaise for Hemingways to collect our luggage before we arrived back at WIL but they didn't. Our flight back to Nairobi from Mara North was very late and the Cheli and Peacock office was closed. We did however get lucky as the member of staff who had closed the office was about fifty metres away and was called back by a third party to assist us, otherwise we may have had to leave our luggage behind. Also, the Hemingways driver assigned to collect us from WIL was waiting at the SafariLink terminal at WIL but we were travelling with Air Kenya. Note that we were advised at Mara North airstrip during our wait of nearly three hours without any water that AirKenya was unreliable and we would have been much better advised to travel with SafariLink.