Most Inspirational Moment
There were so many highlights on this particular holiday.
Thoughts on Group Leader
I cannot rate our Group Leader Shane Katjirua more highly. He was extremely knowledgeable and shared so much of his expertise with us all. He was highly efficient in all his planning and organisation and was extremely helpful to all members of the group with any particular queries/questions they might have had. He was simply amazing in his ability to spot things of interest from afar, be it animals or birds and without his ‘eagle eye’ we would have missed so many things. During our time at Etosha he always seemed to have our vehicle at the right waterhole at the right time, thus enabling us to get the most enjoyment from our game drives and see so much varied wildlife. His driving, on the lengthy journeys and varying Namibian road surfaces was superb. He was always smiling and cheerful and he was particularly helpful to us with his efforts in trying to get to the root of a problem that occurred towards the end of the holiday. This involved our onward transportation, which we had paid for, in advance of the trip but which the company in Namibia, with whom we were taking the onward travel had, it seemed, not received payment for. Our guide spent some considerable time on our behalf trying to sort all this out.
Advice for Potential Travellers
On looking into various options for holidays in Namibia, I received advice from various holiday companies. Many suggested that the option to fly from camp to camp was advisable since, because of the huge distances to cover, more time could be usefully spent in the camps rather than long days travelling. I had initially thought that this sounded good advice. However, we ultimately chose Exodus and this Lodge holiday because, we have enjoyed excellent holidays with Exodus before and the timing of this trip suited us absolutely perfectly, tying in with another commitment we had in Namibia and which followed on from the ‘Discover Namibia’ group trip.
I would say, that although some of the driving days were lengthy, had we opted to fly from lodge to lodge as suggested by other companies, we would have missed so much of this wonderful country. We would not have seen so much wildlife as we travelled along the road, along with scenes of local African life in general and our experience of the country would certainly have been the poorer for that. There was just so much to see as we travelled along the road. The varying contrasts and impressive scenery would have been lost to us.
Suggestions
After a slight initial hiccup at the start of the booking process of our holiday in the UK, the organisation of the trip was very efficiently handled, especially as we had an extra requirement for the holiday that had to be factored in. This request, whilst being handled by the Senior Consultant who was dealing with our booking, all proceeded in a professional way.
Having finalised the booking and paid for the holiday, we were then handed over to a “Customer Operations Executive’, whose initial email of introduction advised me he was there for anything I might need. I sent two emails with requests for information, to which, after some time, he replied. The answer to the third query relating to baggage allowance did not reach me until we were already well into our flights to Namibia.
However, unfortunately , the most troubling issue related to a transfer we had paid for, on settlement of our final account. On discussing this onward transfer half way through the holiday with our Guide, he ascertained that although the bus company had our names down for the ongoing transfer back to Swakopmund, they had not received any payment. Not only was this most worrying, since we absolutely had to be back in Swakopmund on a particular evening but it was extremely embarrassing knowing we had paid and that no ongoing payment had been forthcoming. This resulted in our Guide having extra work to do on top of his schedule as well as myself having to send emails back to the UK, in the middle of our holiday, in order to try and find out exactly what the situation was.
I feel that perhaps a bit more attention might have been given to the emails together with ensuring that all details relating to the booking were finalised and complete.
