We have just returned from our fourth safari with Africa Dream Safaris and this safari was just as wonderful as the first one. Africa and ADS never fail to impress. We choose Africa Dream Safaris because we know that everything will be taken care of. There is nothing left to chance. No worries that we will not be met at the airport or miss our flights or share a jeep with people with dissimilar interests or have limited game viewing time.

When ADS says that you have unlimited time and mileage for game drives, they mean it. The rains this year have confused the wildebeest and they have been a bit off of their normal migration pattern, but it turned out that that was of little concern because we were able to drive to where the migration was.

Before leaving for our safari, we had been reading about the migration and were a bit worried that we might miss it, however, we were able to do several game drives into the heart of the migration. Each day we were out at 6 a.m. and didn’t return until the evening.

Africa even had a few surprises for us. We saw two animals that we had never seen before. We saw a caracal and two aardwolves. The caracal was very shy and the aardwolves were off in the distance so both were a bit difficult to photograph, but were still wonderful to watch through binoculars. We also saw a rather large monitor lizard. This was only the second time seeing the lizard. Then, of course, we saw all of the other animal delights of the Serengeti – lion, leopard, cheetah and the rest.

New to us this year was spending two nights at the African Tulip in Arusha – one night before the safari and one night after the safari. The African Tulip is a wonderful luxury boutique hotel with a nice African theme. The rooms were wonderful and the staff was very friendly and attentive. We would highly recommend the African Tulip.

The entire safari would not have been what it was without our wonderful guide, Ellison. Ellison was kind, attentive, funny, open to sharing information about himself and his culture, an extremely skilled driver, and very knowledgeable about the animals and their behavior and especially about the many, many birds that we saw.

On our free day in Arusha, Ellison took us on a walking tour of Arusha that was almost as exciting as seeing the Serengeti. Ellison made our safari what it was. Ellison, thank you so much.

We also want to thank Michael Wishner for helping us put together this safari. Michael’s suggestions have always turned out to be spot on and we thank him for that. ADS, you are the best!

Sandra and Jim M.
Torrance, California
April 21, 2016 to May 3, 2016