Lush Africa Safaris Anmeldelser 

I booked a great migration 3 night 4 days Masai Mara safari with Abbey of Lush African Safaris 15 months ago, paid $4700 in full 8 months ago. It is for my 50th birthday and our honeymoon.
Today, 7 days prior to travel, I’ve received an email from a lawyer in Uganda stating a 3rd party has disappeared with some of the money we have paid.
We have 4 options.
1-proceed with the original safari but pay an additional $3500
2-reschedule at no extra cost. Obviously not an option as we have international flights and a add on in Zanzibar booked
3-use an alternative tour operator at our own cost
4-request a refund but it states they are putting the company into bankruptcy so this process may involve delays

All options are unacceptable. Also as they haven’t actually filed for bankruptcy we can’t claim on our travel insurance. So we have lost £3500 and it’s ruined our honeymoon

We chose Lush Africa Safaris because of its overwhelmingly positive reviews. Unfortunately, our experience was the complete opposite, and I cannot recommend this company.
Our trip was planned by Abbey Rafsanjan, Director and Safari Consultant. Before we made our final payment, Abbey was responsive, professional, and provided what appeared to be a well-organized itinerary with detailed descriptions of every hotel and activity. Once payment was made, however, the level of service changed dramatically.
The most serious issue was that three hotels on our confirmed itinerary were changed without our knowledge or consent. In every case, the replacement hotel was of a lower rating and significantly lower nightly cost than the hotel we had paid for.
On the first night, after more than 24 hours of travel, our driver took us to a different hotel than the one listed on our itinerary. We had no reason to suspect we were being taken somewhere else. We only realized the substitution several days later when we returned to Kigali. We immediately contacted Abbey and asked that we be moved to the hotel we had originally booked. He replied that he was in a meeting and would call us back. He never did. After waiting for over an hour, we paid for rooms at the correct hotel ourselves rather than spend another night at the downgraded property.
A second hotel substitution could not be corrected because we did not discover it until we arrived.
The third substitution we caught in time, and we instructed our guide to take us to the hotel that was actually on our itinerary instead of the replacement.
We requested reimbursement for the unauthorized hotel substitutions, but our requests were ignored. Abbey stopped responding to our emails and messages altogether.
There were also problems with the activities we had paid for. Our itinerary included a morning safari, but our guide told us Abbey had never informed him about it. Had I not insisted that the safari was included in our itinerary, we would have missed an excursion that had already been paid for.
As a result, we spent the entire trip having to verify each day's schedule with our guide to make sure we would actually receive the hotels and activities we had purchased. That is not how anyone should have to spend a vacation.
Ironically, before booking, I noticed two reviews mentioning unauthorized hotel substitutions but dismissed them because there were so many positive reviews. That was a mistake. Our experience closely matched those reviews. I've learned that sometimes the negative reviews reveal problems that shouldn't be ignored.
A safari in Rwanda is an expensive, once-in-a-lifetime trip. When you pay for specific accommodations and activities, you should receive exactly what you purchased—or at the very least be notified of any unavoidable changes and compensated appropriately.
Unfortunately, that was not our experience with Lush Africa Safaris. Based on our experience, I cannot recommend this company.

I do not recommend Lush Africa Safaris. Abbey, the owner, was terrible about communication unless it involved asking for more money. He would outright lie, claiming things were booked when they weren’t, and failed to follow through on commitments and providing pertinent information. I had to repeatedly remind him about details, and his last-minute scrambling caused us significant stress and lost sleep.

The vehicle we were given in Uganda was awful—not a “luxury” vehicle at all. The seatbelts, AC, cooler, and even the armrest didn’t work. On our very first day, before we had even started the safari, we got a flat tire on the highway. Then, two days in a row, we had a dead battery, which nearly caused us to miss our chimp trekking. We lost hours dealing with these issues and waiting for a replacement vehicle. When I raised these concerns with Abbey, he dismissed them with a simple “sorry to hear about your situation with the vehicle.” This is HIS company, and according to one of our guides, he owns the vehicles. He knew—or should have known—that what he provided was neither the luxury safari vehicle he promised nor even a safe vehicle for such a trip.

He also didn’t book our flight from Kigali to Nairobi until just 36 hours before departure, despite assuring me it had been booked more than two months earlier. This caused us to have to change our itinerary at the last minute as he didn’t put us on the flight he told me we would be on. On top of that, he forgot to book our hot air balloon ride over the Serengeti—even though it had been paid for nearly a year in advance.

The one positive: the tour guides themselves were excellent, especially Derrick in Uganda. He was outstanding, and I truly hope he finds another company to work for—he’s far too good to be tied to someone who caused as much stress and disappointment as Abbey did.

5 Star Service and Experience
To say this travel was a dream come true would be an understatement! For many months, Abbey worked with us to customize our luxury safari experience. His communication the whole way led us to our "Big Five Luxury Safari". The attention to detail and planning made our stay decadent - from the incredible service, accommodation, and hospitality of the people of Kenya to the delicious foods, sights, and sounds of this beautiful country.
Our guide Sammy was absolutely first-rate! His knowledge and experience guided us to not only see the 'big five', but also countless unique nature experiences that exceeded all hopes and dreams.

Best African Safari you can buy. Tailor made for what you want to do.

I couldn’t have asked for a more amazing experience. From top to bottom, Day 1 to Day 6, we were taken care of like royalty! The sights, sounds, hotels, experiences were a dream come true.
Abbey planned the best trip possible and patiently listened to our wants and directed us to what we needed.
Sammy, our tour guide extraodanaire, had driving skills, communication, cared about our well-being, was professional, kind and the list goes on!
There’s no way to choose just one thing that stands out because each day we were blown away. It still feels like a dream.
We saw up close and personal “The Big 5” and then some. You will regret not experiencing LUSH AFRICA with LUSH AFRICA. We should be able to share photos! Outstanding! Thank you for the dream of a lifetime!

Great management, great guides for drive game.