more. ", Photo: Justin Norman (used under Creative Commons license), Photo: Jaime Serrano (used under Creative Commons license). What can I do for medical care while I am in Tanzania, What to pack - how can I squeeze in everything I want to take. ET African Journeys -- too good to be true? But we booked out trip already. Concerned with this misrepresentation, we started asking questions and for weeks we received marketing gibberish (and quite disparaging and unprofessional comments about their competitors) in response. Tanzanian Maasai communities of Mondorosi, Soitsambu, and Sukenya. If the evidence produced in this legal action shows that Thomson or its owners knew that the villages had a rightful claim to Sukenya Farm, or that they willingly contributed to violent abuses, then it can help the Maasai to reclaim their land and livelihoods and prevent further harms. Still I feel like they fill an important niche. I wonder now if next time I will but the cheaper one. Who manufactures the riot control weapons used on Black Lives Matter protestors? I agree with Noexpert, there are always two sides to a story. I bought the more expensive one. We had a very poor experience with Thomson Safaris and cancelled our contract with them before the trip. "The water on that land is a precious resource that our cattle need to survive, and our families need to grow crops. Never mistake price for quality, it doesn't always follow. Karl I agree they probably charge more and keep more. We had a great experience with them a few years ago and when we decided to go back to Kili, there was no second choice for us. The fact that they have loyal, happy employees tells me that Thomson has to be doing something right. I emailed Thomson - and they denied they made any comments about us to Nature Discovery and continue asserting they do not object to us climbing with them! The villagers claim that the acquisition was never legalized because TBL did not follow required conditions, such as compensating the landowners, and in any event used only a tiny fraction of the land, leaving the local pastoralists to continue grazing their cattle as they always had done. They also claim that local police beat and arrested villagers for trying to return to the land, and that they did this with Thomson’s full knowledge and cooperation. In one of our conversations, I mentioned that I was concerned by the lack of online reviews and noted I might post one. THINKING OF GETTING A HENNA PAINTING WHILE YOU ARE IN TZ? Thomson says it bought the land from TBL "in an open bidding process", $5,000 and up for short visits to Tanzania, land Thomson took is crucial for our people, Thomson Safaris' guards, sometimes reinforced by the police, started harassing herders, Ortello Business Corporation from the United Arab Emirates attempted to seal a deal that would have displaced 48,000 indigenous Maasai, 1.8 million people signed a protest letter, Serengeti has become the world's biggest zoo, in which the Maasai warriors are reduced to decorative walk-on parts, CorpWatch interviews Anna Feigenbaum on the role of private sector companies that manufacture riot control weaponry, Pandemic Helps Expose Boohoo for Underpaying UK Immigrant Garment Workers. Two days of lying and then they acknowledged they acted behind our backs in violation of their promise. Two days later, the agent informed us that Thomson called Nature Discovery, made numerous insulting comments about us and "forced them," according to our agent, to cancel the booking. And how do I handle bites? Now that I have a bit more experience, I realize that Thomson is at the higher end price wise but delivers a great trip. Frustrating experience with Thomson Safaris, Re: Frustrating experience with Thomson Safaris, Get answers to your questions about Tanzania, If you have started to plan a safari, here's some good tips on how to go about this>, Can I take a drone there to use for photography. If you are a resident of another country or region, please select the appropriate version of Tripadvisor for your country or region in the drop-down menu. To review the Tripadvisor Forums Posting Guidelines, please follow this link: http://www.tripadvisor.com/pages/forums_posting_guidelines.html. Now, with more experience, I would probably find something at least as good for less money. When Maasai villagers in Tanzania accused a Massachusetts-based safari company of land-grabbing and violence, we filed an FLA action to obtain documents and testimony from the company. Two days of lying and then they acknowledged they acted behind … ta.queueForLoad : function(f, g){document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', f);})(function(){ta.trackEventOnPage('postLinkInline', 'impression', 'postLinks-32325673', '');}, 'log_autolink_impression');Tanzania, but their customer service in the US was unprofessional, unethical and consistently misleading. ta.queueForLoad : function(f, g){document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', f);})(function(){ta.trackEventOnPage('postLinkInline', 'impression', 'postLinks-46174505', '');}, 'log_autolink_impression');Gibbs Farm afterall and that wasn't cheap. Two days later, the agent informed us that Thomson called Nature Discovery, made numerous insulting comments about us and "forced them," according to our agent, to cancel the booking. Frustrated about not getting any answers, we confronted Thomson directly and discovered that instead of getting a "discount" on their regular package, as they offered, they signed us up for a budget trip and removed most of their famous and highly-advertised features without notice to us (we would have loved budget option, if the choice was made by us under full disclosure).