Zara Tanzania AdventuresReviews of zaratours.com

Very good and reliable Company. With daily medical protocol and feedback system. They took so much care. I had also a great Guide who made the difference to other teams

Zara was great! Guides and porters were lovely. I did not like the way tipping was done. sitting at a table and sort of negotiating the tip. I would have liked to give some money to the porters personally, but they were never seen after our return to the hotel. Other then that, it was a great experience!

Nice people,we were well taken care of.

Rongai Route with Zara Tours We did the Rongai Route over 7 days with Zara Tours. I am a retired professor and am used to giving grades so I will rate various aspects. Meet at airport - Zara representative was right there to meet us. We had to wait quite a while for the vehicle, however. I can see that Zara wants to wait to make sure people arrive but it was still a long wait. Overall grade:B Zara supplied equipment Sleeping bag and pad - We rented sleeping bags from Zara. I will admit that I have difficulty coping with cold. I do have a silk sleeping bag liner that is supposed to add 5 degrees C warmth to a sleeping bag. The bag was supposed to be rated to -30 degrees C. It certainly did not seem that way to me. I was awake shivering all night for several nights. Even my husband, who is from Minnesota ,was cold at times. The problem might be the pad. Although it was comfortable, I felt like I lost a lot of heat through the bottom. Zara is losing a business opportunity here. They could rent higher quality equipment for more money. I knew I had trouble with cold and certainly would have paid more for better equipment but none was available. Overall grade: F (yes, it was that bad!) Tent - by contrast the tent was a thing of beauty. It had a central sleeping area, which was completely enclosed, and two alcoves with dirt floors. The larger alcove was our dining room. The central sleeping area was roomy for two people. It rained torrents (during the “dry” season) but the inside of the tent stayed nice and dry. Overall grade: A Personnel I am lumping the guides and porters together because they were uniformly excellent. Guides knew names of birds and plants , although sometimes just the scientific name. They set a good pace for us that was not too fast. Porters were very efficient getting everything set up before we arrived at camp. Zara must be doing something right to get fine people to work for them. Overall grade: A Food Quantity: I am breaking this up because there were good and bad aspects to the food. Because of Zara’s size, they are able to do resupply on the mountain. Thus, we had plenty of food. Fresh fruit was served at every meal. Overall grade : A Quality: Well you definitely eat to live, not live to eat on this trip. Breakfast was nearly the same every morning. Other meals had little variety. The cook was not great. Some things, like dried peas, were not cooked enough to reconstitute. We did not get sick from food though so preparation was not unsanitary. Overall grade: C Logistics Zara runs like clockwork. The vehicle left promptly for the trek. The porters were always great getting things taken down and set up again. Overall grade: A Zara has fine personnel and logistics. If you have your own equipment you should consider them. Otherwise maybe look elsewhere.

I went on a 7 day trip, arranged by Kipling Travel(Denmark) and Zara tours in Tanzania. I highly recommend both! Especially all the guys working tirelessly to make our trek as comfortable and memorable as possible. The guides and the porters did a fantastic job all the way through the days and naturally through the top-night, where they secured a successful trip to the top of Kilimanjaro, so that we all could enjoy the harvest of our efforts from the night walk and the beautiful sunset at the exact moment, when it lit the sky! Go see Tanzania and the Mount Kibo!