“Amazing tour!!! Beautiful scenery. Great add on tours. Great guides”

Posted 3 months ago

Happy to hear Jenn!

Posted 3 months ago

“The trip "Capetown and Safari Express" was exciting from the time we landed in the beautiful city of Capetown, South Africa to the day we left from the awesome rustic lodge in Johannesburg. Accommodations were lovely in both locations. Beautiful and delicious breakfasts (included) were hosted daily. My favorite were the made to order omelets and the delicious coffee. The welcome dinner at a local restaurant was very special. Optional activities or excursions were easy to book. I enjoyed the Table Mountain and City tours. The views were breathtaking. In Johannesburg at the rustic and well appointed lodge, scrumptious meals and exiting daily safaris led by knowledgeable and experienced rangers was the order of the day. I was very pleased that we observed and photographed numerous animals including 4 of the big 5. Beautiful sunsets and stunning sunrises added more amazement to the experience. On the final day, a visit to Pretoria where we saw historical and government sites as we learned about South African culture and politics. This was more than I expected and a great value for the price of this trip.”

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Posted 1 year ago

Thank you so much for your wonderful 5 star rating! We are so glad you enjoyed the stunning scenery of South Africa and the exciting safaris. We are thrilled you experienced it all.

Posted 1 year ago

“This trip was amazing! A must do for all...the beauty of the people and the country is unparalled. It's truly a once in a lifetime experience. The guides we had for our excursions were truly amazing. These people are full of knowledge about the history of the country and share that with you. You get much more than you pay for when booking the excursions. The guides are friendly, love to answer questions and again just jam pack you with so much knowledge about the history of the country. Highly recommend booking the excursions with SmarTours. The travel was also very well organized and the accommodations exceeded our expectations. Our hotel in Cape Town was beautiful and centrally located to just about everything, we walked a block to catch the Hop on Hop off bus tour, walked to the Pub that was on the corner for drinks one evening, and walked to dinner. The breakfast buffet was delicious and had just about everything. Once we arrived and the Mongena Lodge our trip got even better. The location was amazing! The rooms were wonderful and unique, and the staff was fantastic! The game drives were our favorite part of the whole trip, our Ranger Alex was full of knowledge about not only the Big 5, which we saw 3 out of 5, but also about the birds and the foliage as well. It was truly wonderful, we will be back with friends to support this wonderful place. We also wanted to give a big big BIG kudos to Darryl our Jo'burg guide. He was SO friendly and SO full of knowledge and made our trip truly special and captured the spirit of the people of SA. He was amazing and we feel like we made a friend for life. I cannot say enough good things about that man...he is fantastic!!! We had such an amazing experience. Do not hesitate to book this tour, the country is beautiful and very safe. Cape Town is a super cool, super hip, super trendy town with beautiful people, and the Safari is truly a once in a lifetime experience. We are already planning to book another tour with friends this time around. Thank you so much SmarTours and all your staff and partners. The only negative I have is that we wish that we were able to upgrade our seat assignments prior to travel. We would have no issue paying for the upgrades to get seats together with the people we are traveling with and for more seat room - especially for a 16 hour flight! So if there's anyway to improve upon that. If not for the travel restrictions on seat upgrades this would be a 5 star review. 4 1/2 stars all around.”

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Posted 1 year ago

Thank you for your amazing review! It was such a pleasure to host you.

Posted 1 year ago

“I booked three Tours over three years and SmarTours has cancelled each trip and issuing a small credit towards the "next trip" that they also cancel! Now we are stuck in a cycle of booking tours that we will never get because SmarTours always cancels the trip. Money has been thrown away, just wasted a lot of cash! SmarTours refuses to refund any portion of our payments. SmarTours is the worst company ever, just horrible all around!! User's recommendation: BEWARE! STAY AWAY!!”

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Posted 1 year ago

Hello. I have forwarded your reviews to our customer care team to address the latest issue with your South Africa trip. Upon review, the destination for your first trip was closed to tourists in 2020 due to COVID (as were the majority of countries). You then rescheduled to a later date and different destination in 2020 that unfortunately did not reopen that year either. As you can imagine, constant changing protocols due to the pandemic have upended the travel industry, and we have tried hard to mitigate the challenges as they arise. We apologize that you feel we have in any way been untruthful as that is far from our intentions. I have sent your complaint to our management team to review.

Posted 1 year ago

“I booked three Tours over three years and SmarTours has cancelled each trip and only issuing a small credit towards the "next trip" that they also cancel! Now we are stuck in a cycle of booking tours that we will never get because SmarTours always cancels the tours. Money has been thrown away, just wasted a lot of cash! SmarTours refuses to refund any portion of our payments. SmarTours is the worst company ever, just horrible all around!! User's recommendation: BEWARE! STAY AWAY!! SCAM COMPANY!!”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 year ago

Hello. I have forwarded your reviews to our customer care team to address the latest issue with your South Africa trip. Upon review, the destination for your first trip was closed to tourists in 2020 due to COVID (as were the majority of countries). You then rescheduled to a later date and different destination in 2020 that unfortunately did not reopen that year either. As you can imagine, constant changing protocols due to the pandemic have upended the travel industry, and we have tried hard to mitigate the challenges as they arise. We apologize that you feel we have in any way been untruthful as that is far from our intentions. I have sent your complaint to our management team to review.

Posted 1 year ago

“My wife and I took their Cape Town and Safari Express tour to South Africa for our honeymoon. It was a trip of a lifetime. I really enjoyed being able to choose the optional tours in Cape Town or just doing our own thing. The guides were very knowledgeable and helpful. The hotels were excellent. We saw the big 5 on the safari and more! I will definitely look into traveling with SmarTours again.”

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Posted 6 years ago

“What a trip! Cape Town and Safari express trip was incredible! Being a first timer with this tour group, I was skeptical, especially with their reasonable prices. I paid $1,799.00 for a 9 day trip to Africa, where other companies are charging between 3 or 4 thousand dollars for this trip. So, I decided to make sure they were a legitimate operation, so I went to their NYC office to check it out. It was a pretty large operation in a nice office, so I decided to book the trip. We went to Cape Town, Johannesburg, and Pretoria. The Safari was amazing, and the prices couldn't be beat. I learned so much about South Africa. I would like to return again, next time bring my daughter, and maybe take one of the longer trips in their brochure.”

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Posted 6 years ago

“Just returned from Cape Town and my family and I had a great time! We signed up for all the optional tours and were on the go the first 3-4 days but it was well worth it. Dress warm for Table Top Mountain. If you want to enjoy a little night life go down to Long Street. The African Cafe is a must if you want to try true South African cuisine and African music. If you are willing to get up really early try and watch the sun rise on Signal Hill....its so beautiful. Once you leave Cape Town the remaining of the trip slows down. Day 6 is a full day of travel. It would have been nice to drive around or visit a monument/place in Johannesburg. If you luck up to get Rufas as your tour guide at Kruger Park you are in for a great time.”

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Posted 6 years ago

Cape Town & Safari Express Reviews