Reports from our customers
Reports from travellers to Madagascar
'I wanted to write you this little note as a personal thank you for organising such a special trip for us. As you know, we have never used a tour company before … It simply could not have worked out better and I will not have any reservations about using you again and recommending Rainbow Tours to friends …
Domaine de Fontenay was simply beyond belief. Their hospitality and attention to detail, whilst giving us the space to relax and enjoy our room and the grounds, were perfect. I could not recommend this place highly enough to do it justice. … Of course, the proximity to the wonderful Montagne d’Ambre makes it extra special and it was here that we enjoyed the walks and the wildlife most of all. Another special mention has to go to Jacques, our guide. We had a huge amount of fun chameleon spotting … and he was also incredibly entertaining with his stories of how different animals and plants got their names, why some are now sacred, their medicinal qualities – and his cooking was superb too!
Antshow - very recommendable!'
Ms. E. Baird, Amsterdam, November 2003
‘Service from Rainbow Tours: Excellent.
Surface handling: Extremely courteous and punctual – everywhere!
Superb itinerary and the whole holiday went like clockwork.’
Mr & Mrs P. Martin, November 2003
'It was a totally wonderful holiday. The pace was just right - always something new and amazing happening, but not in a rush.
No-one managed to lose any of our luggage. All the flights were on time, except for one which was delayed for just one hour. We didn't get mugged. We didn't get stomach upsets. And, so far, we haven't caught malaria. We feel quite disillusioned.
A few things would not have happened without a very gentle prod - the trip to the baobabs, the day at Kirindy, and the camping in Andohahela. But the sight of a voucher has a magical effect. It all worked beautifully.
Everyone we met was friendly and pleased to see us - it is good to know we were putting some money into the economy, and we will be looking for other ways to help this wonderful but struggling country. There is such optimism everywhere now that the new government is in place. We came across far more 'get up and go' than I've ever seen in an African country. It was interesting to realise that they don't see themselves as African at all, but are building strong links with south-east Asia, especially Japan.
Difficult to pick out high spots, but the camping in Andohahela was very special - though it was rather incongruous to have a fantastic cook who made two three-course meals each day, plus breakfast, which necessitated a large bag containing goodness knows what, a large box full of cooking pots, a cooking stove, four storm lanterns, a propane cylinder, a green and white check tablecloth, a cool box and some (briefly) live chickens, all of which had to be carried for at least 1 km to the first camp site, as well as a tent and foam mattress for us, and also their tent. (The guide here was not very good, but he was a lovely person and we enjoyed it hugely all the same.) And we hit lucky with the Antshow evening, where we were bowled over by the live performance.
Best wishes, and huge thanks,'
Mrs. M Jones, October 2003
’I know it's ages since you sent us off to Madagascar and you've probably dealt with hundreds of people since then, but I just wanted to let you know that we had a great time. Everything worked very smoothly and we really enjoyed it. We got to see a couple of Lutheran mental health centres, really interesting, and got right out to the neck of the bay at Diego, so O. was able to imagine his father slipping through. In fact the grandfather of the guy in charge … had fought for the Vichy French, so there was much WW2 chat.
We enjoyed all the places you sent us to stay apart from the Sunny - caged lemurs - although I think you might have got a very positive report on it from another of your clients we met along the way, so I guess it takes all sorts.
You were quite right about J'burg. Thank you for insisting that we give it a go, J. and I were particularly glad that you encouraged us to go to Soweto. So thanks a lot for that and for everything, it was a remarkable few weeks.’
Mrs G. Richardson, September 2003
'Gersica [guide] was outstanding. It was a pleasure to be on a tour led by Lyn!’
A. & J. Threadgold, Madagascar Birding Tour, Sept/Oct 2003
‘Service from Rainbow Tours: Excellent.
Overall satisfaction: Excellent.
Berenty: Just superb – really glad we got two nights her (courtesy of the cancelled plane!)
Miramar: Lovely spot. Excellent lunch.
ANGAP Ampijoroa: Meals and location excellent.
Sunny Hotel, Mahajanga: Quite superb – we commented it was in the right order – the forest reserve might have been a shock after this!’
M. Cochrane, BBC Readers Wildlife Tour, September 2003
'Overall satisfaction: Excellent.
Résidence Camélia: Lovely situation in town – quiet with beautiful garden.
Relais de la Reine d’Isalo: The position of the hotel made it really special. [Excellent on all counts.]
The holiday was the most wonderful experience and we saw so much and so many things thanks to our wonderful guides (Malagasy & English). What an amazing place!
K. & R. Booth, Bradt Tour, Sept. 2003
'Service from Rainbow Tours: Excellent. Derek was superb in his help putting the tour together.
Vakona Forest Lodge: A great start to the holiday. Great log fire.
Domaine de Fontenay: One of the best places we have ever stayed. Brilliant hospitality and food.
Le Dauphin Bleu: Would loved to have stayed longer
Nosy Iranja: Paradise.
A great holiday, which worked very smoothly.'
Mr. H. Semple, September 2003
'Service from Rainbow Tours: Excellent. Very impressed with knowledge of country and speed of response to all enquiries.
Domaine de Fontenay: Really friendly people. … Marie-José … made our stay and anniversary very special.
Le Dauphin Bleu: Idyllic location; great place to recuperate after camping.
Anjajavy: Paradise!! –What a perfect hotel.
What an amazing country. We will definitely be back to see the South and would travel with Rainbow Tours again!
Mr & Mrs R. Juhasz, September 2003
'Thanks for all the help and the great service! Our trip was amazing!!! The organisation was from beginning to end really perfect.
The hotels were very good, especially Princess Bora and the Anjajavy Hotel. The Anjajavy Hotel is probably one of the best hotels I have ever been to (I have seen most of the top end hotels in Europe...).
Mr & Mrs J. Cramer, Amsterdam, Netherlands, September 2003
‘[W]e did indeed have a brilliant time and it was ideal for what we were after. The whole thing went perfectly and given the country (economy) incredibly smoothly. …[S]ome of the accommodation we stayed at was wonderful. We kind of knew what to expect on Nosy Be and Iranja with regards accommodation (having looked at internet sites) so in some ways the best places we stayed were Fontenay and Dauphin Bleu. Both were places we could have spent far longer at if only we had more time.
[I]t was a fascinating experience and unlike any other country that I have ever been to. I don't know what the future holds for it but would love to go back in the not too distant future to explore some of the east coast and south/west reserves and see how/if it’s all changing.
We will of course recommend you.’
Mr & Mrs Semple, August 2003
'An absolutely fantastic trip! Thanks so much.. a real dream realized
in the Madagascar portion.'
Mr. P. Lavoie, California, USA, August 2003
‘Best holiday ever! Thank you very much.
Lalaina and Peroné were excellent – helpful, sensitive and informative at all times.
Vakona: Meals good, but a bit monotonous. (They made me a birthday cake!! Wow!) Guide, Maurice, was fantastic.
La Varangue: Excellent. Stunning cuisine!
Ampijoroa: Camping was uncomfortable because so humid [in January], but we would do it again. The food was OUTSTANDING.
Andohahela: Guide, Christophe, was excellent.’
Mr. D. Cohen, January 2003
'Madagascar is completely wonderful, I have fallen in love with it, and want to go again, next time in the dry season I think. …
We loved all the beautiful and exotic insects, frogs, lizards, snakes and plants we saw too. The giant Coconut crab whose 'burrow' was very near to our chalet on Iranja was incredible. I don't think I would have believed a crab could be that big if I hadn't seen him with my own eyes. …
All the flights went to schedule (relief!) and the organisation generally was excellent. Lala and Lalaina were darlings - and very patient with an energetic and excitable David! The food (with the exception of the Vakona, which was fine, but unvaried, although we had been spoiled elsewhere I must admit) was as you said, delicious at Iranja, Vanilla and Palissandre. All three just could not be faulted for the pleasantness and willingness to help of the staff. I made good progress learning a few words of Malagasy with their enthusiastic help…
Thank you Derek, for organising a very special and enjoyable trip. It was well done, as I've said (in only a few words too!) and I would recommend M. as a country, and you guys to arrange it, to anyone. I want to go to Nosy Boraha and Morondava next time.'
Mrs K. Wallis & family, Dec. 2002
Service from Rainbow Tours / Documentation: Excellent.
La Varangue: A delightful hotel. Slightly old-fashioned with charming staff and lovely food. We were given a _smiling_ breakfast at 4:30 am.
Berenty: It would have been nice to stay another night there. The ringtails and sifakas were so delightful.
Hotel Le Dauphin: Looked awful outisde but was very good when inside.
Le Relais de la Reine: Excellent hotel, could not fault it.
...It was a super trip. ...Our leader Lalaina Ramaroson was very nice and gentle. ... Lala, the driver, was superb on such dreadful roads and we felt very safe with him at the wheel. Our guide at Berenty, Dodi, was very knowledgeable, even though he looked about 15 years old! ... I want to go back and see the north of the island. I shall not hesitate to recommend your company to friends or to use it again.
Ms. B. Peerman, November 2002 tour
Service from Rainbow Tours: Excellent. Derek is not only informative and helpful, but also a delightful man.
Surface handling: I can't imagine better.
Centrest: Lovely location, great people.
La Varangue: One of the best of the lot! Excellent food, comfort, service and location. ...
You did a BRILLIANT job of this.
Ms. L. Robinson, November 2002 tour
Just wanted to let you know we got back and all went well. The tour you set up was wonderful, everything was great. We were very pleased. Thank you so much for everthing. We will definitely recommend you to our friends!
Mrs. D. Workman, Texas, USA, Oct. 2002
I just got home after a tremendously successful trip to Madagascar. Roger was outstanding. Really, words can not express how wonderful this trip was. I will definitely give Rainbow Tours the strongest recommendation possible.
F. Murphy, New York, USA, September/October 2002
We all had a brilliant time. We especially want to sing the praises of Dodi and Lalaina. This was definitely the most cushy and pre-planned trip I have ever been on, but in addition to the comfort and convenience, it had the very valuable by-product of the opportunity to get to know ,and ask a zillion questions of, our Malagasy guides. You also did an excellent job planning a great itinerary for a family with kids - the right pace and great places! Without them, we might have tried to squeeze in one more forest site, but one could not be forced to relax at a better place than Ile St M/Princess Bora! A second whalewatching trip yielded spectacular sitings; D and I got to go scuba diving twice, while my parents had grandkid time on the beach. The proprieter was very solicitous, providing a babysitter every evening so that we (and the other guests!) could enjoy his excellent cooking in the absence of the little ones.
Mrs. M. McDermott, New Jersey, USA, August 2002
Colin and I had a fantastic time. Since coming home and comparing lists/notes from other tours and individual birders, we reckon we did extremely well. I ended up with 121 seen and one heard (all endems or nearly so) while Colin had another 30 or so as he hadn't been to Africa...
Roger was excellent. The advantage of having a Malagasy speaker meant that he knew all the local guides and they were not confused by our speech. Roger could tell them exactly what we wanted! Also several times he showed locals a picture and they got the bird for us!
Maurice was the best guide while Mosa (Remosa) was outstanding when in the spiny forest. Fydy was also very good but insisted on playing the tapes of a bird endlessly. A few times we got him to just play it 2/3 times and wait and he seemed surprised when the bird answered after a minute or so. Roger was also outstanding as a courier. Cars broke down and another appeared while the arrangements re flying were so smooth we were just amazed. I think we may have been lucky but all the planes were on time and so was our luggage. The hotels were very good... The best was [Domaine Nature] - those fresh-water crayfish.....
Having travelled a little in the tropics it was not the birds so much that amazed me but the sheer numbers of reptiles. Snakes, chameleons, lizards,etc., Were everywhere - wonderful. Lemurs weren't bad either!
As we got closer to mid-Dec so birds got much harder to find and to coax out as they had large young or were in moult. However truly stunning views were obtained if we found the birds - clearly they had young nearby.
I think this trip will remain in my memory forever. Thank you, Derek, for a truly great experience.
F. Hamilton, November/December 2001
Thank you, Derek, for a brilliant itinerary.
Hotel Domaine Nature: Fantastic view from room, excellent food, beautiful park, brilliant forest guide. Loved the thermal pool.
Special thanks to Lala, our driver and guide... He was such fun and made our week very special.
Motel d'Isalo: Food very poor here, but Isalo is an amazing and beautiful area.
Vovo Telo: Excellent service and lovely grounds.
Hotel Mangily: Fabulous place, natural materials again, superb view, grounds and food. Very clean.
Everything went excellently. And we got our baggage every time.
J & I Beeston, October 2001
Our guide Dan Peters was fantastic. His attitude was a credit to himself and to the tour company.
Marius Burger - his knowledge of reptiles, his efficiency and his organisation was of a commendable standard. Overall, we were very happy and satisfied with the trip.
Hotel Miramar, Fort Dauphin: The meals were excellent: served well and very tasty.
J. & M. Hawkins, Madagascar Wildlife Discovery Tour, October 2001
Service from Rainbow Tours: Friendly and helpful at all times and very adaptable.
Marius is a star, very knowledgeable, great fun and a good counselor.
Berenty [is] very run down, facilities not maintained. No shower – brown cold water was the best it got!
Dan Peters went to a lot of trouble and arranged everything really well.
Hotel Ylang Ylang turned out to be the best hotel for friendly service, lots to do and see & food was fantastic. Made lots of Malagasy friends and was made very welcome. Loved this place. No mosquito net, but I had my own, so no problem.
S. Croxton, Madagascar Wildlife Discovery Tour, October 2001
Guides were excellent, especially Dan, who put himself out at every opportunity to look after us.
Berenty: in new rooms, which were very good.
A great country – good adventure – lots of interesting plants & animals – guides excellent – local guides very friendly. A great holiday.
Linda White, Madagascar Wildlife Discovery Tour, October 2001
We feel that our answers to your questionaire do not bring out sufficiently our appreciation of the way that your company conducted this wonderful trip...Our congratulations then, on your careful planning of the itinerary, the hotels and - above all - on your choice of agents in Madagascar.... it was a holiday we will never forget. Our thanks for making it so memorable.
Margaret & Ivor Williams, Lalaina Ramaroson's Madagascar Discovery Tour, September 2001.
We had a fantastic honeymoon in Madagascar - it really was like another planet.
As far as the turtles were concerned on Nosy Iranja, it was fantastic to see them. We put our name on a list, so the students called us up when one was coming up to lay eggs late at night. We saw 2 large ones. Also they protect the eggs with wire mesh until they are ready to hatch. Apparently rather than a 5% success rate of the babies making it to the sea, they get a 50% success rate. It just seemed difficult to know when they would hatch so they could immediately be released to run to the sea, and didn't struggle trying to get out of the wire mesh. I guess its like so many conservation projects in poor countries, they just need more resources.
D. George, September 2001
Just a line to say a great big 'MISOUCH' for organising the trip of a lifetime. We were treated like royalty all round, and especially by 'Dan the man'. He was more than good, he was fantastic. (We have adopted him.) Like you, he is full of enthusiasm and extremely knowledgeable. Our other guides were good as well. We also met Marius, who is also great fun and we are considering adopting him as well.
I thought that this would be my last holiday, but I am now looking forward to your next brochure.
C. Wilkinson & S. Oulton, September, 2001
this really was a superb, extremely good value for money tour. Lyn was a lovely lady, very professional and very caring towards the group. Hery was an exceptionally pleasant and hard-working tour guide. … The local bird guides were top class and pulled out all the best birds for us. The general standards of accommodation were really good in such a poor country.
I have been on many group bird tours around the world and rate this one very highly, especially as the level of intensity was not too high, we did have lots of chances to relax and Lyn made sure we were ‘fed and watered’ and in to bed at a reasonable hour, whenever possible. … Do carry on and organize some more bird tours. I will certainly recommend you to my friends and hope to travel with Rainbow again.
Many thanks for a wonderful experience in Madagascar.
Mr. T. Davies, September, 2001
Lyn is an excellent guide, with talents far beyond bird recognition. She adds value to the animals and plants seen and deals well with the minor obstacles which arise.
Mr. & Mrs. M. Wells, September, 2001
We had a great time. The wildlife was all we wanted, and really nothing went wrong. In fact, we thought that the way you had engineered the itinerary(so that we were guided at the beginning and left to our own devices at the end)was very clever.
Also, we were flattered by your choice of guides - particularly Maurice who was stunning, sympathetic to our interests, and interested to learn what I could tell him about the insect life - he clearly loves his job, and we felt that he enjoyed himself as well. He took us into his village to meet everyone, and afterwards we found out that this is an unusual thing to do and that we were quite privileged! I think if we had more experience we would have preferred a companion guide at every new place. We got on ok though as it was, but we could have seen more with a 'proper' guide.
We saw 85 species of birds, which, considering we saw only two waders one grebe and one duck, means that we pretty much saw everything in the forests.
Mr C. Shaw, September 2001
Service: Very helpful. Brilliant at arranging exactly what we wanted. Incredibly prompt replies to emails, etc.
Sakatia Passions: Had a great time here, kayaking to coral. Food excellent.
Eco-Village, Lokobe: Loved the bungalows. Very friendly staff.
Ampijoroa: One of my favourite bits of the whole trip. Excellent guide and cook for the camping.
Mr & Mrs M. Lowe, August 2001
What a fascinating place Madagascar is and it is easy to see why those lucky people who have been there wish to return. We would certainly like to do that one day. Can I thank you and everyone else at Rainbow Tours for putting the holiday together for us. Having been there, we realise that it can't be the easiest of things to do. We thought that it was tremendous value for money and very well organised.
Robinson Family, August 2001
B. and I cannot say enough good things about Dan. He is very thorough, very calm, patient and thoughtful. He loves Madagascar and its people and wildlife and his enthusiasm is apparent in everything he does. Every place we went, he checked to make sure that everything was going all right. When, it was not, he did everything within his power to turn our problems around. Now, you know in Madagascar, that is no easy task! However, Dan made it look easy. He's just a super, nice guy, and whatever they pay him, it certainly is not enough!
Also, we all had brought baby clothes and other clothes for the orphanage and girls' home [Akany Avoko]. Dan arranged for us to deliver the packages in person, and that was a real treat for all of us. We got a chance to meet the young women and the children, and were treated to a dance recital by some of the youngsters and their teacher. The afternoon that we spent there was very special and meaningful.
Thanks again for all your good advice and attention. It was a good trip, and we wouldn't hesitate to recommend you to any of our friends or acquaintances who are interested in Africa.
P. Goldstein, New Jersey, July/August, 2001
Air Madagascar - despite its reputation, all our flights were on time and our baggage did not get lost.
We were very impressed with the service from your agents. Dan did an excellent job and our guides at each site were brilliant. All our drivers were exceptional.
[At Perinet/Mantadia] Our (reserve)guide Maurice was exceptional and made the holiday one to remember. This tour was the highlight of our holiday.
It was good to have a holiday where we gained an understanding of the culture of the country.
Mr & Mrs Romer, July 2001
Updated 08 November, 2003
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