Safari in Tanzania...?

M-1391

Hello!! 
My fiancé and I have been thinking a lot about the destination for our HM and finally we have come up with the idea of a safari in Tanzania, but we aren’t sure if this is the best option for a HM or if we should leave it for another occasion. 

We will be celebrating a very intimate wedding in mid October and then we are planning a 14 days HM.

We have contacted some agencies and they have told us that going on a safari is one of the most demanded options between honeymooners and that if we want something more “romantic” we can have a beach escape in some paradisiacal island such as Zanzibar or Seychelles.

We have seen that there are options like private or group safaris, and even it’s a bit more expensive, we prefer to take a private safari rather than sharing with some “stranger”.

Has anyone gone on a safari for his/her honeymoon? Any suggestion that could help us?

Thank you!!!

delujm0

We went to Mauritius and South Africa on our honeymoon, and we spent 3 nights on safari in South Africa.  We also spent 5 nights in Mauritius and 5 nights in Cape Town.

 

The safari was awesome.  We stayed at a private game reserve and did twice-daily game drives.  The drives were in a large car containing a driver, spotter, and 3 couples.  Other than the shared drive, we didn't do any "group" type things.  We don't feel like we missed out by having to share the game drives with 4 other guests.

 

We did Mauritius because we went in June, which is winter in South Africa, so Cape Town was too chilly for beach time.  We loved it there and wish we had stayed there a full week.  We also really enjoyed Cape Town and the surrounding areas and could have easily spent more time there.  Honestly, while the safari was awesome, I don't think I could have done my WHOLE honeymoon on safari.  Really the only things you do on safari are eat and sit in the car looking for animals.  You can't even leave the resort really because, you know, wild animals are everywhere.  I'd love to go on safari again some day, but I think 4-5 nights would be my absolute max for any one trip.  I prefer to have some time to be out exploring - we did a lot of hiking and general sight seeing in both Mauritius and Cape Town.

 

Why not do something similar - if you want to also see the beach or other places, you can safari somewhere like South Africa that is more easily accessed, and go to a few other locations as well.

M-1391

Thank you for answering so quickly.
The truth is that we have Tanzania in our mind and right now we can't think about a safari somewhere else... We have some friends that have been on a safari there and after they showed us pictures, we knew our first safari had to be there!  Heheh.

Our main concern was about the lack of romanticism in this kind of trips. It’s not that we feel the need to be showing our love all the time, but, some intimate moments would be appreciated.

So taking in account that we have 14 days, we can ask for a safari of 4/5 nights and then go to Zanzibar for 5 days and Mauritius or the other 5 days.

Did the same tour operator arrange everything for you or you had to organise it with different Agents?

Thank you for all your help!

delujm0

I used one travel agent who arranged the 3 locations separately.  Normally I will plan my own trips, but there was a lot of different flights to be coordinated so we went with the agent.  She was able to get us a deal at our hotel in Mauritius that was wasn't published online, so that as great. In addition to Mauritius there are other islands you could try - Seychelles comes to mind.  We did Mauritius because it had the easiest flight connections to/from South Africa, which is where we spent the rest of our trip.  I think the beaches in Mozambique are also usable at the time of year you'd be going (we did June, which was winter, so we needed to head further north for decent beach weather).

 

Don't count out Zambia to see Victoria Falls...if we had more time, we wanted to do that as well.  We absolutely want to go back to all the places we went some day, so hopefully we can work Victoria Falls in on the return trip.

 

We stayed at Maradiva Villas Resort and Spa in Mauritius and rented a car so we could sight see independently.  Driving there was a bit scary at first (they drive on the left, and there are no stoplights, only copious traffic circles), but it wound up being fun and a great way to see the whole island on our own time.  DH wasn't afraid to drive in the odd conditions though.  I'm kind of a nervous driver so I wouldn't have done so well!  Also, we were unable to get a GPS so we used a map provided by the hotel to get around.  It was an adventure!

Jells2dot0

I've been to both Mauritius and the Seychelles (same trip). I preferred the Seychelles, but both have their pros and cons. We thought Mauritius to be more budget friendly (if you can call it that!), but it was also a more active destination. In the Seychelles, we stayed at a private island resort where there was nothing there but the resort. We did not do a safari on that trip, as safaris aren't very high on our list of things to do.

I will say that there can definitely be a lot of romance on a safari, though. Especially if you do a private safari or stay in a luxury safari camp. Romance is not tied in any way to a beach. It's tied to what you make of the trip. I'll say that we just had one of our most romantic moments in our 10 years of being together last month on our trip to New Zealand. It was just an amazing moment that had nothing to do with sand, sun, or relaxation.

M-1391

Thank you all for sharing your experiences!! We thought about Seychelles as well, but it looked to us a bit more expensive. Anyway, there's no harm in asking!! So let's see what the agents can organise for us and then we will only have to choose the company to go there with.

jenna8984

@swazzle