joe birmingham
Madagascar
Solo
the scenery was outstanding ,the people were very friendly, food was good and most of all the dancing lemur
Best parts:
the whole experience was great it was outstanding .Sariaka from ******** did a fabulous job. it was organised very well with the things I had asked for all included. the standard of hotels was very good and the driver and all the the guides were excellent .
Worst parts:
the state of the roads made the traveling between locations long and slow
RETG
Madagascar
Couple
We mostly took the RN7 route through Madagascar from east to west, heading from Andasibe through the highlands to Ranomafana, then through the Savannah and Isalo national park to Ifaty and Tulear, and ending our trip in Anakao on the west coast. On our second day, we hiked in Andasibe-Mantadia national park, and a highlight of the entire trip was watching the incredible Indri lemurs and hearing their famous call from right above us in the tree canopy. Hiking in the rainforest was fantastic, and our guide in Andasibe was really enthusiastic - we saw so much wildlife! Throughout our trip we saw about 13 species of lemur, lots of chameleons, gheckos, frogs, orchids, incredible plants etc. The highlands were beautiful and we met so many wonderful people on our trip, and we would've loved to stay and hike in Isalo national park for much longer than 1 day! It was also great to end our trip with a relaxing couple of days on the white sand beaches of Anakao, and the *** (spiny forest) near Ifaty was great to see lots of baobab trees. Take a minute to look up too - nowhere else in the world have I seen a night sky like we saw in Madagascar, with the Milky Way clearly visible. The landscapes, unique wildlife and wonderful people of Madagascar all meant we had a fantastic trip - even if it was tough at times to pass through some very poor parts of Madagascar - we wished we could help every kid we met in some way. We can't wait to come back!
Best parts:
Almost everything! The hotels chosen by *** (the local tour agency we went with, through Evaneos) were for the most part brilliant (most of them had great food, amazing views and lovely rooms), our guide Rynah was fantastic and shared plenty of stories of Madagascar with us, including a lot about the traditions of the tribes in each part of the country we visited, and about the wildlife and landscapes and people. Everything on our trip went smoothly, and it was great to plan an itinerary with Lea, who added some trips we had in mind that aren't typically part of the standard itineraries, and modified the hotels to include some one or two we specifically wanted to stay at. We had some fantastic guides in the national parks, too - particularly in Andasibe and Isalo.
Worst parts:
While this isn't really any fault of Evaneos' or ***, a couple of the local guides in specific reserves were a little less respectful of the wildlife than we would have liked, bringing animals out of hibernation or bothering them to bring them close to us - some tourists may enjoy this, but we believe this shouldn't be encouraged.
Evaneos
Dear RETG,
Thank you very much for your great feedback! We are more than happy that you enjoyed your trip to Madagascar that much and had a fantastic support by Lea!
We are looking forward to see you again!
Yours sincerely, your Evaneos Team!
SussexSimon
Madagascar
Family
Beautiful country but very difficult travelling around, very high poverty and average accommodation
Best parts:
Initial communication from Sariaka
First 5 days in rain forest
Worst parts:
Change of guide after 5 days - second guide no where need as good
The fact the second guide had a box of 12 dozen condoms on the passenger seat!
One of the hotels had had a major fire a week before but we were not told until we arrived that the restaurant and pool were out of use and were given not option to move even though we requested. Photos available.
We were only guests there for first night no electricity for 6 hours, took 20mins to be served a drink then asked if we had a bottle opener for it. Temporary restaurant only had two items available so my daughter who is vegetyhad to have plan pasta.
Not advised key information about certain parts of trip for example one section required us to be escorted by armed soldiers. Thought this may have been mentioned so we could decide whether we wanted to do.
One of the trips required climbing with ropes harnesses and caves, in description just said need good balance.
This was same place as fire damaged hotel so we ended up cutting it all short which wasted 4 days of trip.
By the time we got through all of this and with the unhelpful second guide we were so over it we booked return flights hone early. We abandoned our guide and got another driver which we paid for locally
Raj
Madagascar
Family
Destinations were amazingly beautiful. Nosy Iranja and Home the Residence at Nosy Be were top of all. Snorkeling at Nosy Tanikely, Andasibe and Ankarana safari was great. For us vegetarian food options were arranged. Food at Allamanda hotel, Diego Suarez was great. Overall we enjoyed a lot. More than a holidays.
Best parts:
1. Perfect planning and coordination of local agent Saraika, our local agent.
2. Destinations. Specially Nosy Be, Ankarana, Andasibe
3. Local guides
4. Most of the accommodations
Worst parts:
1. Ankarana lodge room. Spiders, Lizards and only1 fan for the family of four.
2. Boat Transport from Ankify to Nosy Be..
Nosy be
Madagascar
Solo
It was a great trip, i felt really good knowing that the travel agent was always there to answer any questions I had
she was great!! and made the trip easier
Best parts:
seeiing all the places and the people that worked in the tours
Mady
Madagascar
Couple
We spent 4 weeks in Madagascar however I think we should have only stayed for 3 weeks.
Best parts:
visiting the national parks to see the lemurs, always very informative guides.
Changing landscape while travelling further south.
Beaches on Nosy Be
Worst parts:
We had paid for a driver / guide, unfortunately our driver spoke very little English. I was going to contact the agency to tell them this but felt obligated to the driver as he had committed to doing this trip. The car was also not terribly comfortable & broke down 3 times during our trip.
We spent a lot of time researching the accommodation but in the end more than 50% of the nights were changed.
jrtome
Madagascar
Couple
From East to West and the South we saw a huge variety of landscapes, geological formations, fauna and flora as well as pristine beaches. Watching many different Lemurs, the hikes and walks we did, were a major highlight as well as the gastronomic delights.
But it is really the wonderful and nice people of Madagascar what makes a major positive impact of any journey in the country!
I made lots of posts of our journey in Facebook and you can visit my page at
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100004500789117
Best parts:
Almost four weeks (26 nights) in Madagascar and we fully enjoyed our long stay in this beautiful country and the services provided. As usual, in these long journey, issues and problems do occur, but in our case, we sorted them all, in particular for one hotel night that was not as expected. All the other accommodations were up to the standard as expected or even better.
Many thanks to Linah and Mirindra for buying on our behalf a hot spot device, so we benefited of Wi-Fi all the way! Very grateful for you to help us on that! I truly suggest that in future you can provide this hot spot Wi-Fi service to all your clients. It doesn´t cost much ...
By the way both drivers Dida and Lala are excellent as well as the vehicles used!
Hope to visit Madagascar again!
Keep on with the good work...
Worst parts:
Not really a worst part but a negative impact is when we received the air tickets with our names completely wrong written and worst of all mixing both names. This doesn’t give a good impression….but it was promptly sorted out...
Virginia Couple
Madagascar
Couple
We flew into Antananarivo (Tana) and were taken to our lovely guest house where the hostess gave us a gracious welcome and fed us a delicious meal. We stayed in a beautiful, quiet, relaxing bedroom. The next morning we headed to the Eastern section of the country for our first look at sifakas, lemurs, and fosas! We also had time to relax at 3 different beautiful resorts (including Lodge de la Saline between Kirindy and Tsingy, where we were treated like royalty, as well as taking a birding trip and seeing baobobs at sunset by ourselves, without any other tourists within miles).
After our trip to the East, we headed down through the Central Highlands to see more interesting environments (rain forests and deserts), birds and lemurs before reaching the beautiful South where we took multiple guided walks through incredible spiny forests, saw more birds and baobobs, and relaxed in more charming resorts.
After a quick flight back to Tana and another relaxing night in our beautiful guest house, the next morning we headed West, having more opportunities to see and hear new lemurs (Indri Indris!), birds, snakes, insects, chameleons, frogs.... We spend 3 lovely relaxing days at Le Palmarium Reserve walking though their endless reserve, taking guided walks to see all the different plants and learning about their many lemurs (including a hybrid lemur), and taking a night time visit to see aye aye lemurs. After 20 wonderful days of touring the country, we returned to Tana to take our final tour of the city (including a visit to Ambohimanga) and to do a bit of shopping.
After 22 incredible days, we flew home. We're still talking about the trip and showing a slide show of the wonders of Madagascar to our friends.
Our Favorites:
It is difficult to describe our trip to Madagascar in a few words; we tell everyone that we felt like we could write an entire book on every hour of the trip. It is just as hard to describe our favorite places or times. All our time in Madagascar was special to us.
We have a lot of praise and thanks to Linah, our local agent representative from Evaneos, who worked with us non-stop, and was always available, despite the time changes and distance involved, to answer all of our questions, set up such a pleasing tour, and ensure that we had a fun and knowledgeable driver who took such good care of us during our 22 day stay in Madagascar.
Best parts:
1. It was hassle free to set up the trip with our local agent and get an itinerary that included all the sites we wanted to visit; gave us plenty of time at each site; arranged great, knowledgeable guides at each of the sites; provided a a lovely driver and car and made all the reservations for us at beautiful hotels and lodges.
2. Since everything was taken care of, we relaxed and enjoyed the vacation.
3. We saw so many diverse environments and learned more about the flora and fauna of Madagascar than we expected.
Worst parts:
We enjoyed every bit of our trip.
Madagascar Trip
Madagascar
Couple
Started in Anatanarivo and spent a night before driving to Ansirabe where we spent two nights visiting the city, hiking the highlands and seeing handicrafts. Drove to Ranamofana and spent two nights and hiked the rainforest seeing the lemurs- which was was personal favourite part of the trip. We added an additional night hike to see the mouse lemurs which I would recommend. Drove to Isalo stopping in Anja to see the ring-tailed lemurs. In Isalo we spet two nights and an entire day hiking the subdesert and seeing the oases- my boyfriend's personal favourite part of the trip. Drove to Ifaty where we spent 4 nights (our customization ) where we snorkeled and visited the spiny forest. This was a great way to unwind after many day of sweating and hiking. Flew back to Tana and toured the royal palace before spending a night then flying home.
Best parts:
We did the Extraordinary South Tour (with some personal customization) and everything was pretty close to flawless- from the communication with our local guide Eric, to airport pick up, transition between hotels and hikes in the parks. Our driver Oni was exceptional. He was aware how much my boyfriend and I were excited to see wildlife and made a point to pull over whenever he saw any birds, or beautiful landscapes. He made special suggestions to our park guides so that we saw the most on our hikes and even suggested some additional activities not booked in our package that we very much enjoyed (night hike in Ranamofana to see the mouse lemurs and Spiny Forest in Ifaty). Despite the long drives between locations (sometimes 4+ hours), Oni kept us entertained with facts about the county, history or friendly conversation. Breaks were pre-planned in areas of interest (lookouts, handicrafts, lunch) so we never felt we were sitting too long. The hotel staff and park guides were all friendly, handicraft demonstrations were interesting and the wildlife/landscapes were incredible. We had a blast in every national park and we saw much more than we anticipated. My boyfriend and I are avid hikers and we were more than happy to hike for an entire day (9am-4 or 5 pm) walking, and we were well prepared with water, hats and sunscreen. If you're a big hiker this trip is definitely for you! We saw everything from dense rainforest, sub-desert, canyons and hidden oases. We were up close to many endemic species of lemurs and birds. I highly recommend this trip anyone who is fond of nature, hikes and ready to get our of your comfort zone. Brush up on your French before you leave, some of the hotel staff's English is limited.
Worst parts:
Our hotel in Ranamofana (Chez Gaspard) was unaware that our breakfast was included and we were charged, we had to remind them the second day.
The hotel in Ifaty (Le Paradisier) had may mosquitoes, some getting in the room because the bungalow roof did not meet the walls in order to have low-energy temp control. The bug net worked just fine to keep bugs out, but relaxing elsewhere in the bungalow was a bit buggy.
Our hotel in Ansirabe (Flower Palace) was right in the city centre and very loud due to a political concert/gathering that went late into the night. We had ear plugs so slept well, but others complained of the noise.
stefano
Madagascar
Solo
The destination, parks in the west, was interesting and worth the trip
Best parts:
The parks in the West are really nice and are worth the trip
Worst parts:
Accommodation was not very good and not in line with my wishes. In particular I had 3 days of tent despite I asked for a trip with no tent accommodation in the initial form.
The organisation of time only included transport and park visit time. I ended up spending hours and days in places (like Antananarivo, Bekopaka, Morondava)with no activity planned, no organisation/program, no driver, no guide.....nothing. A big waste of costly time.
PFraire
Madagascar
Family
-
Best parts:
Wild life
Worst parts:
-
the Joneses
Madagascar
Family
Linah and Mirindra from the travel agency were incredibly helpful and enthusiastic. The airline lost our luggage and they were able to retrieve it for us without any disruption to our trip. Our driver, Gael, was wonderful, and always helpful. Whenever we needed him, he would magically appear.
My husband and two teenage children and I had the trip of a lifetime in Madagascar. We loved every bit of it, the hikes, the driving, the meals, everything. We discovered that Madagascar is an absolutely beautiful country with a wonderfully friendly and kind population. One of our very favourite activities was the all day excursion at Isalo National Park. We never felt over scheduled, always had time to relax each day. I loved the fact that all the organization and planning had been done ahead of time, so we didn't have to do anything but enjoy the activities that were planned. I can't say enough great things about the trip, and every member of my family would agree, even my teenagers. Madagascar is an exceptionally beautiful country which offers many sights that cannot be seen anywhere else in the world. Evaneous, and the staff from the agency that organized the trip, gave us the trip of a lifetime that we will never forget. We all agreed at the end of the trip that we didn't want to leave, that we would have loved to continue on to more exciting locations, and that we must some day return to Madagascar. If and when we do, we would book through Evaneos again, and hope to see Linah, Mirindra and Gael again.
Best parts:
The hotels, the planned activities, our driver and the staff at the agency were all absolutely wonderful. We had the time of our lives! The hikes, and other activities were perfect for us.
Worst parts:
I have nothing negative to say about any aspect of the trip.
Evaneos
Wow - what fantastic feedback! :) Thank you so much for sharing this with us! We would be more than happy to help you create your next adventure. Hopefully speak to you again soon. Kind regards, Rachel
Siri
Madagascar
Couple
All in all we loved Madagascar! The people are very friendly and respectful, and the landscapes and nature beautiful. We learnt a lot about the history and current affairs. Our tour guide Marila was very competent and provided a lot of insights on Madagscar life as well as teaching us about the flora and fauna. Its a facinating country with so much potential and many challenges. I was very impressed with the agency who were very friendly, super responsive and really put a lot of effort into taking into account our wishes and making our holiday wonderful. i was particularly impressed when they called our hotel on the last day to ask us if we were happy with the trip. We would definitely recommend them to our friends.
Best parts:
Our tour guide Marila in Diego Suarez was amazing!
The national park Ankarana and Red Tsingy
Exploring the surroundings of Diego Suarez which was beautiful and stress free
Even though we did something every day, the agenda didnt feel too packed as we always had time to relax and enjoy the surroundings
Seeing the different chameleons and lemurs
Worst parts:
The lady who picked us up in Nosy Be kept speaking French, acted if we were an inconvenience and actually had a nap in the car on our way to the hotel - we were glad to get a different lady for our outing to Nosy Komba, who was lovely
We didnt like Antananarivo too much which we felt was too stressful - traffic, people trying to con you or beg for money - we were glad when our driver suggested to go out to the blue hills, which was beautiful
Evaneos
Thanks for your feedback from your trip! :) We are so happy you enjoyed your trip! Thank you also for the information on your guide in your negative points. It's very valuable information for the agency, for the next time they are choosing their guides.
Best wishes,
Rachel - The Evaneos Team
Lesley
Madagascar
Friends
It is an interesting place to visit with a diversity of landscape. The wildlife was amazing. We spent 16 days there and visited several locations, driven by a very competent driver who spoke good English and was very knowledgable. Our trip was marred by the Air France strike which caused delays and they managed to loose our luggage on the way out.
Best parts:
The wildlife in their natural habitat was amazing and the local people were full of smiles. It was nice to see the country before it becomes too commercial.
Worst parts:
The time spent travelling between places in the car because the distances are huge.
Evaneos
Hi Lesley,
We are delighted to welcome you home after another trip through Evaneos! :) Thank you for your feedback on your time in Madagascar. Another destination ticked off your travel list!
:)
Kind regards,
Rachel
B Square
Madagascar
Couple
Madagascar was wonderful. We liked the people and the land and found it to be n intriguing place. We have traveled to 110 countries and this is one of the most unspoiled places we have seen.
Best parts:
Eric, the travel agent contacted us and arranged aa phone call to help us plan the trip. This was very helpful. The driver, d'Jeri, was knowable and a careful driver. Hotel accommodations were god to excellent.
Worst parts:
Our arrangements included a meal plan. In two hotels they told us that we could 'upgrade' to the regular menu and pay the difference. This was really appreciated. Other hotels did not mention it and 'lost out' as we would have gone with the full menu option if it had been offered. {This may be beyond your ability to change but the hotels should be made aware of the extra income possibalities.]
