I'm happy to share our experience traveling with Tauck for the first time. The itinerary was outstanding, and we had a really wonderful time overall. A big part of that was our tour director, Mitchel Bloem, who was simply excellent — easy to get along with and great at keeping the whole group going.
The hotels were great as well. The one in Cape Town was very nice and well located, and the meals throughout were good. The motor coach we took on our tours was comfortable, and both the driver and our tour guide were wonderful. She did a terrific job adapting and overcoming when the rain forced us to change the itinerary a couple of times. Both of them deserve real credit for how smoothly they handled those changes.
From there, we headed to Kruger National Park and stayed at Lion Sands lodge. Our accommodations were very nice and spotlessly clean, and the food was good. We went out on safari tours with our driver, Briggs, who did a great job tracking down the wildlife — we ended up seeing four of the Big Five.
Then we moved on to Sabi Sabi lodge, where the accommodations were again excellent. We had a wonderful time, the food was great, and our driver there (whose name I unfortunately don't recall) was very good and personable. That's where we spotted the fifth animal to complete the Big Five — but it wasn't just the Big Five we saw. We came across many, many wild animals, and it was incredible. We captured lots of video and photos, most of which we shared with our group, and they were impressed — and I'm not even much of a photographer!
From there, we went to Johannesburg and stayed at the Fairlawns Boutique Hotel and Spa. I'll be honest — out of all our accommodations, this one fell short. In my opinion it wasn't a five-star or even a four-star property; it really wasn't that nice. That said, we still had a good time there. We visited the Nelson Mandela museum and took a tour around the city, which was very nice, and the food was good. Our city tour guide was excellent. The guide who led us through the museum was knowledgeable, though a bit talkative for my taste — we ended up stepping away, not because of her, but because my back stiffens up when I stand in one place for too long.
From there, we journeyed up to the Victoria Falls Hotel in Zimbabwe. Wow — I hardly know what to say. It was fantastic. We had a great time, the tours were excellent, and that helicopter flight was a 10-out-of-10-plus.
That was about it for the trip itself, and the journey home was an experience too — but mostly I want to talk about what our tour director did for us.
The Friday before our Tuesday departure, we were notified that our flight from Victoria Falls back to Johannesburg would likely make us miss our connecting flight on Turkish Airlines. We panicked — we were stressed about it here in the US even before we left. I ended up paying for a service to meet us at the airport, and they did exactly that: someone met us right as we got off the plane, walked us through everything, used their own back channels to move us through quickly, and took us straight to our gate.
But as soon as we arrived, we explained to Mitchel that we didn't understand why we couldn't get on an earlier flight back to Johannesburg to avoid all this stress. He said, "No problem — let me call my person at the airline. Don't you worry about it; I'll see if I can get you on an earlier flight, and I'm confident I can." Then, around the third day, he told us, "I got you on an earlier flight." What a relief! We still had that meet-and-greet service, so I let them know about the change, and that gentleman was super — he took us right through. But it was all because of Mitchel. If it weren't for him and what he did for us, we might have been in a lot of trouble.
I'll be taking another Tauck tour very soon — I've already booked a river cruise from Prague to Paris in late April/early May, and I'm very much looking forward to touring with Tauck again.
If I had one piece of advice for Tauck, it would be this: do not let Mitchel get away from your company!

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