Royle-safaris.co.uk - Wildlife Holidays, Wildlife Tours, Safaris, Tiger Safaris, Whale Watching, Jaguar Safaris, Birding Holidays (1 of 5 points)

Last month I went with Royle Safaris to Gabon, having communicated with Martin Royle on and off for three years about the importance this trip had for me. Having planned the trip since 2014 this was the first time that I had someone organise the trip for me rather than me organising a holiday myself. Gabon would be my 22nd trip to Africa so I knew what to expect and I also reliase that things can go awry - it is just part of the adventure.

Having splashed out the cash equivalent of a brand new small car for a trip not even two weeks long, I was expecting great things but, oh, this took the biscuit:

Firstly there was the guide, a 41 year old man by the name of Alexander ("Alex") Meyer. Martin had promised a naturalist/zoologist to guide our small group of five (all extremely well travelled!!! and very knowledgable where wildlife was concerned). The guide introduced himself to us as a "specialist in mammals". It soon turned out that he was a dog walker from Brooklyn with no formal qualifications whatsoever, let alone in biology/ecology or wildlife. He arrived on the trip with a list of animals HE wanted to see and for the entire tour all we would hear would be "I want to see the yellow-backed duiker". He never once asked for any interests we might have. There was a British lady in the group whose specialist interest were birds. Alex Meyer did not know the name of a single bird, knew nothing about amphibians or reptiles - nothing!!! Whatever animal did not interest him, we would speed past! Now, you would think that his knowledge of mammals would be excellent but far from it, all that matter to him was that he had seen the animal. He provided NO information about feeding habits, gestation periods, role of the animal within the ecological context, nothing!!! What's more, in French-speaking Gabon he was soon stuck. As the only member of the group with very fluent (read: excellent) French, I soon found myself sequestered into his services to translate. As I use my languages at work every day it not only made me feel as though I was still at work but worse still, the guide used me as his mouthpiece to put his often unreasonable and sometimes dangerous demands to the local guides "I want to go into the forest at night. Why can we not do a night tour in the forest" (well, there are 100000 forest elephants in Gabon, so it is plainly DANGERIOUS). I could see in the faces of the local guides that they were taken aback by our guide's demands and I felt increasingly uncomfortable.

M Royle outsources the safari to locally based providers, in this case to a couple of Spanish guys one of whom lives in Cameroon. As part of their trip organisation they organised for us to go on a train to Lambarene. One of the Spaniards was terrified that we might miss the train that we were pulled from a safari truck and did not have any afternoon activity even though the train would only be departing at 11 pm at night. One other member of the group and I had verified this independently but the guide was so convinced that the train would be leaving at 7 pm that he would not listen, thus we were left kicking our heels for most of the day. What's more the train broke down after thirty minutes and we were stranded for a full eight hours leaving us arriving at Lambarene at 1pm the next day exhausted, stressed and overtired. When i raised my concerns with Martin Royle I initially got glib replies. He eventually promised not to used this Alex Meyer guide again but as he does not knowledge vet any of his guides ... well, there are man Alex Meyers in this world who are looking to ride on the coat tails of others in a bid to get a cheap holiday for themselves without actually bringing something to the party ... Eventually M Royle offered me a five hundred pound discount on any next trip I would be doing with him but I have no fath in his services so will not be using him again ... next time you want to go on a safari to Gabon, do ensure that you independently verify the academic credentials of the guide on offer so that you get a good learning experience out of the trip ... or buy yourself a brandnew small car instead. Overall I am deeply disappointed in Royle Safaris and will therefore not recommend them.

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