Firstly, I would just like to say that the staff was so lovely. Our driver was Tsviago (I butchered that, I am truly sorry). He was so warm, and extremely knowledgeable!!! Another driver we met at the balloon (Mr. jones, I think?) was absolutely hilarious. And of course, our balloon pilot Jarpy (I am so sorry again for this spelling) was also very informative and kind.

However, I made this booking approximately 2 months prior to the scheduled flight. Approximately 2 weeks after I made the booking, I asked to cancel, and to receive a refund. They said this was not possible, not even a partial refund. Which I thought was absolutely ridiculous, because there was more than a month notice. But I understand covid has been difficult, so I let it go. All of this occurred via email. The day before our flight, at 5pm, I still had not received any messages in regard to our flight times, meeting point, etc. I called the office and they said they had been trying to get in touch with me… they had my email, and I never received anything from them. Anyways, we organized a time and a place. Our 03:45 pick up arrives (yes, it’s truly that early), and then drives down to Cabanas to pickup a couple at 04:00 only to turn back around, pass our hotel, and drive to the next one. This was just annoying. Seriously? It’s 04:00. According to common sense and also the street, we should have been picked up second, not first. Lastly, and most importantly, I was really hoping to see animals from the balloon (obviously). I think this park really struggles with ANY wildlife sightings because of the small amount of animals, and so, while we technically saw a single giraffe and a pod of hippos, that is all we saw. That has nothing at all to do with this company, but when I was deciding where to book my balloon safari I desperately wanted to know what the likelihood of spotting animals would be (again, I know it’s completely random and nobody’s fault), but didn’t realize you could do balloon safaris near Kruger, and so booked this first, realized my mistake, and attempted to get a refund with no luck.

Additionally, this is not a national park. It is managed by NW Park’s board, and also - a large chunk privately owned. The park was created in the 1970s, and so none of the animals are native there, they were all placed there. Which is fantastic! But they also decided that 36 lions was too great a number. They have recently culled over 24 of the lions that they bought and bred into this habitat. This is more of a political opinion of course, but for me, this just felt like a zoo.

At the end of our balloon ride (that was very beautiful and peaceful), we got a game drive as well, and we saw elephants, giraffes, rhinos (de-horned), and a pride of lions. Apparently, this is quite spectacular to see this amount of animals, because there was about a ten car queue on the roadside to view said lions. Perhaps it’s naive of me, but I did not expect queueing in a park… again, this just felt like a large zoo accessed by car. I really did learn a lot, but I left feeling disappointed and misled (in regards to the Park, not Gametrackers).

Overall, I unfortunately would not recommend a balloon safari here, but that does have mostly to do with the park. However, Gametrackers management fell short for me as well.