Sharjah Safari — Local services in Al Dhaid

Simple words No Animals & No Food

1. Our booking was a VIP tour (6 Persons) and it was a tour in Mercedes Viano (Comfortable car). Let’s talk a little about VIP:

A) In terms of VIP, once we reached the guides for VIP Parkings were all over around & no clear guidelines to where VIP should Park nor where the reception to VIP. We had to go to silver/bronze reception to ask, where they guide us to another reception for VIP’s. Totally, Poor guidance 👎🏼.

B) We reached as requested 30 mins before our tour but, unfortunately, they said the car is not ready & we ended up to wait for 30/45 mins where my children & family started to feel bored. Then they WALKED us around the first part of the safari/park with a private guided tour (where is the buggies!!).

C) After walking half of the park/safari, they brought a buggy to take us to VIP Safari Reception Terminal, where we started the private safari within an AC Mercedes Viano car.

D) Unfortunately, while sitting in the car, the tour will only show you (Cows, Gazelles, Crocodile, Lion “if you are lucky”, Rino “if you are lucky” Elephants, Giraffes) & that’s it. Hugh Safari area but, lacks the animals & proper Animals sightseeing 👎🏼.

E) Staff in general was good & Friendly. Our guide for the tour she just left within the tour & then we had to ask them where is our guide where another lady from her self continue the tour with us which was so nice 👍🏼.

F) We had a stop for 45 mins during the tour, they dropped us to a place where we are supposed to rest & eat lunch. The resturant is 5-10 mins walking from drop point, once we reached, they told us the resturant has been closed for 3 months. ARE YOU JOKING?! This place is for children & they are supposed to have their food in time. I had to leave my family inside what is called a restaurant & go another 5-10 mins walk to a kiosk of Sharjah union coop where I bought for my family some Chesse croissants, Chip’s, chocolates, water & Sweets. By the way this kiosk, is the stop for sliver tickets so, manage with the crowds. A Question why they don’t provide the same at VIP drop point & if no resturant what are you expecting us to do for 45 mins?!

2. In terms of food, better to take food with you for the children or buy the food from internal cafe before going for the tour (they have good pasta & burgers). The other resturant is really bad, poor service but, only them have chicken nuggets & pizza for children & you will have to wait for a long long long time).

3. Bird Show, no body told us about it, we asked & by chance we knew that their is a bird show at 16:30 HRS. The stage was beautiful but, the show was below average for a safari of this size.

4. Gift Shop was very poor & selling stuff totally not a brand of the safari. People would a souvenirs from Sharjah Safari not just games that can be found everywhere. Even Animals T-Shirts to be restocked since sizes already not available for most of the children.

5. The Park is missing a lot of stuff such as: Vending Machines around the park. Different kiosks for snacks around the area. Proper resturants & food for children. A lost of African Animals are missing specially the meat eaters which people come to see them the most. Animals attractions such as feeding of animals. Animals Prints on the walkways would make it more nice for children. They have multiple playgrounds who came to play? Our children came to see and enjoy the animals.

6. Rest rooms can be found everywhere in the park which is good for children & they were clean & tidy.

7. Booked through phone because the website is useless & bookings can’t be completed on it. Through the phone, the customer service was exceptional but, when you pay online they charge you extra (booking was 1500 AED and we ended up paying 1600 AED instead).

8. This Safari have a huge space that is not being utilized properly. The management needs to rethink their strategy to make this...

Well I normally don’t have much bad to say but WOW this experience was brutal! We showed up around 10:30, stood in line for about 10 minutes, they took our name and said a 20-25 minute wait. They yelled out a couple names so we went back into line to buy the tickets. That took over 40 minutes and we were only 3rd in line. They were very unorganized. We bought silver tickets because we wanted to see the large animals. We got our tickets and went to the bronze area. Nice layout but not very many animals or birds. A lot of the animals do not have enough shade and they are hiding along the rocks. I feel so sorry for the animals, they have to hide near the rocks to grab shade, its not even hot here yet! Its winter, these animals will not do well when the plus 40 and 50 start happening.

We then proceeded to the area where we were supposed to get on the trucks. We were met with more confusion, we were told it would be up to an hour wait and we have to put our phone number on a list and they would call us. (What if someone doesn’t have a phone?) So we did that then went to grab a bite to eat. The price for the food is pretty high even for a tourist destination! $26 Durham’s for a small fries! Then halfway through we got the call to go so we ran to get on the truck. Our guide said it would be 6-hour drive! We thought it was going to be amazing! Omg we were so wrong! She didn’t use the speaker so only the first 2 rows could hear what she was saying. We saw some animals way off in the distance and saw a whole bunch of little packs of deer, there was 3 rhino in one area and 1 in another. The giraffe section was great and more of what I was expecting but wow! There were hardly any animals. We stopped at one area to look at some pelicans which had a pond that was too small for them to swim in and some more areas that had coming soon signs on them. I don’t mind that all the animals weren’t here if you didn’t charge me full price for my ticket. We were told to be back in 40 minutes for the truck to leave and we did that. We saw 2 ostriches that were probably an 1/8 of a mile away and some longhorn cows that were behind some trees. Then the ride was over! Our 6-hour ride was over in less than 2 hours with a 40 minute stop in the middle. I heard there was a bird show but we weren’t told about it so Im guessing that isn’t set up yet either. Seriously, unorganized and overpriced. We went to go to the gift shop but that was closed too. I want my money back! Overpromised and basically lied to. There were so many animals not even there yet. Don’t waste your money!

Pros Good Concept Authentic African Look Lots of washroom facilities Lots of free water drinking stations Trucks were great other than the small seatbelts

Cons Very overpriced tickets and food Unorganized & Mismanaged Seatbelts don’t fit bigger people Misleading Marketing (120 SPECIES ) whereas we only saw - the following - -Around 15 Species of Birds (Rough Count) -African Cattle and Ostriches way far away! -Gazelles -Impalas -4 Rhinos...

I visited with my family this Saturday (19th Feb 2022) & we were extremely dissapointed and felt that we were ripped off as there was no value for the money which we spent along with the wastage of our time.

When we reached the ticket office they informed us that for AED 40, we would only be able to see the birds so better to take silver or gold which respectively cost AED 120 & AED 275. The Silver ticket would give you access to all the areas on a tour bus except for the Serengeti (where you would be able to see the Lions & Alligators with the Gold tickets). Having seen enough of these at the various zoos we decided to purchase the Silver tickets and moved on ahead. We walked through the bird park aka the Aviary (which was just okay) and went on ahead to the station where we were supposed to board the Tour bus. Once we arrived there, we were greeted by complete chaos and no system explaining as to how the passengers would board the buses. Initially they had a concept of allowing people in by the entrance time on the paper tickets but that system collapsed as nobody was listening and a huge mob like scene ensued where many people just jumped into the line and pushed forward and bullied their way onto the buses. An hour later after being forced to do the same we were finally seated but there was no tour guide. The bus ahead of us had a tour guide and they kept stopping for painfully long times to show us gazelles and impalas. Once we reached the next station (this was like a pit stop), where there were 2 small aviaries and a children's play area with restrooms after which we hopped on to the next bus which thankfully had a guide but she sat with the driver in the front seat as he did not know the way around the Safari! We then went to the next two areas where we saw a few rhinos and giraffes which seemed to be the highlight of the safari. A few more impalas, ostriches, gazelles and African Cattle later we arrived back at the station. Near the village there were some shops and children petting zoo where they could sit on the donkeys & feed the goats

Dejectedly we made our way back to the car only stopping on the way at the Bird show for a couple of minutes and left for home as the show was at 4:00 pm and we did not want to wait for another hour.

Pros Good Concept Authentic African Look Lots of washroom facilities Lots of free water drinking stations

Cons Unorganized & Mismanaged Very few staff speak English Misleading Marketing (50,000 animals) whereas we only saw - the following - -Around 15 to 20 Species of Birds (Rough Count) -African Cattle -Ostriches -Gazelles -Impalas -Rhinos -Giraffes -Goats -Donkeys -Tortoises

Conclusion We went in at 10:45 am and left around 3:00 pm. That was around 5.5 hours and with 2 tiny tots it was a very uncomfortable experience overall with no value for money and very little to show for it. My 2 year old son described it as a "chi chi zoo" which roughly translates to Bad Zoo. Hopefully they will improve it...