Please ensure adequate travel insurance is in place for any (death/illness) eventuality.

By not taking out travel insurance, you have saved money already, you can’t claim back from the establishments. No exceptions will be made.

Principle of the Cancellation Policy:

Once confirmed, the estastablishments are obliged to honour your reservation. This inevitably means that they turn away other enquiries. Whilst your reason for cancellation may be valid, they cannot “retrieve” enquiries that have been turned away.

The relevant cancellation policy applies should the guest fail to join or start their journey for any reason, including airline delays or missed connections.

Only written cancellations will be accepted. Ensure to receive confirmation of the written cancellation.

By confirming the booking you accept the above terms and conditions.

Any refunds will be subject to bank and administration fees.

You will be provided with an invoice for your insurance company should you need to make a claim.

Please note that these are simply minimum guidelines, more will always be appreciated by the person delivering the service.

TOUR GUIDES/TAXI DRIVERS:

A min of 10% of the total tour cost or the total cost of the taxi fare. 

RESTAURANTS/BARS:

It’s normal to tip for good service in restaurants, bars, and cafes in South Africa.

Most restaurants do not add a gratuity unless it is a fine dining establishment or for a group larger than 6.

A gratuity of a min of 12.5% is acceptable, if you would like to give more, this will be greatly appreciated by the service staff as in South Africa most waiters work on a very basic salary and rely mostly on their tip/gratuity.

We recommend that you pay the gratuity in cash, ZAR where possible. South African citizens pay commission to exchange foreign currency. If you pay by card, you must write the amount that you wish to tip on the bill before they process your card.

FUEL STATION | SERVICE ATTENDANT:

A tip between R5 and R10 for good service is customary. Yes, it is customary, because South Africa is one of the few countries where petrol attendants still operate petrol pumps for customers. There is no self-service option at our petrol stations.

SAFARI:

Most safari lodges also have a general staff gratuity box (for waiters, chambermaids etc) and R50–150 per guest per day is a suggested tip guideline. 

Some lodges allow you to assign a gratuity amount to specific departments/person, if tipping separately, then the waiters gratuity will be 12.5% of the food bill.

For Game Rangers/Safari Guides, a recommended daily tip will be between R100 & R150 per person per day.

PORTERS:

Generally around R20 a bag. 

Load shedding refers to strategic blackouts in South Africa, where citizens are left without power between 2-4 hours several times per day.

The load-shedding process means turning off the electricity supply to ease pressure on a failing power grid.

Not all establishments have a generator or a solar system due to the high cost of fuel in SA and the cost of solar systems, so please be understanding as most try and do their best to make your visit to South Africa a memorable and pleasurable experience.

You can check what the load-shedding schedule will be by making use of an APP. Check with the establishment that you will be staying at what their location is on the app.

You will then be able to see when the next blackout will occur. This may change without prior notice, from one stage to the next, but it will still be helpful.

Click here to view the APP ESP.

You will be able to exchange money at some banks at airports/foreign exchange brokers like Travelex.

You will also find ATM facilities at the airport. 

The majority of businesses accept mostly VISA and MASTERCARD.

There is a limited amount of businesses that accept AMEX and DINERS CLUB due to their high transaction charges.

We can recommend that you make all your restaurant reservations in advance, especially during peak season.

Accommodation establishment migh make recommendations, but guests are required to make/cancel their own reservations as some restaurants require deposits.

Please use Dineplan to make your bookings direct with the restaurants.