Selftours Knysna South Africa

We asked Selftours to put together an itinerary for 2 weeks in South Africa (arriving/departing Jburg) and had suggested that we would like to visit Kruger Park and then travel down to Cape Town by the Blue Train. Selftours suggested 3 nights in Kruger, 2 nights in Sun City, 1 night in Pretoria. In Cape Town we made our own arrangements and Selftours booked 2 nights accommodation in Stellenbosch at the end of the vacation1) It was impossible to reach the camp that Selftours booked us into in the North of Kruger on the first day as the distance was just too far from Johhanesburg Airport. We reached the Phalaborwa gate at around 4pm (having left Jburg airport at around 10.30 am) and were denied entry as we needed an additional 3.5 hours minimum to get to the camp and both the gates and the camp close at 6pm. Therefore we had to find our own accommodation for the first night. This was an additional ZAR 500. This was a bad start to the whole holiday. 2) There were no actual suggested routes marked in the Atlas provided by selftours (even though the itinerary referred to suggested routes) so we had to determine all these ourselves. Not necessarily difficult but when you are not familiar with a country it takes more time and you cannot be certain you are making the best choice. 3) Bearing in mind the distances involved and the fact that we estimated the driving time from the camp to Sun City to be at least 9 hours (which was indeed the case), we left Kruger Park a day early and found our own accommodation for the third night, therefore only using 1 of the 3 nights we had been booked into Kruger Park. This cost us additional ZAR 1200.4) We got a puncture in Sun City and discovered the spare tyre was also flat. We could not get through to Budget and had to have a tyre repaired at our cost (ok only 20 rand plus transportation) but this wasted a couple of hours of our day. We also returned the car full of petrol and I have today discovered that budget have charged us 60 Rand for Fuel. The guy who took the car refused to confirm that the tank was full saying you can not go by the gauge and they would check when they got it back. The flat tyre was not your Selftours problem, but I was not impressed by the lack of support from Budget and getting extra charges.5) The hotel in Pretoria was not anything like the photos shown in our itinerary. It was a low budget hotel. It certainly was not upmarket accommodation they described.The hotel is Stellanbosch was pleasant and friendly but rather isolated with no restuarant or bar and nothing accessible without a drive. We would have been better located more centrally.5) The overall cost of the trip was excessive for what we actually got. I have priced up the whole trip, being generous and my total comes to ZAR 34,000 Budget Car Hire 3276Kruger Park Accom 1560Conservation Fees 792Safaris x 2 520Pretoria Accommodation 800Taxi Transfer 80Blue Train 23100Budget Car Hire 3276Stellenbosh Accommodatin 1800 Flights 2400Totals 34328 Selftours price of ZAR 42,982 implies a mark up of ZAR 8,600 or nearly 25%. This is on top of any discounts they received from the hotels themselves. For example, the Stellenbosch guest house told us they give agents a 20% discount and I have not reflected this in my calculations. There planning is poor and their mark up is far too excessive. Needless to say when I sent my complaints to them they have completely ignored my email.