Results Specialized tour operators Fort-Dauphin – Taolagnaro

DADAMANGA

Tour Operator
3.3/5
4 review
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Avenue du Maréchal Foch, Fort-Dauphin – Taolagnaro, Madagascar
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2024
Recommended
2024

Tour operator based in Fort-Dauphin. The owner, Brett Massoud (English-speaking), an Australian passionate about Madagascar, who has been living in the country for over 20 years, designs and organizes unique and personalized itineraries with his team. Most of the proposed tours start when you arrive in Tana, but Dadamanga can help you plan your stay in only one area, and of course in the Fort-Dauphin area. Brett Massoud is also president of the Filana association and vice-president of the Anôsy Regional Tourism Office.

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Members' reviews on DADAMANGA

3.3/5
4 reviews
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The ratings and reviews below reflect the subjective opinions of members and not the opinion of The Little Witty.

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Visited in october 2023
Do NOT use this agent for a tour of the North of mada. Also this probably caters to more budget tours of the North. Despite advising Brett, on a number of times that I'm travelling alone and concerned, I was given a guide, who was a 21 year old boy, who'd never been a guide, and his experience was only admin work. The guide, used my trip, to have his own holiday, calling friends and wanting pictures with me and was also disgustingly rude to other travellers, putting me in a dangerous situation. The driver was inexperienced, but really tried his best.

I was not provided with the service that had been agreed, I.e. meals not provided and places not taken to, or I had paid extra for services which were unnecessary, because they were already included in my hotel- but their lack of experience showed they didn't know this.

We were also involved in a car accident, where I had to tell the guide and driver what to do in terms of repairs, and as a sole traveller was given zero support and left at the hotel with no instruction of when they'd return the next day.

I hugely overpaid, especially as I made friends with all the hotel owners, and it was clear there was a complete lack of experience on certain days.

Brett was rude and aggressive on more than one occasion. He constantly claims he's the best agent in Africa. I'm a frequent traveller, I've travelled over 60 countries, and never had an experience or been spoken to by any agent the way he talked to me. In fact I tend to develop good relationships with every hotel owner/ tour agent/guide, hence why I can safely say I overpaid and received an incomplete service.

I gave every opportunity for Brett to remedy the situation and have been ignored. I didn't want my money back but a donation to local charities at my direction. Any gesture or apology wouldve been received.

I spent 1 month in Mada and organised everything myself, using other amazing agents and guides. Mada is incredible- I'm happy to give any other recommendations, but the worst 3 days of my trip were 3 of the 6 days that I went through Brett.
DADAMANGA
DADAMANGA Manager
07/12/2024 at 15:02
This review has been responded to in another forum in much more depth. Nadia H was a rare one-in-a-million client, who spent hours chatting on WhatsApp with me on the first part of her holiday, which Dadamanga had nothing to do with. We only booked a very short part of her tour, for a couple of days in Diego Suarez, during which time, she did not contact me directly once, except on the occasion of the car "accident". What she said was the car wing mirror was clipped by a passing truck, totally the fault of the truck, not our car, and the driver was calm and fabulous. We heard later, via a third party, about the guides, and there was indeed one picnic forgotten by the local agent. We offered, when we eventually heard about this through Nadia's agent in South Africa, and did some discovery of the real story, to make a donation to charity to cover her picnic, and she was never in touch again and did not respond to our offer to make a donation. I was never rude to Nadia but I did absolutely refuse her request for a discount on a hotel in Ankarana (after she had changed her mind and lost the booking because it was too expensive and then wanted to rebook it in the middle of the night) when she was already offered €200 off the rack rate for the room. Her view of what happened, and mine (and the agent in South Africa) are two entirely different things.
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Visited in november 2022
This company is trustworthy, Brett arranged for us a 3 day itinerary which was based on visiting the villages around Fort Dauphin, the plan wasn't easy to follow but Brett took on the task anyway, Urbain got all the hotels and cars done and the guide Sylvio was very empathetic and helpful in our unusual task. I think it is the best company, perhaps even in all of Madagascar. Brett patiently listened to our requests and tried to fulfill them. Very good contact with the company, very good car, very good hotel, very good care during the plan. Involved from the very beginning to the very end. I highly recommend. !!!
Visited in october 2022
Just used them for a fortnight to central and south madagascar. They do an excellent job!
DADAMANGA
DADAMANGA Manager
07/12/2024 at 15:02
Thanks Pradeep, we appreciate your review and we look forward to welcoming you back to Madagascar, it was a pleasure to look after you.
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Visited in september 2022
Dadamanga were very helpful and responsive until we paid them. They then became slow to reply and landed us in potentially dangerous and very stressful situations which could have easily been avoided if they communicated better with us and with the driver. The driver was excellent at driving but his English was so bad we could barely hold a simple conversation with him. Overall a very disappointing experience that I will not want to repeat.
DADAMANGA
DADAMANGA Manager
07/12/2024 at 14:40
Let me just say:

1. Apparently we went quiet after he paid us. The truth is, he did not pay us until the day before his tour started, we had to go to his hotel and collect cash, which is totally against our usual procedures, but we agreed to this, just the same way we agreed to his many other unusual requests. We were in communication with him constantly, in real time (on WhatsApp or Email) most of the time, during his entire journey, even while he was in Masoala Forest Lodge (not arranged by us), he was in communication with us.
2. There was no danger, there was a sudden local change of plan about whether cars will be escorted by police, or not, from Belo Tsiribihina to Bekopaka. They decided to discontinue the escort, we were not informed, local decisions by rural police are not something that we can manage in our office.
3. The client called me especially to be sure that this same driver was going to be his driver for the final part of his tour. I imagine if the driver had been so bad, the client would have asked for a replacement driver, not to ensure that absolutely should have the same driver.

The client was very disappointed when his requests for discounts were all politely refused. He even expected us to negotiate a discount with Madagascar National Parks, which they also refused, and that, apparently, was also our fault. This review is sour grapes because we refused his requests for discounts.
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