São Tomé & Príncipe Reviews

Hi Craig

We had a great holiday – I would rate it flawless

The only real trek [as the kids would say] was having to fly from Brazzaville thru Addis to get to Sao Tome – hopefully air links in West Africa will improve in time

For us The Congo was the highlight – safe well organised and underpopulated in its northern half. CCC run a great show

Sao Tome Principe [particularly Principe] were very good as well – got to see a lot of endemic birdlife.   You were bang on the mark picking Sundy Praia for us – it is the best of their three offerings [I think]

Snorkelling on Principe was a little disapointing outside of the unoficial marine reserve at Bon Bon – they will have to create a marine reserve to enable waters to repopulate possibly

Yes we will be back to Rainbow for further African holidays in the future with Ethiopia and the Luanga valley high on the list

Thanks very much Craig – great job

Well done

Paul

Hi Derek,

We had a great time, thanks.

Everything worked well.

At Bom Bom we'd booked a garden view room and were shown to a beach front room which was great and we didn't complain at all! Not sure why/how we got this upgrade but we didn't want to ask in case we got moved..

Omali was fine. There's a fair bit to see on Sao Tome so we probably could have spent longer there...but we intend to go back sometime...

What else? The 15 kg baggage allowance on the STP inter-island flight was a joke..most people had large hard luggage with wheels and did just fine...but your advise shouldn't change because if it's a full flight maybe they are stricter...

So yeah, thanks...we had a great time..

Regards,

C'.

'Dear Derek

We really enjoyed our trip. São Tomé was interesting and the guide you recommended looked after us very well. The Omali Lodge was very comfortable and clean. With a bit of help from TripAdvisor and the guide we found some interesting places to eat at night.
Bonbon was beautiful and the cabin we had was right on the beach.  There were some lovely walks around the lodge and the snorkelling was good. We went into the main “town“ for lunch a couple of days and there was a festival one day. There are a few other hotels/lodges that have opened on Príncipe and you may want to think about an itinerary that gives clients a few days at each with perhaps a shorter stay in São Tomé.
The TAP flight on an A320 was challenging! There is a rumour though that they may be putting a bigger aircraft on the route.

Thanks for your help.

Kind regards

Colin'

'I did enjoy the islands and my trip.

The Omali had a nice atmosphere and grounds. The food was good, but a little pricey. There was usually someone there who spoke English. It was too far to walk into town, although if your timing was right, there was a free shuttle. I used the guide you recommended while at the Omali. His English was good and he tried his best to help me see what I wanted. . His tours were usually about 4 to 5 hours. 

I did 4 dives with Joao Santos of Tropic Ventures. He was very helpful. The best dive I made was a shipwreck dive I did with him. The half sunken ship was swarming with large schools of many types of fish- one of my best shipwreck dives I've done from the fish point of view. Two other dives with him at Santana Island were done when the weather conditions weren't the best, and were scary.

I liked the Pestana Equator about the best ( although the BomBom was close). All meals were buffet and had numerous choices, so the food was good. The grounds were beautiful. The director, the dive master and one or two of the staff were the only English speakers. The director was especially helpful. 

Bom Bom was very beautiful, but no diving and no diving at a nearby plantation either. I did two walks and two car tours, all of which I enjoyed. They were reasonably priced.

So, thank you for your help in making this a good trip.

Thank you,

Brad Stolz'

'We LOVED Sao Tome & Principe - particularly touring around the islands.

Would ideally have stayed in more places outside those hotels/resort and done more walking, but it was really good.

Thanks for arranging it all - great trip!'

We had a lovely holiday. Principe and Bom Bom in particular were lovely. But so was getting a public bus across Sao Tome.

If there were things to be improved, one would be finding a better flight schedule. The trip back, landing at 4am in Lisbon was a bit gruesome.

But overall a great holiday.  Thanks you

'We got back yesterday and it was a great trip.  The journey is long though but overall TAP are good. When we got to  Principe we were given Room 3, the best hut right on beach.  Principe is something special we could have spent longer there

A great holiday thank you'

“ We really enjoyed our stay in Sao Tome and Principe....

Everyone was very friendly and helpful. The hotels were very good we thought, rooms well appointed. The breakfasts were plentiful with really nice pastries in particular. The evening meals were generally quite standard and there are no options to go elsewhere. Lunches on Sao Tome were fine, on Principe they were similar to the evening (three courses) with snacks not being available.

Unfortunately the TAP cabin strike meant that we only saw part of Sao Tome (we did not do the birding trip that we had booked for when we returned). The birds were one of the main reasons for going so this was a disappointment. We must say that we were very impressed with the way that we were kept informed of the difficulties and how you managed to get us home!  We had a very good guide in Sao Tome. He took us to the botanical gardens and a general tour round the top half of the island.

The hotel on Principe was very nice and we were upgraded to a chalet which was very lovely. (The poolside ones did not look anywhere near as nice). You do need to be a little fit as you have to walk across the bridge for meals, and if you stay in a chalet climbing a number of steps is energetic. The beaches were absolutely lovely, completely unspoilt and good for easy snorkelling (although not an abundance of fish). Turtles do come up - however not while we were there although it is the right time of year. We had a good trip out organised by the hotel - roads are unmade so very bumpy but interesting. Walking again was energetic but good fun, despite the warmth (and rain!)

It was really interesting to see a holiday destination in the making.”

“It was fantastic, we loved it, especially Principe of course! It never rained during our holiday though our fly from Sao Tome to Principe was delayed of one day because of a sand storm coming from the Sahara.....

We definitely would like to go back one day!”

“Tina and I have returned safely from our trip to Sao Tome which we greatly enjoyed.

Generally things went very well. Both airports in Sao Tome seemed very efficient, particularly given the stage of their development and their size.

Omali Lodge was very well run and we had a very pleasant stay. Bom Bom Island went well and lived up to our expectations.

Transfers and tours were efficient.

Thanks for organising the trip”.

“ We had a lovely time in Sao Tome & Principe.  Pretty low activity for our usual holiday, but having just had family visit for two weeks and being on the go the whole time, it was just what the doctor ordered”.