We just got back from Tanzania. First of all, we were very popular because we were the 1st tourists seen in Arusha carrying the new 2006 Rough Guide. All the locals agreed that the Rough Guide was by far the best guide for Tanzania.
We stayed at Onsea House - they were still in the old location but getting ready to move, out by July 23. They were wonderful. By the way, they never opened the deli in town - got too overwhelmed with rennovations on the new house I guess.
I feel compelled to gush about the tour operator we used. We did both a safari (Tanzanian Explorer) & Kilimanjaro trek (Machame route) with Into Africa, & they were terrific.
The safari was simply amazing. Everything I imagined it would be, & more. I felt as if I was dreaming, & woke up in the middle of a National Geographic documentary! The support team was awesome. Our guide, Dennis LLyamuya, was such a gem! He's very knowledgeable about the animals, the geology & the people. His english skills were top notch, which really helped us get an insight into Tanzanian culture. He took real pleasure from discussing the differences between our cultures, and that was a real gift for us. The cultural tours were a big part of what made the trip special.
At the end of our trip, after the trek, we stayed a couple days at Kigongoni Lodge to rest up. It was very nice, but we couldn't help but think that the people we saw there were never going to see the real Tanzania as we did.
The office staff from Into Africa was super too. The night we got back from safari, Rose & her sister took all the ladies to a "kitchen party" (what we call a bridal shower back home). It was so great to be included in a real local experience!
The Kilimanjaro Trek was also a life-changing experience, in different ways. Despite what everyone says about it not taking any particular physical fitness or preparation, it was BY FAR the hardest thing I've ever done, ever thought I was capable of, or ever want to do again! I'm not sure you could make that more clear without scaring off some people who really could/should do it, so that's no criticism. I'm 1 of those people. If anyone could possibly have communicated to me how hard it would be, I wouldn't have done it - wouldn't have thought I could! But I did do it, and learned a lot about where my limits really were. The hiking itself wasn't that hard for us. Any given day was no harder than an average dayhike in Colorado. What made it hard was so many days in a row at such altitude. I was really glad we chose the Machame route. Of course I've nothing else to compare it to, but it was hard enough for folks to bear the altitiude even with an extra acclimitization day. I enjoyed the variety of landscapes, thought the last few days were all predictably bleak moonscapes. I also felt like we met people with whom we had more in common than would have been the case on Marangu. We ran across a few people later that had done Marangu & were pretty glad we weren't hiking with them.
Into Africa's support team was again incredible. We had a chief guide & 2 assistants. The guides were fun & very competent. I don't think we would all have made it without them. We also had a cook, his assistant, & 18 porters, who were all great. It's such a hard job, though not as hard for Into Africa porters as for some others we saw, but they did it with a smile. On the last morning they sang us a farewell song, then did lots more of that on the bus. It was really great!
We felt that Into Africa took better care of their porters than some of the other companies on the mountain. From my research, they're some of the most highly paid, they carry less than the maximum load allowed by the government, don't work as many trips in a given time period, & are better fed.
I really admire Into Africa. The people on their team are clearly very grateful & devoted to the owner, & it was obvious to everyone in our group. It was also obvious that they have a better life than other people with similar positions. He's making a difference, to them, to his clients, & to the communities they work in.

Keep promoting them in your guides!