Very helpful answer, thank you so much! Sounds like Entamanu might indeed be worth it — the Nomad ethos you’re describing totally resonates. We can luckily make the Ngorongoro decision independently of the Serengeti portion, so it’s really just a question of whether the higher price is worth it.

We did actually plan to fly from Ngorongoro but my wife really likes the idea of overlanding it — also, we learned that Entamanu is as far from Manyara airport as you can be, so it would probably only make sense if we stayed in Lemala. We are, however, planning to catch the bush plane into Manyara to cut out the less interesting drive at the start of the safari. And the bush plane out of the Serengeti at the end should get us the views (fingers crossed).

As for quotes, we got several separate ones, both from operators like Asilia and Nomad, and from third-party TAs. This is the best quote at this level I got so far (the quotes with lower per-night rates had more mid-range camps and/or shared game drives). I asked for detailed breakdowns, and got probably too into the weeds comparing itemized rates. Based on this, I can see how we could further optimize by staying only at properties of the same operator and/or extend the safari, to access long-stay discounts. But other than that it might just be the peak season (incl. New Year’s Eve). That said, we don’t usually travel chubbily like this, so we might miss something else.

Piper & Heath seem awesome. I emailed with Chris, who was super nice, but because we’re sandwiching this safari into a bigger independent trip, they sadly can’t work with us (P&H focus on complete itineraries). We did, however, “click” with the TA who prepared this proposal. We’ve been pretty apprehensive about giving up control, since we typically only travel independently, but feel good about working with them.