Dublin

This will most likely be our last post before flying home, hopefully, on Thursday. We arrived in Dublin on Monday afternoon about 12:30, and by 2:00, we were sipping a pint of Guinness at the Guinness Brewery Gravity Bar at the top of the brewery building. A nice way to put our misfortune in Cape Town out of our minds. We had an early dinner at the Guinness restaurant, then returned to the hotel and crashed, after 26 hours without much, if any, sleep.

Today we decided to take an all day tour into the countryside to visit an area about an hour out of Dublin called Glendalough, an old Monastic settlement dating back to the late 600’s. Many of the old stone structures are still intact, including the 120 foot round tower, most likely used for grain storage. The settlement is situated in a beautiful glen, at the base of two lakes. In the 1600’s, the abandoned settlement started to be used as a cemetery, and continues to be so used today, as long as one’s family already has a grave site there.

Along the way to Glendalough, we passed through some beautiful countryside, including several areas used by film studios for such movies as Brave Heart and the cable TV series The Tudors. In fact, we learned that Mary, our guide, is actually the costume designer for The Tudors, and her name appears in the credits. She told an interesting story about meeting with Peter O’Toole, who plays the Pope in the series.

This evening we walked down to the famous Temple Bar area of Dublin, where we listened to some great Irish folk music, and enjoyed some authentic Irish food.

Tomorrow, our friends Ian and Diane from England are planning to meet us for the day. They have spent the last three days in Iceland, and have just informed us that their flight from Iceland has been delayed for four hours. Hopefully they will be able to get out and join us tomorrow.

Dublin is an old but very lively, exciting and interesting city, and one of our favorite stops on our trip. We learned today that almost 43% of the population of Dublin is under 30 years of age, and that women outnumber men 4 to 1. Sound like a great place for a young guy to be!

Our flight is scheduled to depart at 10:30am tomorrow, and if all goes well, we’ll be touching down in Sacramento about 8:00pm. We know that there have been a lot of delays due to the volcanic ash, but we’re hoping for the best. We’re looking forward to getting home and being with our family and friends. Thanks to you all for following us on this journey. It’s been great fun sharing our experiences with you all. See you soon!

Cape Town Catastrophe

We’ve had so many great days on this journey that we were bound to have a real clunker. Yesterday was all that, in spades! All started well. It was a wet and windy morning in Cape Town, so we knew that a tour of Robben Island was not going to happen for us. We puttered around the motel, packing and repacking our suitcases just to be sure that none of them would exceed the 23Kilo (50#) limit for each of the two apiece we were allotted. We’d scheduled a 4:00pm shuttle to the airport for our 6:40 departure. However, since the weather was so bad, we decided to take the 2:00 shuttle, and arrive at the airport early, enjoy a meal and browse the shops.

Upon arrival at the Cape Town airport, two porters helped usher our luggage to the South African Air check in counter. Each bag was weighed, and each was within the 50# limit. But wait; the check in agent informed us that we were only allowed one bag each, not to exceed 20K/bag (44#). According to her calculation, we were exactly 67K over our limit!!! Now the good part, that 67K would cost us 345SA Rand per Kilo for a total of $23,115 SAR ($3,082). They absolutely would not budge, in spite of the fact that our friends from Switzerland flew in the day before, and were allowed 4 bags @ 23K each from Europe to SA.

Finally, after all our pleas were met with total indifference, we rolled our carts downstairs to try to find some place that would ship our bags home for us. No luck. In the end, we found a small quiet corner, unpacked all our suitcases, and proceeded to weed out anything we could in order to make our weight limit. We ended up giving three suitcases full of clothes, souvenirs, and just about any else we had, to a friendly and compassionate security guard who was working near by. Merlena was devastated by what she had to toss. A really traumatic experience for her, and on Mothers Day. Needless to say, we have nothing good to say about South African Air, whose employees were the most stoic, indifferent and cold as one could possibly imagine. In the end, we still paid an excess luggage fee of $460 for 10K overage. There was just no way we could cut any more.

We’re now in Dublin, yesterday is history, and we’re going to enjoy the last few days of our adventure. More to follow

Cape Town Day Three

We’re staying at a funky hotel, several kilometers from the waterfront. It’s a Best Western, but not your ordinary Best Western. The art deco style hotel sits below Table Mountain, very near District 6, a formerly mixed racial neighborhood, which was the area of Cape Town that was razed in the 1970’s as part of the Apartheid policy of the South African government. The area remains, for the most part, undeveloped with no current plans to rebuild the area. The rooms of the hotel are quite large; in fact we have a two bedroom, two bath suite, with a full kitchen. Old but nice, and they provide free shuttle service to the waterfront and the airport.

Today we rode the “blue” route of the Hop on Hop off bus tour, which took us to Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens on the slopes of Table Mountain. The variety of plants at the gardens is truly amazing, with plants from all over the world represented. After spending some time at the gardens, we hopped back on the bus for the ride around the Atlantic seashore. We hopped off at Camps Bay, a beautiful seaside beach community with numerous restaurants and shops. We had a wonderful seafood lunch, then back on the bus and return to the waterfront, where we sat at a dockside cafe, enjoyed a beer, and watched as our former home, the Ocean Princess, sailed on without us. Another beautiful day in Cape Town. We’re hoping the Robben Island tours will reopen tomorrow. Our flight to London departs at 6:30pm, so we have almost a full day before we have to leave for the airport. Next post most likely from Dublin.

Cape Town Day Two

When we awoke on debarkation day, it appeared that we would have more of the same weather as the day before. The sky was overcast, clouds obscured Table Mountain, and it was beginning to rain. By the time we departed the ship, about 9:45, the sky had cleared, and Table Mountain was clearly visible. We hired a taxi to take us to our hotel to drop off our luggage, then right back to the waterfront to meet our friends Alex and Lorraine. We had a great time catching up with them.

Afterward, since the Robben Island tours had been canceled again, we decided to take the Hop On Hop Off bus tour. Two routes are offered, one which includes a stop at the Table Mountain cable car, and a second which includes a stop at the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. We opted for the cable car since the top of the mountain was clear, and we knew the cable car would be operating. The ride to the top of Table Mountain was amazing. The cable car rotates around, so that everyone is able to view the terrain in every direction on the way up. Once atop the mountain, the views are breathtaking. A large network of trails leads from one spectacular view to another. Quite an experience.

By the time we returned to the waterfront, it was time for an early dinner, so we enjoyed a fantastic Italian meal at Balducci’s. We were able to eat on the terrace so that we could watch all of the ongoing activities occurring on the waterfront, and the colors from the sunset cast upon Table Mountain. We’re looking forward to the second bus route tomorrow.

Cape Town Day One. Debarkation Day

Well, today’s the day. We’re sitting in our room, all of our earthly possessions have been taken away, and we’re waiting for our group to be called to leave the ship. Any of you who have cruised before know the feeling, but for those of you who haven’t cruised, it’s a little like being thrown out into the cold, from your home. Not a good feeling!

We were up very early yesterday morning for our arrival into Cape Town harbor. Unfortunately, when we looked outside, the skies were cloudy, it was very windy, and the rain was coming down. Table Mountain was totally obscured by a foggy mist, and the shoreline was barely visible. We were about an hour late in docking due to winds approaching 45 Knots. The harbor in Cape Town has a very narrow inlet, and not a lot of room to maneuver once inside. We had three tugs, pushing and pulling to keep the wind from blowing us across the harbor. A very interesting docking.

Once docked, we quickly debarked for our scheduled 11:00 departure to Robben Island. It’s a short walk through the beautiful Victoria and Albert (V&A) Waterfront from the ship to the pier from which the boat to Robben Island leaves. However, by the time we got there, soaked by the rain, we found that all tours to the island had been canceled for the day due to the inclement weather. We’re hoping to reschedule for tomorrow or Sunday, but the forecast is not too promising.

We spent most of the day touring the V&A, stopping for lunch at Mitchell’s Brewery. Today after checking into our hotel, we’re meeting our friends from Switzerland, who are just starting their cruise today, at a Belgian pub called Den Anker. It will be fun to see them again.

Tomorrow we plan to do the Hop on-Hop off Bus tour around the Table Mountain area. Hopefully the weather will clear, as it did for a short while yesterday, so that we will be able to take the cable car to the top of the mountain. Tomorrow night we plan to eat at an Italian restaurant at the V&A, recommended by our friends Bill & Shirl in Boston. Assuming that we will have internet access at the hotel, we’re hoping to update the blog before we leave Cape Town. If not, we’ll try to provide an update from Dublin, assuming that the Iceland volcano calms down and we’re able to get there. More later.

Durban and East London South Africa

For our day in Durban we had pre-booked a ship’s tour to the Tala Game Preserve, about an hour’s drive North of Durban. We were about an hour late getting started for our trip due to the slow process of South African immigration procedures.

Once on the road, we drove through the heart of Durban, a clean modern coastal city, at the height of activity in preparation for it’s role in hosting of the World Cup in June. We passed by the beautiful new soccer stadium, just completed for the games. It seems that there is a great deal of controversy among the citizens as to whether South Africa will be able to pull off the job of being the host country, and whether Durban in particular will be able to house all of the people expected to attend from other countries. I guess we’ll find out soon.

Tala is a private game preserve located on approximately 7,000 acres of what was once a large potato farm. It is relatively new, and still in the process of expanding it’s facilities and increasing it’s perimeter security so that it will be able to accommodate a wider variety of animals. Currently the park has none of the large cats or elephants, however we were able to see a large number of giraffes, many zebra, herds of various breeds of antelopes, white rhinos, hippos, and others. We had an excellent guide, who was very knowledgeable and who provided an excellent experience for us at the park.

Our second stop in South Africa was at the port city of East London. Many aboard, who had been to East London on prior occasions, warned that this was not an attractive stop, and to be very careful walking about the town. We opted for a shuttle bus that took us to a large mall/casino on the outskirts of town. The drive through the city took us directly through the main downtown area, which pretty well confirmed to us that this was not an area in which we would feel safe walking. We did a little shopping at the mall, then like most of our fellow passengers, rode the shuttle back to the ship. We all wondered why Princess would select a city such as this for a port call, when there are other cities in the area which are much more attractive, and with much more to see and do. Today is our last day at sea before reaching our final destination of Cape Town. More from there

Nosy Be Madagascar April 29th

We had a really nice day yesterday in Nosy Be. We were lucky enough to get on the first tender off the ship, and arrived on shore by 8:30. We hooked up with two other couples from the ship and hired a boat to take us to Nosy Komba, a small island about 30 minutes away. The waters are crystal clear, and the islands around Nosy Be are covered with very dense vegetation. Quite a beautiful area. Once on Nosy Komba, our guide took us through the village, which was very interesting in itself, to a park area populated by the famous Madagascar Lemurs. The Lemurs are very interesting looking animals. The males are black, and the females are brown with white faces. We were given bananas to coax the Lemurs from the trees. They were not at all shy about jumping on our shoulders to take the bananas from our hands. One of the park employees had a small Boa Constrictor, which we were able to hold. We couldn’t help thinking about one or two of our good friends who would have been back on the boat as soon as they saw the snake, probably without ever touching the ground on the way!

The village at Nosy Komba was a very typical African village, without electricity. We were greeted by groups of small children with their faces painted, singing and dancing and offering flowers and vanilla beans for a small price. The streets were lined with embroidered table cloths, wood carvings, and other items made by the villagers.

Once back to Nosy Be, we hired a taxi to take us into the center of town, where we found a sidewalk cafe and sat down to try the local beer, Three Horses. Quite good. We then walked through town, stopping at the central market, where the displays of tropical fruits and vegetables were amazing. We walked from town back to the tender pier where we caught the tender back to the ship. A really good day. Now, as we near the end of our cruise, we have three days at sea before arriving in Durban. This morning we’re having our table mates into our cabin for a bloody mary before lunch. More from Durban, where we plan to visit a nearby game preserve.