Shore Excursions on Capetown to Singapore

This is a question for those of you who took this cruise in Dec 2014. We are booked on the Dec 2015 cruise and would love to hear from any who have tips on various ports. I know it's a long way off, but we're already getting excited.

Hi Hawk

We are also booked on this cruise and looking forward to any info also.

Have you looked at air to and from ? It is really a great itinerary but getting back from Singapore is not easy.We are looking at Singapore Air Flt. #16 with an over night in Singapore post cruise. Your thoughts.

John

Hi John,

We've been looking at air from SFO to CPT. What a nightmare that has been so far. On the return we will probably fly Cathay Pacific as it's a partner with AA with which we have miles. I guess we'll get all of this straightened out as we have a year to do it!

Hi Hawk

Take a look at British Air they have 4 options for you. Yes there is a long layover ***** some but we are doing the same out of PHX and getting a day room at LHR before going on. At least that is the plan. Are you using Regent air, if so you can't use miles.

John

Last nov-dec on Voyager from Dubai to Cape Town best excursions on that itinerary was snorkeling in Seychelles and watching lemurs in Madagascar.

Hi John,

We've been looking at air from SFO to CPT. What a nightmare that has been so far. On the return we will probably fly Cathay Pacific as it's a partner with AA with which we have miles. I guess we'll get all of this straightened out as we have a year to do it!

Just for the heck of it, I did a search of flights from SFO to CPT. There is a really nice flight on BA. See below (dates are random):

Depart 25h 05m

This flight leaves on Thursday (Nov 19) and arrives on Saturday (Nov 21).

British Airways – Flight 286 10h 15m

8:00p Thu, Nov 19 SFO San Francisco, CA

2:15p Fri, Nov 20 LHR London, ENG, United Kingdom

Boeing 747-400 (Wide-body Jet) | 10h 15m | 9+ seats remain

Change planes LHR London, ENG, United Kingdom

3h 20m

British Airways – Flight 43 11h 30m

5:35p Fri, Nov 20 LHR London, ENG, United Kingdom

7:05a Sat, Nov 21 CPT Cape Town, South Africa

Thanks to all who shared their suggestions for our air to Capetown. My DH is working on the air and is exploring all the possibilities. Thanks, too, to Ted C for his recommendations on the lemurs and the snorkeling. What about the various game reserves?

We are in Houston. No good air to Cape Town or home from Singapore, at least with Regent's air. We came home exhausted, and I have been sick since we arrived 8 days ago. Have to cut back on these long flights. We were business class, but it is still exhausting.

I believe your question was about excursions. I have made many notes, but I have been unable to finish my documentation of those tours because of my being ill. I will address the tours we took for you in the next couple of weeks.

I was recently on this cruise and can provide the following observations / opinions, albeit with a disclaimer: I am on the younger side of the regent age spectrum and tended to go for ‘active’ tours that do not involve shopping. There were very few of these on this itinerary! I have travelled extensively in Africa previously so my goal for the excursions was to go to places I hadn’t seen on previous trips and / or satisfy my activity needs. Your needs / interests may of course vary!

If you are truly interested in having a great safari experience then I would recommend arriving a week or so before the cruise (fly into Johannesburg) and going on a safari – Kruger NP is very easily accessed this way via a flight from JHB to Hoedspruit or a drive. Game animals are far more active at dawn / dusk and simply doing the excursions from the ship will mostly mean you are not in the game reserves during these hours. That is not to say that you won’t see animals during the daytime ship based excursions, rather that the safari experience is lesser. We did do the included pre cruise safari (included for those in concierge and above) and whilst this was lovely, I wished that we were there for a day or two longer. Obviously if your travel dates cannot be altered to accommodate either a Kruger safari or the ship included pre cruise safari you are stuck with the ship based trips and I did hear good feedback in general from the other passengers in this regard. If you do a ship based excursion at the minimum look for those that split guests up into 4X4 vehicles and include early morning / late afternoon game drives. I would not recommend any safari that is from a 40 seat coach, I did do one of these in Addo National Park (not offered for 2015) and whilst it was ok, it was not a true safari – you didn’t feel the wind in your hair, hear or smell the animals, nor ‘happen’ upon interesting things the way you do in a 4X4.

East London: I went on the natural history tour and thoroughly enjoyed it. The museum was an unexpected highlight, and being an outdoors type the visit to the beach / cliffs at nahoon was lovely. If you were wanting to do a safari on this day inkenkwezi would be the pick here.

Richards Bay: I went on the st lucia wetlands tour which was good also – a boat ride along the river through the wetlands, excellent hippo & croc spotting opportunities here, probably better than you will get on the other safaris.

Maputo: Some passengers were dissatisfied with the tours here – regent does warn guests of the lower standards of vehicles / guides and you should take note of these warnings. I’ve been to Mozambique before so was prepared, my advice is to go on the tours, but with lowered expectations. I did the walking tour which was interesting, however I wouldn’t recommend it unless none of the other tours interest you – you’ll see more and have a better experience on the others on this day.

Nosy Be: Again, some passengers were dissatisfied with the tours here, it was an oppressively hot & humid day and the minibuses had tiny cramped seats, were filled passenger wise and with no aircon. We were warned, it was an uncomfortable day and I was glad to get back on the ship. Despite this I enjoyed Madagascar and would thoroughly recommend a tour, but with lowered expectations. I did the highlights of north-western Nosy Be which was a good overview of the island – not for those with mobility issues, a big hill to be climbed for a wonderful view.

Dar Es Salaam: I have been to Dar many times over the years and did not have high expectations – it is not a particularly scenic place to visit and does not have much to offer in the way of tourist attractions. I was presently surprised, Dar has ‘grown up’ since my last visit. I did a tour which is not offered for your trip so I wont make too much comment on it. If $ is no problem for you I would recommend the fly in selous game reserve tour here!

Zanzibar: I didn’t do a formal tour in the morning here, rather took the shuttle into stone town and walked around. Depending on your mobility, I would recommend doing this as stone town is best seen on foot. All of the tours on this day look good – I have been to most of the places and can recommend them. I also did the sultans sunset cruise which is essentially going out to see the sunset from a dhow (traditional wooden boat). It was lovely but not for those with mobility concerns – soft sand walking to get to the boats and a vertical ladder climb onto a moving boat.

Mahe: I did the coral cruise, it was nice – I am an avid scuba diver so found the coral disappointing, other guests however were satisfied. The beach we went to afterwards was lovely. I heard only good things about the tours for this port. We also had time to go for a walk into town – shuttle bus was not allowed, it was a solid 20min walk each way. Interesting, but everything was very expensive, so would recommend you do a tour instead.

Male: The included beach tour (kuda bandos) was cancelled so I ended up burning some onboard credit to do the dhonveli tour. The island was nice, has quite a large resort on it so it took some effort to find a quiet space / sun lounger. We were in male for the full day but they only allowed 4 hours for this excursion, which meant 2 hours on the island, I felt this tour could easily have been extended to 6 hours, allowing us longer. If I was doing this again I would actually pay to hire a speedboat and could then do things in my own time. Speedboats to the island are about $600 per boat, which becomes more economical once you have 4 people, compared to the $180pp regent charged. The diving and fishing experiences were not offered so I cant comment on these. There was poor feedback about the walking tour.

Columbo: A lot of the tours appear to have changed for the 2015 cruise, I did the City & Kelaniya temple – it was interesting, we went to some more temples that appear to have been removed from the 2015 tour – this is probably a good thing. Overall, I felt that Columbo was very interesting, so much investment and development is happening there, again if you have an interest in either colonial architecture, temples or just developing countries in general this is an interesting place.

Phuket: I did the Phuket landmarks tour, again, there seem to be more tours for 2015 which is a good thing. I enjoyed the places we went to but didn’t find Phuket itself very pleasant. I would recommend Phang Nga Bay if you like scenery – this was not an option for us on our cruise.

Penang: I went on the butterfly farm & spice garden tour – a last minute decision. The butterfly garden was terrible – overcrowded (not just with regent passengers) and poorly maintained. The spice garden was lovely – two buses arrived at once so I separated myself from the group(s) and had a great wander up the hillside and then once the groups had moved on some quiet time amongst the displays. Georgetown is fabulous in terms of colonial architecture so if this is your thing I would recommend the heritage tour or tea at the E&O.

Port Klang / KL: A last minute decision to do the countryside & handicrafts tour. This was actually a visit to a hindu temple inside a cave (very active, climbing over 300 steps up and down, not for those with dodgy knees!) and then to the Selangor pewter factory which was a pleasant surprise, especially the school of hard knocks! Would recommend either this or the Malacca trip or the city of gardens tour.

Apologies for the lengthy post, I hope this has been of some help.

Hi Amis

WOW, thank you very much for all your comments !! We have made a copy and will use it during our planning for this cruise. We active," almost "like you so no scuba diving but the rest sound great.

John

Hi Amls,

Thank you so much for your detailed account of excursions on this trip. You definitely answered some question we had and, I suppose, inspired some others. We're still looking at the various possibilities and will refer to your excellent account in making decisions. Thanks again!

Last nov-dec on Voyager from Dubai to Cape Town best excursions on that itinerary was snorkeling in Seychelles and watching lemurs in Madagascar.

I played DVD for that cruise but DVD was almost 100 pc the entertainment, little on the Hippos and Crocs and ZERO on Lemurs on Madagascar! Don't waste $40 for DVD - check it out prior to buying it! Mine was "free" for booking another cruise.

BUYER BEWARE!!!!

This is a question for those of you who took this cruise in Dec 2014. We are booked on the Dec 2015 cruise and would love to hear from any who have tips on various ports. I know it's a long way off, but we're already getting excited.

If you want to email me at: shawnees(at)me.com I would be happy to help. We just got back Cape Town-Hong Kong.