Feedback from those on upcoming West African cruises

Starting to get nervous about our spring 2015 cruise ending in South Africa (not on SS) and wondering what those on the West African SS cruise (Capetown north) are doing.

To get home, our flight choices are 1) via Senegal to US, 2) via England/Europe (but there used to be a direct Capetown to Heathrow flight that I'm hoping is still there) or 3) via Middle Eastern airlines.

As I'm looking 6 months out, it is hard to figure to balance safety/price. My travel agent has come up with $25K but as that's a whole other cruise, we'd like to come up with something less. BA won't have a reasonably priced ticket for us due to the one-way flight (we are Star Alliance members and have no status on One World) and I really don't want to stop at Senegal and then transit through the US given the current level of concern around Ebola. On the other hand, going through the middle-East seems dodgy as well!

Has anyone else dealt with similar concerns. All transit points have no major travel advisories at the moment but this is a very fluid situation and 6 months ago, I wouldn't have given a second thought to repeating our flights on US airlines through Senegal/Washington.

Upcoming travel is easy, all in Canada (some by car) except for a quick run over to Sweden. Getting to Perth in March can be done via NZ so feels safe and we've used their Premium Economy before and like it. It is just the trip home from Capetown that has me concerned.

BA still have a direct flight from Heathrow to Cape Town (& back). As an alternative have a look at Emirates. Ok, its via Dubai but the service is excellent.

As far as the trip up the West African coast is concerned, currently not worrying about it. Unless things improve dramatically over the next 5-6 months I do not expect us to be stopping in Ghana, the Gambia or Senegal, and the last will be no loss at all.

Kate

I cancelled my trip which ended up in capetown. Just not satisfied with current level of prevention and protocol for the virus.

Does KLM still fly nonstop CPT-AMS? That's how we got home in 2011. It was a flight that departed after midnight, so it allowed us to spend the whole day in Stellenbosch before flying home! :)

Kate I cancelled my trip which ended up in capetown. Just not satisfied with current level of prevention and protocol for the virus.

Sadly, we had to scrub out plans for the late March to early April 2015 Silver Whisper sailing from Kenya's Mombasa to Cape Town. The challenges about getting to Kenya, worrying on health and safety unknowns were too, too much for my wife. She's a Registered Nurse and believes that some are being "realistic" about many parts of these issues and the risks.

We are now getting ready for a Jan. 25-Feb. 20, 2015, Amazon River-Caribbean combo back-to-back sailing over 26 days on the Silversea Silver Cloud. Feel better about the Carib and these parts of the world.

We hope in early 2016 to do a Cape Town round-trip, ten-day sailing for the South Africa areas only on the Silver Cloud. Want to avoid needing to do too much in central Africa. Right now eastern Africa is not bogged down with ebola as is happening in western Africa. BUT, things are too "fluid" now (pun sadly intended). We will all hope and pray for the best in Africa and around the world.

THANKS! Enjoy! Terry in Ohio

Back from doing a 14-day Celebrity Solstice, Jan. 20-Feb. 3, 2014, Sydney to Auckland adventure on this ship and getting a big sampling for the wonders of "down under” before and after this cruise. Go to:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1974139

for much more information and lots of wonderful pictures on these amazing sights in this great part of the world. Now at 80,630 views for this fun posting.

We are on Qatar airlines for our safari in South Africa next year. They get very good reviews, and my TA actually recommended them. The business class is supposed to be the best in the world.

Price nearly had me sold on Emirates but the business class reviews made me look twice (can't afford First.) The 18.5" wide seat is the deal breaker for me. I'm much wider than that and the segments from Dubai to Perth and then CPT to Dubai are just too long to 'suffer' in that, especially the overnight.

Air France has some interesting and affordable business class routings cobbled together from its partners so I'm looking at that now. Although I'm skipping the itinerary that offers Air Malaysia as the flying partner!

My daughter pointed out that as long as I'm on a locally flagged plane, the odds of attack on it going in/out of the ME is probably no more than flying over Europe. Which put me at ease. My son has a distinct "No War Zone" order for me and his definition of war is rather broad so I haven't consulted him yet! (Interestingly, that doesn't apply to himself but fortunately finances keep him from living out his dream of trips to several dodgy countries!)

Stop on over at the Silversea website and you will see the new itinerary which avoids West Africa. I also posted on another SS message to be sure everyone who hasn't yet heard from their travel agent gets the news.

http://www.silversea.com/worldcruise2015/itinerary/

We are on Qatar airlines for our safari in South Africa next year. They get very good reviews, and my TA actually recommended them. The business class is supposed to be the best in the world.

We flew two overnight business class sectors with Qatar Airways earlier this year.

The first sector, 7 hours flying, was on the B787 and was the best business class flight we've ever taken. Everything was spot on.

The next sector of our journey was on an Airbus A330, also 7 hours overnight flying. The seats weren't flat beds, they came down at a weird angle, and were the most uncomfortable business seats I've sat in since about 1995. Sleeping was impossible for me, but I was also uncomfortable when I had the seat in the upright position too.

In a nutshell, for QR sectors on aircraft with their current business class product, I'd say they're hard to beat. Older aircraft with an older product, awful.

I should add that it's possible that the older planes are being either phased out, or the new product installed on them, it was several months ago when we flew with them.

Does KLM still fly nonstop CPT-AMS? That's how we got home in 2011. It was a flight that departed after midnight, so it allowed us to spend the whole day in Stellenbosch before flying home! :)

I like how you think! We're in CPT for Christmas this year, before and after cruising Seabourn. Will definitely be finding sometime for Stellenbosch.

Stop on over at the Silversea website and you will see the new itinerary which avoids West Africa. I also posted on another SS message to be sure everyone who hasn't yet heard from their travel agent gets the news.

http://www.silversea.com/worldcruise2015/itinerary/

Appreciate this "heads-up" about this sailing change. Had never heard of either Saint Helena and/or the Ascension Islands. Had to look them up and learn something new this morning. Agree 100% that the previously-schedule stops in western Africa had to be dropped. Not sure I'd be totally happy with the range of options to see and do for Saint Helena/Ascension Islands.

Fortunately things are still fairly "stable" for the Mombasa/Kenya, etc., stops in eastern Africa before getting to South Africa and Cape Town.

THANKS! Enjoy! Terry in Ohio

For details and visuals, etc., from our July 1-16, 2010, Norway Coast/Fjords/Arctic Circle cruise experience from Copenhagen on the Silver Cloud, check out this posting. This posting is now at 160,115 views. Nice to be hitting this high of a level for viewership. Appreciate the interest and follow-up questions/comments!!

http://www.boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1227923

Stop on over at the Silversea website and you will see the new itinerary which avoids West Africa. I also posted on another SS message to be sure everyone who hasn't yet heard from their travel agent gets the news.

 

http://www.silversea.com/worldcruise2015/itinerary/

Thanks for the heads up, totally not surprised, but how typical of SS to publish the change and not tell their guests first. Will be counting the days to see how long it takes to inform me or my TA.

I like how you think! We're in CPT for Christmas this year, before and after cruising Seabourn. Will definitely be finding sometime for Stellenbosch.

Thanks! Stellenbosch is gorgeous. I wish we had spent much longer there. Definitely did not want to leave!

Blingbling, thank you so much for the Whisper world cruise update yesterday! We are booked on that last leg from Capetown to FLL. We are trying to decide whether to change. The extra Caribbean /western Atlantic ports are familiar to us, so don't know if we should do something else. Probably wouldn't have checked this for some time without your heads up. Thanks again.

Starting to get nervous about our spring 2015 cruise ending in South Africa (not on SS) and wondering what those on the West African SS cruise (Capetown north) are doing.

 

As I'm looking 6 months out, it is hard to figure to balance safety/price. My travel agent has come up with $25K but as that's a whole other cruise, we'd like to come up with something less. BA won't have a reasonably priced ticket for us due to the one-way flight (we are Star Alliance members and have no status on One World) and I really don't want to stop at Senegal and then transit through the US given the current level of concern around Ebola. On the other hand, going through the middle-East seems dodgy as well!

Turkish Airlines, a Star Alliance member, has a flight from Johannesburg to New York via Istanbul for $2,700 business class one way. Since both legs of the flight are long a stopover in Istanbul - one of my favorite cities - is called for.

Turkish Airlines, a Star Alliance member, has a flight from Johannesburg to New York via Istanbul for $2,700 business class one way. Since both legs of the flight are long a stopover in Istanbul - one of my favorite cities - is called for.

Thanks for the information.

Thanks for the information.[/quT

 

That is really a great price, partner and I are on BA from Boston to Rome at the end of month in business class and it is just over US $8000 pp and BA's business class is not that great. It was best we could find for direct flights.

Thanks for the information.[/quT

 

That is really a great price, partner and I are on BA from Boston to Rome at the end of month in business class and it is just over US $8000 pp and BA's business class is not that great. It was best we could find for direct flights.

 

We're on USAirways non-stop Business Class from PHL to FCO, and the one way fare using Silversea reservations was $2350. Coach is $650. We've had the reservation for quite a while, but I was pleased with the cost.

That's a great price for that flight

Did silverseas make reservations for you

I told them the flight we wanted and they made the reservation.