Live From the Jade, Nov 13 to Dec 21, from Athens to Cape Town

[Ken the cruiser]

Day 38 - Dec 20 - Mossel Bay, South Africa

 

 

 

 

 

[Ken the cruiser]

On 12/19/2022 at 12:23 AM, jolli said:

Hello Ken from Australia! Your photos and information about the tours has been wonderful and very informative…thanks! Use wondering if you’ve met many people who’ve done private shore excursions in all your ports? Probably not many on this cruise….we have mostly private ones now since the travel industry has opened up more for 2023! I sincerely hope that the CD will have more talks on all our ports when we cruise in January 2023….it makes the cruise much more interesting for us all! Did he have a slide show too? 
on another note and I’m not sure if the question has been asked before….do you know if you’ve had many cases of Covid on board? Is there a quarantine period within your cabin for 5 days? I wouldn’t like that since this cruise is fairly port intensive and I don’t want to miss out on any port! Let me know please to annettejolliffeathotmaildotcom…..putting in the symbols of course! 
Cheers for now Annette …Keep on enjoying all your cruises of the future and looking forward to more reports! 

Sorry, really don’t socialize very much with other folks on the cruise. But you may want to ask your private excursion question on one of the Jade Roll Calls associated with this cruise.

 

As far as COVID goes, we haven’t heard anything about anything regarding that subject. My guess is NCL has put that subject in the rearview mirror, especially with most passengers being vaccinated and fully boosted, and the medical staff will probably deal with it on a case by case bases, depending on the severity. I’m also guessing most folks now are treating it like a cold unless it’s severe and have no intention of going to the medical clinic unless their individual case is severe enough. But that’s just my unofficial opinion sitting over here in the peanut gallery. 😁

 

[Ken the cruiser]

What an awesome experience at the Garden Route Game Lodge. I’ll just let the pictures tell the story! 😁

 
But before boarding the bus, we had to tender over. We waited about 40 minutes before it was our turn to get on the tender. Luckily, we showed up at 9 am to get in line rather than 9:30 like was suggested. It was 9:30 am when I took this picture. As you can see the line expanded a bit.
 

 
It took about 25 minutes to tender over to Mossel Bay.

 

  
Even the bus ride was awesome. Check out the leg room in the 2 sets of seats at the back of the bus! Definitely a total 180/from our ride yesterday in the back of the tour bus to the Addo Elephant Park! 😁

 

 

 
This was the scenery along our 70 minute drive to the park.

 

 

 

 
Sheep!

 

 

 
Let the hunt begin!! 😁

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mother and child rhinos

 

 

 

Mom

 

 
Maybe dad? Notice the bigger horn at the base.

 

 

Water buffalo

 

 
Mom and baby!

 

 

 

This was a female mongoose quickly running into the brush! Notice the white on the tail. I know. Who knew! 😂

 

 

Initially, we could only see one cheetah on the hillside.

 

 
Then a second one popped his head up. If you look closely, you can see the tip of his tail!

 

 

 
This was a secretary bird we saw off in the distance after we entered the lion section of the park.

 

 

Then finally, there they were. One male and two female lions! 😁

 

 

Ah, the good life! Not a care in the world. Ain’t it grand! 😂

 

 

Then a truck was coming up along the other side of the fence that caught their attention.

 

  

Obviously, nothing to worry about. But the male did keep an eye on it for awhile.

 

 

Then we caught his eye! 😂

 

So off we went back to the other side of the fence where the birds and antelope play among the another creatures.

 

 
A bunch of Ostriches!

 

 

Female wildebeests 

 

 

Young bachelor wildebeests waiting for their turn!

 
The king wildebeest, but only for one season. Then it’s the strongest of the bachelors turn.

 

 
 

 

Then came the zebras!

 

 

 

 
Then on the way out we saw this family of ducks! 
 

 

As you can see it was an awesome excursion!! 😁

 

[Ken the cruiser]

After our final dinner in Cagney’s, we wound up going to the encore performance of the very funny comedian, Mark Palmer!

 

 
Then it was off to the cabin to finish packing and get reading for our final excursion of the cruise on the way to the Cape Town airport where we’re going to see penguins!!! 😁

  

 

 

 

[PATRLR]

On 12/19/2022 at 1:24 PM, Ken the cruiser said:

We passed by this village of at least 500+ little “homes”, like those in this picture, which had to be by far the poorest neighborhood we have ever seen.

Then I'll assume this is the first time you'll have been to Cape Town.  If it's anything like it was about 15-18 years ago when I was travelling there, between the airport and Cape Town you should go by an area like that, except those "homes" extend for as far as the eye can see.  Many square miles of such homes. 

Really made me understand just how important Nelson Mandela's call for peaceful transition was. 

[jolli]

3 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

What an awesome experience at the Garden Route Game Lodge. I’ll just let the pictures tell the story! 😁

 
But before boarding the bus, we had to tender over. We waited about 40 minutes before it was our turn to get on the tender. Luckily, we showed up at 9 am to get in line rather than 9:30 like was suggested. It was 9:30 am when I took this picture. As you can see the line expanded a bit.
 

 
It took about 25 minutes to tender over to Mossel Bay.

 

  
Even the bus ride was awesome. Check out the leg room in the 2 sets of seats at the back of the bus! Definitely a total 180/from our ride yesterday in the back of the tour bus to the Addo Elephant Park! 😁

 

 

 
This was the scenery along our 70 minute drive to the park.

 

 

 

 
Sheep!

 

 

 
Let the hunt begin!! 😁

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mother and child rhinos

 

 

 

Mom

 

 
Maybe dad? Notice the bigger horn at the base.

 

 

Water buffalo

 

 
Mom and baby!

 

 

 

This was a female mongoose quickly running into the brush! Notice the white on the tail. I know. Who knew! 😂

 

 

Initially, we could only see one cheetah on the hillside.

 

 
Then a second one popped his head up. If you look closely, you can see the tip of his tail!

 

 

 
This was a secretary bird we saw off in the distance after we entered the lion section of the park.

 

 

Then finally, there they were. One male and two female lions! 😁

 

 

Ah, the good life! Not a care in the world. Ain’t it grand! 😂

 

 

Then a truck was coming up along the other side of the fence that caught their attention.

 

  

Obviously, nothing to worry about. But the male did keep an eye on it for awhile.

 

 

Then we caught his eye! 😂

 

So off we went back to the other side of the fence where the birds and antelope play among the another creatures.

 

 
A bunch of Ostriches!

 

 

Female wildebeests 

 

 

Young bachelor wildebeests waiting for their turn!

 
The king wildebeest, but only for one season. Then it’s the strongest of the bachelors turn.

 

 
 

 

Then came the zebras!

 

 

 

 
Then on the way out we saw this family of ducks! 
 

 

As you can see it was an awesome excursion!! 😁

 

 

[jolli]

Just now, jolli said:

 

Was this at the Botlierskop Game Reserve ….Ken? Looks amazing! How many people in the Jeep? You got to see soo many animals on this one Game Reserve…we’ll worth the experience! 😎😎🇦🇺🇦🇺

[Ken the cruiser]

6 hours ago, jolli said:

Was this at the Botlierskop Game Reserve ….Ken? Looks amazing! How many people in the Jeep? You got to see soo many animals on this one Game Reserve…we’ll worth the experience! 😎😎🇦🇺🇦🇺

No. It was the Garden Route Game Lodge owned by one individual. Yes! It was an awesome excursion. And today, we get to see penguins! Yay!! 😁

[Ken the cruiser]

We have arrived in Cape Town, South Africa! Our journey’s end after we take our one last excursion on the way to the airport for our 16+ hour flight back to the US! We’ve definitely had a great time and saw a lot of new places we have only read about over the years!
 

Thanks everyone for following along and hopefully we’ll see you again on my next Live From thread which will be on the Dawn cruising around the Caribbean in late January for 11 days! 😁

  

 

[CruisinMama2003]

Wow what an awesome Live, thoroughly enjoyed following along! Thank you!

 

Will be waiting (im)patiently for the next one 😁

 

Safe travels home to both you & your wife.

[Rob_H]

Thank you for such a detailed "live from", especially the photos! It's a lot of work, and it is appreciated.

 

We're booked on the Dawn West Africa in 2024 probably b2b with one or two cruises before, South Africa r/t and Mauritius to South Africa, so the final stages of your cruise were especially useful to know what to expect.

 

We took the Jade Athens to Dubai then on to Singapore in late 2019 so  it was interesting to see and compare your experience on the first cruise as well.

[cruiseny4life]

I echo the thanks. I was actually put off when you mentioned you wouldn't be posting any food photos. As your review continued, I'm actually thankful you stayed true to your no food photo mantra! It allowed me to really enjoy your wildlife photos, especially loved the birds and cats! 

 

Your narrative was just enough to let us in on what was happening, followed up with a perfect amount of photos. And, (I'm weird) I am so thankful to you that you put a couple of spaces between your photos so they didn't run into each other. This drives me insane (I know it's a me issue), but this is one reason I really enjoyed scrolling through all the photos you posted.

 

Thank you! Safe plane travels to you and your wife! And I look forward to re-joining you in a few weeks for another cruise. 🙂 

[Ken the cruiser]

We made it to the Cape Town Airport at around 4:30 pm. Luckily we found a couple of chairs to sit in as Delta doesn’t open up until 3 hours prior to our flight leaving at 10:50 pm. 
 

But along our drive here, we went to Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point before heading over to see the large colony of South African penguins. We also saw some wild ostriches and baboons along the way! 😁

 

 

 
A bridge we drive in cut out of the granite hillside. 
 

 

 

 

 
Pegram's Point 

 

 

 

 
This is the Cape of Good Hope from a distance. 
 

 

 

 

 
Cape Point

 

 

 
Views from the top of the hill where the lighthouse was. The walk wasn’t as tough as walking up the Santorini Donkey Trail, but it ran a close second! 😂 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then we stopped for lunch at around 2:30 pm before heading on to the airport. 
 

 

 

Seeing the penguins as well as the baboons and ostriches along the roadside really put the wildlife icing on our awesome B2B cruise! 😁

[Ken the cruiser]

1 hour ago, cruiseny4life said:

I echo the thanks. I was actually put off when you mentioned you wouldn't be posting any food photos. As your review continued, I'm actually thankful you stayed true to your no food photo mantra! It allowed me to really enjoy your wildlife photos, especially loved the birds and cats! 

 

Your narrative was just enough to let us in on what was happening, followed up with a perfect amount of photos. And, (I'm weird) I am so thankful to you that you put a couple of spaces between your photos so they didn't run into each other. This drives me insane (I know it's a me issue), but this is one reason I really enjoyed scrolling through all the photos you posted.

 

Thank you! Safe plane travels to you and your wife! And I look forward to re-joining you in a few weeks for another cruise. 🙂 

Thanks for your kind words. I agree with you about loading multiple pictures up, then inserting them one after another. It’s quicker, but you sometimes really have to work at seeing where one picture ends and the next one begins. I figure I’m taking the time to post the pictures. I might as well take a few extra moments an enter a “space” before inserting the next picture into the post. 😁

[Crazy planning mom]

Thanks for sharing your experiences on this truly amazing journey with us.  Safe travels and happy holidays.

[minnie71]

Thank you for all the photos from South Africa. I am going on the cruise around Cape Town in a few weeks. 

 

Did you notice if there are luggage lockers at the airport in Cape Town? We have a late flight and would like to store luggage so we can explore Cape Town.

 

[ecslady]

Thanks so much for sharing your travels.  Wishing you a safe trip home.

[Ken the cruiser]

37 minutes ago, minnie71 said:

Thank you for all the photos from South Africa. I am going on the cruise around Cape Town in a few weeks. 

 

Did you notice if there are luggage lockers at the airport in Cape Town? We have a late flight and would like to store luggage so we can explore Cape Town.

 

Sorry, I have no idea and we haven’t seen any signs point to them if they are here. Maybe Ms Google would know. 

[ringers0815]

Loved your live review. Wishing you a safe trip home and a wonderful holiday season.

[SplashOfWater]

What an amazing trip! Thank you so much for sharing it with us. Safe travels.

[Travelexpert35]

Thanks so much for sharing your fabulous trip with us. Loved seeing all of the photos and your feedback on the ship. Have a safe trip home. Happy Holidays!!

[Leish]

Thank you very much for sharing your trip with us all. It was very enjoyable and informative given we will be travelling along a similar route in February 23 from Dubai to Athens on the Jade.😃

[Kalynan]

Ken & Mrs Ken............ Thanks for the detailed reports of your daily activities on your cruise which looks to have been fab and your excellent pictures.

 

Like others have said, you have a great way of providing helpful information whilst whetting the appetite for journeying to far-flung places which we are still keen to explore !!

 

You also brought back happy memories of our Caribbean cruise in an aft balcony cabin on the Jade (10168) in 2017 - superb sunsets with a cocktail or two in hand 🍸🍸

 

 

[PhillyTravelBug]

Thank you for letting us tag along with you. Your photos have me planning our 2025 cruise now to Africa.

[mellerio]

Hi Ken,  Thanks for sharing your cruise experience.  We will be on the Jade starting Jan. 14th and on to the  13th of Feb.

What was the name of the excursion you did in Richards Bay?  I just looked at the NCL excursions for Richards Bay and didn't see any thing like you were on.

:Looking forward to an interesting cruise.  Thanks again for sharing.