Sejal Patel

by Niki Duncan

Hi Niki!

I just wanted to take a few moments and thank you for organizing such a wonderful travel experience for us! It was all so beautiful, from the scenic views in Cape Town, to the game and lodge in Sabi Sands, to the natural beauty in Victoria Falls.

As for the feedback, here you go…

1. Southern Sun Waterfront and Cape Town:

The Southern Sun hotel chain had been likened to Holiday Inn in the USA. From my experiences with Holiday Inn, the Southern Sun hotels we stayed at were much nicer. The accommodations were very nice and clean. They were a bit small to share between three people, however. The included breakfasts were very helpful, since most of our days started very early.

It was good to know ahead of time that our Table Mountain visit was weather dependant. I don’t think we realized just how regularly the cable cars closed down, however. While we were turned away during our first attempt, we really did luck out and visit on a beautiful day later in the week. We didn’t have any alternative windy weather plans for that first afternoon and spent entirely too much time walking around the Waterfront. In retrospect, we should have visited the city center and gone to the flea market that first afternoon.

The guided tours with Francois (from Hylton Ross) were amazing – he is a veritable library worth of information on every conceivable topic! Thank you for setting us up with him. He provided us with an in depth discussions of all the locations we visited, detailing the history and evolution of each area, along with statistics, antidotal stories, etc. We were really glad we chose the private tours. We were able to stop as we pleased and spend as much/little time as we needed at each destination. We had a few wineries in mind that we wanted to visit along with Francois’ suggestions. We ended up going to two wineries that were part of the scheduled tour. Nelsons Creek, the first one we went to was well worth visiting, learning about the New Beginnings venture as well as a great deal about wine production in the area. Chamonix in Franschhoek was intended as a lunch stop as well as a wine tasting. While the grounds were beautiful, the wines were not up to par with the others we tasted – I would recommend adding a different stop to the tour. Thelema and Waterford were wonderful estates to visit and sample wines. I only wish we didn’t run out of time and were able to go to Vergelen as well.

One thing we were not aware of was how seasonally dependent a visit to Cape Town was. We are going to have to take a winter visit to the Cape some day to see the whales, the flowers in bloom, etc.

2. Savanna Lodge and Sabi Sands:

Savanna was a beautiful lodge with an amazing staff. I would recommend it to others. What I liked most was the personalized attention and the fact that they treated the lodge as one big family. Since they only had a limited capacity, all the game drives and meals were very intimate. One thing I noticed during our game drives is that we often came across other lodge vehicles that were packed with people. The Savanna vehicles were limited to two people per row, allowing all a close up experience with the game. Also, while it was very lush and green with high grass, we were able to find all the big game with relative ease. The greenery was so beautiful, it just added to the experience.

We were told that it was unusual, but we saw all Big 5 during our first afternoon game drive. The ranger and tracker we were teamed with (Shaune and Nordic) were incredible!!! They both had such a wealth of knowledgeable about the game as well as the plants, birds, and reptiles! All we had to do was “place an order” for what we wanted to see in a given drive and they tracked/found it for us! The only large game we didn’t see was the cheetah, and from what we heard, it was rare to spot them. I must confess - we didn’t take the most diligent notes while we were on our drives, so we might be sending Shaune a few digital pictures of birds and animals to label J.

The staff was great and extremely attentive too. It seemed like they were in our rooms every time we left for a drive or a meal, changing the towels, making the beds, drawing our baths!!!, and generally making up the rooms. They were so helpful too. Just a little antidote to give you an idea of what I mean - while we were packing our things on the last day, we needed some plastic bags (grocery shopping type, nothing special) to place our dirty shoes in. I called up Melanie, the receptionist, and a little while later someone brought us a handful of bags. It appeared as though the staff had scrounged around (possibly even going into their own rooms) to find this random item for us!!!

The chef (Emily) was fantastic as well. She was aware of our dietary restrictions and came out to meet with us when we first arrived, asking if there was anything in particular we wanted her to make for us during the trip. The meals she prepared were so wonderful; we really didn’t want to limit her creativity by constraining her to our food choices – we never did help her out by giving her suggestions. She just consistently brought out one fabulous meal after another! Even though the meals were so good that we ate our fill, we couldn’t resist trying the desserts at the end of every meal. While I am not particularly a fan of all desserts, every cake and pie she served was beyond words. If Emily is willing to part with them, we would love a couple of her recipes!!!

Some nice things to note for future guests: laundry services were included at no extra charge. Also, a computer and card reader were available to download digital pictures off our cameras – Sona’s memory cards weren’t compatible, but if future guests had a heads up to bring their camera peripherals, downloading would be quite easy. As far as rain gear goes, ponchos were provided when needed, so no need to bring your own - maybe bring a small umbrella during rain season. Universal adapter plugs were provided. Lastly, our experience at Savanna made everything else pale in comparison. I would suggest doing the safari near the end of future vacations simply so that the other destinations don’t get overshadowed.

The only “negative” thing I can say about Savanna – the washrooms in the suites were geared toward couples (probably their most common type of guests), and made it a little challenging for us to share.

3. Southern Sun Grayston and Johannesburg

Again, the Southern Sun was very nice, the accommodations were a bit larger than at the Waterfront. Our Soweto Tour was very good; our guide (Ifran?) really helped us understand the city’s past and present, weaving in his own life experiences and even pointing out his own home as we passed by. It was quite unexpected, but we happened to cross paths with Winnie Mandela when we stopped to visit Mandela’s home!

4. Ilala Lodge and Victoria Falls

The accommodations didn’t meet the same 4 star quality as South Africa – it seemed closer to 2 to 3 stars. This would have been good to know ahead of time. The staff was very nice, but not all that accommodating. The rooms and hallways had a mildew smell to them and talking to guests at other hotels, this wasn’t the case elsewhere. After comparing experiences with others, it turned out that the restaurant at our hotel was the most vegetarian friendly and reasonably priced too.

There were several things that would have been nice to have advance warning on - we were visiting in the extremely low tourism season, we were far younger than most of the other visitors to the area, and food and activities were generally very expensive. Most restaurants and bars closed very early at night. I think we would have spent one less day at this destination had we known, and more time elsewhere.

5. Miscellaneous

Adapter plug information to travelers… The adapters we brought with us were wrong for South Africa but right for Zimbabwe. Most places we stayed provided adapters, but it would be helpful to know ahead of time which adapter to bring along. The universal packs sold in the US are not compatible in South Africa.

So that is about it. Like I said, this was an incredible trip. Thank you again for all of your assistance.

Sejal

2007/02/21 | permalink |

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Sejal Patel

by Niki Duncan

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