Day 69 May 15 – Durban, South Africa

Day 69 Friday May 15th (51 days to go) — We arrived to Durban, South Africa this evening at 5pm. The first thing for the evening was to report to port authorities in the cruise terminal for a passport check. That was done with no issues. After the meeting with immigration, we had dinner at The Polo Grill and then attended a performance by Steve Hollington, who had a tribute to Sir Elton John. It was a good show and then we said goodbye to our cruise buddies as we get off the ship at 8am tomorrow morning for our safari excursion.

So, today was basically a sea day and we attended a Country Fair that was held on the pool deck in the morning and had lunch with the gang in The Terrace Cafe. After lunch we came back to the cabin and began to pack for the overland safari, taking a break to attend tea in the Horizons Lounge. Then, we came back to the cabin to finish the packing and get ready for the immigration meeting after we docked.

I put this blog together tonight by connecting my laptop to my iPhone as a personal hotspot because South Africa does not allow Starlink, so the ship’s Wi-Fi is down I think until we leave Cape Town in a week. Let me know if there appears to be any issues with this blog.

This video is from last night and is Kevin Guidry talking about his new favorite word Maputo, Mozambique 🙂

Here are a few photos and videos of the Country Fair. Each department on the ship hosts a different game. When you participate, you receive tickets that are then turned in for drawings to win presents. You know we are not athletic 🙂 so we did not participate in the games.

This is Rince, who is the cabin butler. He took Ketan’s place in Sri Lanka. The butler’s game was they would stack ten paper cups, and the passenger had three balls to try and knock down all the cups.

Housekeeping had an awesome game. The passengers had to throw rolls of toilet paper in a toilet.

The boutique department

The casino department

Destination Services game was to correctly the name the country for the flags hanging on the window

The restaurant game was a restaurant employee would toss balls over their shoulders and the passenger had to catch the balls in a tub

No doubt this video should win video of the year 🙂

Photo of John and Joan after their contest. They are both awesome individuals and we are super happy to have met them. Before leaving from the group tonight, I asked John if he would miss me and he said yes. Told him I will miss you also….laughing. There was a country somewhere that we learned how people greet one another. If we both get drunk on the same night, it may become the new video of the year.

The galley team had passengers guessing different spics by smelling the spices

The bar team had passengers tossing rings around the bottles of alcohol

The Spa employees I think had passengers balancing on the yoga ball while doing an activity

The deck department had passengers throwing rings around sticks. Pay attention to the video that follows this photo.

Check out this toss!!! While everyone was throwing one ring at a time, John threw the entire bunch and put all of them over the ring. His excitement is like he just won a million dollars…laughing

Photo of me with Rince, the butler for our cabin

The electrical department made a game like Operation

Check out the wave action in the pool

As we were walking down the hallway leading to The Horizons Lounge. Look at the waves appearing and disappearing in the window facing forward of the ship

A couple of photos from afternoon tea

Arriving to the Port of Durban, South Africa

Not a welcome sight when on a cruise, but more often than normal, we have an ambulance awaiting our arrival to take a passenger off the ship

Dinner tonight at The Polo Grill

Jackie had the tuna appetizer on a recommendation from Willie, our next door neighbor.

And she had a 5oz filet mignon for her entree

Lane went all in tonight with a crab cake, clam chowder, Caesar salad and baked prawns

We shared the dessert tonight. The small jelly candies come before your dessert and then there was a full Baked Alaska at one time 🙂

Durban at night

Tomorrow, we leave for a four-day safari excursion to Chobe and a visit to Victoria Falls. We are both excited and I am a little nervous about the safari. When we started hanging out together and traveling, I told Jackie three places you have to visit: St. Petersburg, Russia, Israel and Chobe Game Lodge in Africa. Well, we know the first two have not happened although we did have travel planned to both places and had to cancel due to conflicts. The visit to Chobe I hope is as great as I remember the first time I went. So, I am apprehensive that it does not meet previous experience and Jackie does not get the full amazing safari experience. My fingers are crossed that it happens for her. I will report in tomorrow evening from Johannesburg, South Africa.