Day 70 Saturday May 16th (50 days to go) — We had a morning flight from Durban to Johannesburg, South Africa and arrived in the early afternoon to the hotel for a one-night stay. As we were on an Oceania overland excursion, we were guided from the ship through the airport in Durban and then when we arrived in Johannesburg, we were met by a representative who escorted us through the airport and transported us to the hotel (54 on Bath).
I had stayed at this hotel in 2015 and knew it would be a good place to spend the night. Also, there was a shopping mall connected to the hotel so there was no need to walk the streets in Johannesburg unless you had a desire to do this. There were 12 of us on this excursion and some of the passengers decided to walk the streets and visit a market. We had a couple of items to pick up at the mall for our safari, so we decided to spend the afternoon walking through the mall.
The hotel was as nice as I remembered, and we were greeted by staff. In the evening we had a meal together with the other 5 couples inside the hotel.
The Durban airport which was clean and we were fortunate to have the guide escort us through the check-in and passing through the security check points. It was handled as first class service.
A bar located in the airport that had a great name for South Africa.
The last time I did this excursion we flew on South Africa airlines. This Airlink I think is part of South Africa airlines, but I am not really sure. I know it is part of the Sky Alliance like Delta. One of the things I did not like was we were not provided reservation codes for our flights so we could not choose our seats and add our Delta SkyMiles numbers to the flights to earn miles. The planes were in a 2-2 seat configuration and were comfortable for the short flights of 90 minutes going to Johannesburg and then Chobe the next day.
We have been searching for jellybeans as we ran out in the ship’s cabin. Everyone in our ship group have been searching for us and we all ended up finding the same brand, all in small bags. 🙂
This is the Vista cruise ship captain who is on our flight and heading home to Norway.
Depending on where you were seated on the plane you boarded through a jet bridge (passengers in the first half of the plane) or these stairs for those in the second half of the plane.
Jackie and Marta heading up the staircase to board the plane
David and Marta were on the overland with us and seated across from us on the plane.
This was my seat number. There were 34 rows on the plane so we were very near the rear of the aircraft.
They served us a meal (snack) on the flight. Originally, we were told there were three different wraps, chicken, beef or vegetarian. By the time the meal service reached us the choice were chicken or vegetarian and those that know me, no way was I eating a chicken wrap. The wraps were pretty good and came packaged in a box. I like the packaging with the words Freedom of the African Sky which was a nice reminder we were in Africa and how fortunate we were to be on this ATW trip.
Jackie had the chicken wrap and said it was good
Early morning wake up is tough on old people
Arriving to JNB Airport in Johannesburg, South Africa
The luxury boutique hotel 54 on Bath in Rosebank, Johannesburg, is 29 years old. It originally opened in 1997 as The Grace Hotel. After a change in ownership and extensive refurbishments by Southern Sun, it was reopened under its current name in 2012.
Lobby area of the hotel
View of the lap pool from our room
