Around The World In 21 Days: Westin Cape Town

By Robert | Published November 1, 2015

Index:

  1. Introduction
  2. Delta Comfort+ ECP-ATL-JNB
  3. Hilton Sandton
  4. British Airways Economy JNB-PLZ
  5. Conrad Pezula
  6. Knysna and the Garden Route
  7. Westin Cape Town
  8. Exploring Cape Town + Penguins!
  9. British Airways Economy CPT-JNB
  10. Protea Hotel OR Tambo Airport
  11. Kenya Airways Economy JNB-NBO-DXB
  12. DoubleTree Hotel Jumeirah Beach
  13. Exploring Dubai
  14. Kenya Airways Economy DXB-NBO-SEZ
  15. Hilton Seychelles Northolme Resort
  16. Exploring Mahe Island
  17. Kenya Airways Economy SEZ-NBO-BKK
  18. W Bangkok Hotel
  19. Exploring Bangkok
  20. Vietnam Airlines Economy BKK-HAN-NRT
  21. Back In Tokyo!
  22. Delta Air Lines Main Cabin NRT-DTW-ATL
  23. DoubleTree Atlanta Airport
  24. Delta Air Lines Comfort+ ATL-ECP
  25. Conclusion

Introduction
When it comes to Starwood or Hilton properties within South Africa, it’s a very limited selection. Since I had already stayed at the Hilton in Johannesburg and the Conrad in Knysna, I figured that my one night in Cape Town would be a good use of some of my SPG points. As a Category 4 hotel, the Westin Cape Town would only set me back 10,000 starpoints for a standard room.

My other two options for stays within Cape Town were the Hilton Cape Town City Centre and DoubleTree Cape Town – Upper Eastside; neither of which looked like they would be as good of a property as the Westin. The DoubleTree for example appeared to be in a less-than-desirable neighborhood (and furthest from the waterfront) and the Hilton just didn’t look very appealing. Especially when compared against the much more modern Westin which is also a short ride or walk to the waterfront.

Arrival
Driving up to the hotel is very straight forward coming off of the highway and it is directly across from the entrance of the convention center that it is connected to. Immediately after pulling up, a belhop started helping with unloading my bags (err, one rather heavy duffel bag) while one of the valets got my car squared away and ready to be parked. Upon entering through the glass entrance I made my way to the check-in desk.

Westin Cape Town Entrance

I didn’t even have to wait a second before one of the front desk staff started to help me and check me in. She was exceptionally friendly and was surprised that I had come all this way only to spend one night and the better part of a day in Cape Town! I told her that I wish I could have more time, but I had many more places to visit on this trip before I had to be back home in Florida in a little over two weeks. She did give me some suggestions for things and gave me the rundown on the hotel while also informing me that I had been upgraded.

The Room
The difference between the room I had booked and the one I had been upgraded to was that I had been put on the Executive Club Floor, a view of the waterfront, and of course Executive Club Lounge access. Otherwise, as best as I can tell the rooms are otherwise the same and provide a decent amount of space both in the bedroom and bathroom.

One of the interesting features was that instead of restricting access to the floor via a key reader in the elevator, once you got off on the floor, there was a sliding glass door that is unlocked with your room key. A little different, and I can only think what might happen if someone really sleepy getting back to their room doesn’t realize that it is there…

Executive Club Floor Entrance

The room had a slight modern touch, but felt warmer versus how some modern design aesthetics are dark and “cooler”. As typical with a Westin, the bed was very comfortable and being a King, provided me with more than enough room.

Executive Club Room – Entrance


Executive Club Room – Bed + Desk


Executive Club Room – Desk + TV + Wardrobe

The use of glass doors continued with the entrance to the bathroom, which was located between the main area and the entrance to the room. There was a separate tub and a large shower, with the toilet in a separate room off the main bathroom. Two sinks and plenty of counter space would give anyone traveling with a partner plenty of room to get ready in the morning at the same time.

Executive Club Room – Bathroom Entrance


Executive Club Room – Bathroom


Nice Large Shower, Plus Good Water Pressure!

Finally, there is the view that I had from the room. While not the best hotel view in the room, I think for city center hotels in Cape Town this might be one of the better ones. Although I admit, with my super small sample size of hotel rooms in Cape Town…so I may be wrong on that.

View From The Room

At Night It Is Easy To Pick Out The Observation Wheel At The V&A Waterfront

Dining
Being that I only stayed in Cape Town for one night, I was not about to eat all my meals and drink all my drinks at the Westin. I did however take advantage of eating breakfast my one and only morning there. Off the lobby is where the restaurant Thirty7 is located, which in the morning features an extensive breakfast buffet. The quality and scope of the spread was very good, including foods that a number of different cultures could enjoy (featuring both Western and Asian options).

Thirty7 Breakfast

There is also a restaurant on the 19th floor, that I had wanted to check out, however I wound up spending my one and only evening down at the V&A waterfront. Perhaps that will be for next time…

Departure
When I checked in I had request a 4:00PM late checkout as I was catching a flight back to Johannesburg at 7:45PM, and I didn’t necessarily want to leave all my belongings in the car while I explored the city. Plus, being able to take a quick shower definitely is nice!

I made it back to the hotel at about 3:30PM and asked the valet if they could just leave my car up front, as I would be back down in less than 30 minutes. I headed upstairs, grabbed my bag, grabbed a quick shower, and headed back down to check out, which took all of 30 seconds. One of the belhops took my bag out to my rental and off I went!

It couldn’t have gone any easier!

Conclusion
Overall, while my stay was short it went very well. Of course I can’t touch on many aspects of the property due to just not having been there for more than 24 hours (actually less than that by an hour or two), but between my limited interaction with friendly staff, rooms that are in great shape, and a location that makes it an easy base to explore, I would definitely recommend it. However, the one thing that it does have going against it are the average rates at this property. While I took advantage of a free night for 10,000 starpoints, average paid rates for the time I was there were in the $300US range. From all the searches from trying to plan a trip to Cape Town in the past and for this trip, it does seem to stay rather high. This is probably due to the location (connected to the convention center), so if price is of a concern than other hotels may be a better fit. But, if you have starpoints or are willing to spend a little more, I think you’ll find the Westin Cape Town to be a great option.

Posted in Africa, Hotels, RTW, South Africa, SPG, Travel, Trip Report | Leave a comment

Around The World In 21 Days: Knysna and the Garden Route

By Robert | Published October 11, 2015

Index:

  1. Introduction
  2. Delta Comfort+ ECP-ATL-JNB
  3. Hilton Sandton
  4. British Airways Economy JNB-PLZ
  5. Conrad Pezula
  6. Knysna and the Garden Route
  7. Westin Cape Town
  8. Exploring Cape Town + Penguins!
  9. British Airways Economy CPT-JNB
  10. Protea Hotel OR Tambo Airport
  11. Kenya Airways Economy JNB-NBO-DXB
  12. DoubleTree Hotel Jumeirah Beach
  13. Exploring Dubai
  14. Kenya Airways Economy DXB-NBO-SEZ
  15. Hilton Seychelles Northolme Resort
  16. Exploring Mahe Island
  17. Kenya Airways Economy SEZ-NBO-BKK
  18. W Bangkok Hotel
  19. Exploring Bangkok
  20. Vietnam Airlines Economy BKK-HAN-NRT
  21. Back In Tokyo!
  22. Delta Air Lines Main Cabin NRT-DTW-ATL
  23. DoubleTree Atlanta Airport
  24. Delta Air Lines Comfort+ ATL-ECP
  25. Conclusion

Introduction
For years, I have wanted to do a road trip along the Garden Route of South Africa, but it had always gotten away from me. I would plan these week+ long trips out in 2013 and 2014 and each time I would find myself choosing a different adventure to a different place. When I started planning my RTW itinerary I knew that now was the time to make this happen and check out the scenic landscapes that are offered along the stretches of highway in Southern South Africa.

The Garden Route seems to have slightly different start and end points depending on where you look it seems, but for the purposes of my write up, it’ll mean from Port Elizabeth (in Eastern Cape Province) to Cape Town (in Western Cape Province). Typically from what I can tell it also means typically traveling along the N2 highway, which I largely did save for a few deviations to get to some points of interest.

For me, my journey would be a relatively long one – traveling just shy of 1000km over the span of three days. My basic route was broken down like this:

  1. Port Elizabeth (Airport) to Addo Elephant National Park
  2. Addo Elephant National Park to Knysna
  3. Knysna
  4. Knysna to Cape Town via Cape Agulhas

Considering everything that I was doing, this was a lot to cram into just a few short days and it was a lot of driving. But there was plenty of reward when it came to the sights and experiences (both good and bad!).

First Leg: Port Elizabeth to Addo Elephant National Park
Having just arrived in South Africa (Johannesburg) the night before I took the early morning British Airways flight down to Port Elizabeth so that I could hit the road early. Luckily the flight was on time and I was able to schlep my bag over to the Hertz office to pick up the car I had booked only a few days prior. So, let’s go ahead and caveat something here: I’ve rented a lot of cars in the US before, but had never rented in a foreign country. This was going to be a first for me! I will say that the process was very much the same even with the local Hertz branch being run by a franchisee, with the only downside being that my Hertz Gold Plus President’s Circle didn’t seem to do anything/mean anything here. I filled out the forms, declined the tire and windshield insurance (note to self, you may want to get this…) and was given the keys to my car, a Ford Fiesta hatchback.

Technically The Fiesta Was An Upgrade…

Everything seemed to be in order, so off I went! Aside from almost going the wrong way into a roundabout leaving the airport, driving on the “wrong side” of the road, really wasn’t that bad. A few wrong turns were made, but I chalk that up mostly to Google Maps. And speaking of Google Maps, when I first plugged in “Addo Elephant National Park” I had not paid attention and it took me East versus North to a southern entrance to the park that surprise, was closed.

That meant turning around, trying to figure out how to get on the appropriate route without taking anything that was too much of a back road. Going back towards Port Elizabeth on the N2, I was thinking to myself, “Wow, the roads in South Africa aren’t as bad as I thought!” Then I found myself on the back roads and rural highways.

So, after first getting off the N2, I found myself on a back road that was absolutely fun to run the Fiesta on. No other traffic, narrow, and a bit hilly with a few turns. But it didn’t last long until I was on the R335 which would take me to Addo.

Well, let me tell you about the R335 first of all. It’s heavily traveled by everything from cars to huge semis. It has a 100 km/h speed limit in some spots. It isn’t very well maintained and has zero shoulder (or less!). Most of you can do the math of that formula and know that these things don’t add up to anything good.

Well, for me that meant at about 6km north of the last cross street north of Port Elizabeth, as I came around a corner (driving at maybe only 60-80 km/h because the road was sketchy), a semi truck going the opposite direction had crossed over the center line making the curve. I had two choices, risk getting clipped (and since I was on that side of the car…) or try to go over on the shoulder to allow us to both safely pass. Well, I opted for the safe bet and my tire made contact with the eroding edge of the highway and I blew my tire. Essentially hitting a pothole at 80 km/h is not good! I immediately pulled off to the side of the road to see what had happened…and with my luck I couldn’t change the tire as the ground was extremely soft from having rained for the past week. My first two hours driving across South Africa and this has already going wrong!

Not Where I Had Planned To Be…The Side Of The Road

I waived the white flag quickly and called Hertz and arranged for them to bring a new car out to me and for them to tow the old car back to Port Elizabeth. It took about two hours, but they showed up I filled out the forms and then started wondering how much this was going to cost me. At least they were friendly about everything and then I was back off in a VW Polo hatchback.

The Replacement Volkswagen

The rest of the drive to Addo was for the most part uneventful. Thankfully!

Stop: Addo Elephant National Park
Given the proximity to Port Elizabeth, this is a very easy National Park to visit in South Africa if you want to see wildlife. With roads, both paved and unpaved, fanning out across the park you can see a great deal. However, don’t expect to see many elephants! During my visit here I saw just a single one all off by itself! Of course I was only able to spend a few hours here, so odds are there were many more just not in the parts I was visiting.

Seriously, This Was The Only Elephant That I Saw

Upon entering the park, you’ll have to pay a fee which is higher for foreign tourists. Shortly from there you’ll come upon the “Main Rest Camp” here there are facilities including a restaurant, gift/convenience shop, restrooms, fuel, camping, picnic areas, and everything else you would expect. You’ll have to go past another gate to get into the actual park, and they stop you here to check your paperwork that you got from the main gate and then you are free to roam about.

Even Minus The Animals, It’s A Beautiful Area

While you may or may not see many elephants, you will see tons of Zebras. Seriously. They were practically everywhere in the park. And plenty of other wildlife as well. The only thing I didn’t see were lions, which was probably a good thing…

Zebras…Zebras Everywhere!

I Alighted At My Own Risk And Thankfully Did Not Encounter A Lion

Seriously, There Were A TON Of Zebras

Antelope?

Since most of the roads are hard-packed graded dirt roads, it’s definitely worth noting that you probably don’t want to rent that Mercedes or BMW sedan if your plans include this park. While you don’t need four wheel drive or a truck or jeep, there were a few spots where it was definitely sketchy driving through and that was mostly due to the recent rains. Remember, if you are unsure about driving through something, you probably shouldn’t! Although, it is probably also not recommended to get out of the vehicle to gauge the situation either!

Not All Of The Dirt Roads Are This “Smooth”

Second Leg: Addo Elephant National Park to Knysna
After stopping off at the main rest camp again on the way out, it was time to rush back down the R335 towards Port Elizabeth and start driving towards Knysna. It was already in the afternoon and I had wanted to try to make it there before dark. Especially considering how my first day of driving in Africa had already gone, I did not want to figure out driving at night quite yet. Google Maps put it at roughly 300km and a little over 3 hours, but knowing that it was winter in the Southern Hemisphere, it would be dark before I knew it.

I started out heading back the way I had come back down the R335 and to the N2. Luckily my old rental car was no longer on the side of the road, so I took that as a good sign! Most of the journey would be pretty uneventful and wasn’t the most scenic leg either. As the N2 winded through the forests it went to and from four-lane divided highway and two-lane rural road. I stopped about an hour in and after being passed by a few bikers with Confederate-flag patches on their jackets (whom I would later see on the side of the road having been caught by highway police) at a gas station to grab a snack and drink and then kept on driving along.

At one point I tried to get around the toll plaza at Tsitsikamma by taking the R102 (which I think is an old alignment of the road) as Google Maps told me that it was a bypass, but as I went down this derlict former-highway, signs started appearing warning me that the bridge was out over the Bloukrans River. So, I had to backtrack and pay the toll on the N2. Hardly the end of the world…

At this point it really was a race against the clock to beat the end of the day. It was already at the point of sunset where I needed to turn on headlights and there was still an hour to go on the road. It eventually did become fully dark about 20 minutes later, so the last 30 minutes or so were spent driving in the dark. This wasn’t too bad, although given the location of the Conrad Pezula, going there for the first time at night could get you mixed up – you have to drive through a residential neighborhood and instinct tells you that surely a resort couldn’t be out that way. But surely enough and it is a fantastic property.

Stop: Knysna
My first morning in Knysna was admittedly lazy, sleeping in until at least 9AM. Which was fine by me considering what the past 48 hours held – flying 9200 miles from Florida and driving nearly 400km. That’s a lot of ground in a short period of time and by the time I reached the hotel I had only been in South Africa for a little over 24 hours. But that was essentially the theme for this trip (or all my trips, really), and thus my time in Knysna would be limited.

I was lazy enough that I missed breakfast, so I opted to go grab lunch from Cafe Z in the main building before heading out. When I finished up there and then found out that I wouldn’t be able to rent a kayak at the beach (or canoe solo), the Conrad set me up at a place on Thesens Island in Knysna. Actually, they sent me to a bar/restaurant, which apparently is a chain, called Quay Four.

Quay Four Restaurant (and Kayak Rental)

There was a rental desk inside and they set me up at the very affordable rate of 100 Rand per hour (~$7). I went ahead an put down for two hours and then it was off to their dock for me to put in. I was given a quick briefing on suggested routes to take and what to do/not to do, and then I was off on my own.

I started by going through the canals of Thesens Island, with all their very nice houses along the way. It’s pretty much the South African version of 30A on an island (30A being a coastaly highway in neighboring Walton County, Florida here in the US that is known for it’s little “towns”, new urban concept, and property values to match), so it felt a little bit like home there.

Thesens Island Canals

It actually took a good bit to get through the canals since I had no idea where I would exit, but eventually I found my way out on the far side of the island. I could have turned back from there and made my way back to Quay Four, but I opted to the long way back around following the channel out into the lagoon, head south, reach the point of Thesens Island and then turn back North to the restaurant. I was the only kayaker out this afternoon, but plenty of people were out enjoying their boats. The only thing that sucked was that at many points it was definitely clear that I was fighting the current – and I was getting worn out appropriately so. I was originally going to float around some more and be a bit more meandering, but I was just too worn out to enjoy it. I paddled hard that last stretch in, pulled up the kayak and went inside to promptly get a beer.

At The Finish Line

Actually, when you work that hard at it, something like a beer feels that much more rewarding! I sat outside watching the sun get low in the afternoon (which it was only mid-afternoon or so, but felt so much later!) while enjoying my beer and drying off.

Boats Anchored In The Harbor

On the way back to the hotel, I made my way to The Heads, which is the entrance to the bay from the Indian Ocean. Each side consists of high cliffs with a narrow channel between. Being fairly high up means extremely great views looking back towards Knysna and out over the Indian Ocean. There’s a number of areas here where you can park and check it out – I had opted for the overlook, but if I had gone earlier I would have also gone down on the ocean side as well. What I can say is that it was a fantastic sunset from there!

Sunset Looking Back Over Knysna

House Overlooking The Indian Ocean

This is only a short distance from the Conrad, so less than 10 minutes later I would be back at the hotel so I could change before going back into town for dinner.

There are a few restaurants down on the island; I had opted to go to Tapas & Oysters. There wasn’t any bar seating, so I found myself at the lonely table in the corner which kinda sucked. At least at a bar counter, you have excuses for interacting with others! But, that beside I enjoyed several small plates and a few beers, which were all reasonably priced. South Africa certainly is an affordable destination from everything I could tell.

Tapas & Oysters Knysna

The highlight of the night was that after walking around the area, I got back in my car and headed back towards the Conrad. Of course as I came around the corner before the turn towards the hotel the local Police were running a checkpoint and I was flagged in. This though was completely professional interaction – they looked at my license quickly (which my Florida license alone was sufficient) and then wrote down the plate of my car before wishing me a good evening and sending me on my way. Surely it was a DUI checkpoint of sorts, because I can’t think of too many other reasons to have a mandatory checkpoint in the middle of town at night.

Actually this was one thing I really noted across South Africa – local and highway police were everywhere. I’m honestly surprised that I wasn’t tagged for speeding by a cop at all during the time I was there. I mean I probably saw more highway cops in a few days in South Africa than I had seen Florida Highway Patrol Troopers back home on the highways in the 6 months leading up to my trip.

To be honest, I didn’t really “Explore” Knysna. I was here for just one short blip it seems and I never really got to “take it in”. It was a good pit stop and to be honest I think the South Africa leg really was about the drive versus any place I stopped along the way.

Third Leg: Knysna to Cape Town via Cape Agulhas
This would be the longest stretch on this road trip and would definitely take me through some incredibly scenic areas! Although the distance to Cape Agulhas was the same as my Port Elizabeth-Addo-Knysna drive, there would be the leg from Cape Agulhas to Cape Town that would just add on to it. And of course starting later than I had wanted to, meant that it was going to be a long day.

Leaving the Conrad, I fueled up on the center of Knysna and immediately started driving. The first while was absolutely beautiful coastal driving before transistioning to forests. From there I entered the hilly plains which was beautiful in a different way. I pretty much kept driving without really stopping other than for a quick snack, drink, and restroom break in the small town of Riversdale.

Kaaimans River Pass – Shortly After Leaving Knysna

Looking Back Towards The West At Kaaimans River Pass

I kept on plowing along, avoiding the highway police and eventually turning off of the N2 to take the R319 towards Cape Agulhas. Admittedly I almost missed this turn for some reason, but the drive from here was much, much more enjoyable than driving the N2. For starters, there was hardly any other vehicles out here at all; the roads were a little hilly, but otherwise straight; and you were going through the now empty farm fields. I got out at one point and was amazed at actually how quiet it was out here. I mean, absolutely still.

Slightly Off The Beaten Path…

There Were Fields And Hills As Far As You Could See In Every Direction

You go through a few small towns on the way to Cape Agulhas, including L’Agulhas. Google Maps again led me astray here taking me on to some residential back roads which turned out to be the “center of town.” Note to anyone else, make sure to specify the lighthouse (or just use common sense).

It’s Not Like It’s Hard To See…

Driving past the lighthouse the road turns to dirt and you’ll eventually find a parking area where you’ll have to “offroad” a bit. From this parking spot, it’s a short walk until you reach why you are here: The Southernmost Point of Africa. This is where the Indian Ocean and Atlantic Ocean meet (although they complete with the Cape of Good Hope for this distinction), but if you are thinking that you’ll be able to stand with one foot in each ocean (like I did) you’ll be disappointed. It’s a naturally rocky point, and I guess if you ware willing to scramble over the wet rocks south of the marker, then you could, but I wouldn’t recommend it. I did do a little bit myself, but didn’t get out to the end by any means.

Keep Going South And The Next Thing You’ll Hit Is Antarctica!

Marker At The Cape; Indian Ocean To The Left, Atlantic Ocean To The Right

I Wouldn’t Recommend Going Very Far Out Towards The Ocean(s)

It was a good spot to sit and reflect though for a minute. The area is beautiful and almost a little alien in appearance. I really wish I could have had a little time to hike around on a few of the trails, but even after 30 minutes or so I had to get back on the road to ensure I got to Cape Town by nightfall.

The Landscape Almost Feels Alien…

I had originally planned on driving next to Betty’s Bay for the Penguin colony that lives there, but due to the late point in the day, I knew better. I focused on hauling towards Cape Town, 225km and 2.5 hours away. Luckily, I made up down in the urban extent of the Cape Town metro by night fall, coming down through Sir Lowry’s Pass on the N2. Traffic in Cape Town and the suburbs wasn’t as bad as I had expected and I made it to the Westin Cape Town by the Convention Center in the middle of the city in good order…and with the last little remnants of light in the sky!

Thoughts
Doing a road trip in South Africa, now that I have done it myself, would be something that I would recommend to anyone looking for a little bit of adventure. The main highways (N) were generally in decent shape, the average driver was surprisingly courteous, and the police aren’t going to bother you unless you are obviously breaking a traffic law (or at least in the areas I was in). As with any country, it’s a good way to get a feel for the land that you can’t if you were on some organized tour on a bus or flying between two points. As much as I like flying places, driving across the southern portion of the country and continent was much more rewarding than having more time in Cape Town or Knysna or anywhere.

As I said earlier, the road trip itself was more so the destination for me than Knysna or Cape Town or any of the places I stopped on the way. Of course I learned a few lessons, and if I come back here and rent a car again, I’ll be getting the “Tire and Windshield Waiver”. While Hertz never came after me for any additional money – either it was determined to be covered under one of the other waivers I had or that it had come out within the amount of the deposit they took of 2000 Rand (the guy who picked up my car had estimated that it might be 1500 Rand, if just a tire), trust me, you don’t want to be in a position to be be thinking for two hours on the side of the road about how much this might cost you. Trust me, it’s not fun!

Of course my arrival in Cape Town was not exactly the end of my road journey! Since I had missed the Penguins on my last leg, I would back track the few hours on my full day in town to make sure that I got to check them out. That of course will be covered here shortly!

Posted in Africa, Road Trip, RTW, South Africa, Travel, Trip Report | Leave a comment

Around The World In 21 Days: Conrad Pezula

By Robert | Published August 22, 2015

Index:

  1. Introduction
  2. Delta Comfort+ ECP-ATL-JNB
  3. Hilton Sandton
  4. British Airways Economy JNB-PLZ
  5. Conrad Pezula
  6. Knysna and the Garden Route
  7. Westin Cape Town
  8. Exploring Cape Town + Penguins!
  9. British Airways Economy CPT-JNB
  10. Protea Hotel OR Tambo Airport
  11. Kenya Airways Economy JNB-NBO-DXB
  12. DoubleTree Hotel Jumeirah Beach
  13. Exploring Dubai
  14. Kenya Airways Economy DXB-NBO-SEZ
  15. Hilton Seychelles Northolme Resort
  16. Exploring Mahe Island
  17. Kenya Airways Economy SEZ-NBO-BKK
  18. W Bangkok Hotel
  19. Exploring Bangkok
  20. Vietnam Airlines Economy BKK-HAN-NRT
  21. Back In Tokyo!
  22. Delta Air Lines Main Cabin NRT-DTW-ATL
  23. DoubleTree Atlanta Airport
  24. Delta Air Lines Comfort+ ATL-ECP
  25. Conclusion

Introduction
Over the past few years, I gradually have found myself starting to get drawn to this chain as one of my favorites. Of course, it may be partially a result of several really good stays whilst I was a HHonors Diamond member, but overall I have found each of the properties that I’ve stayed at to be superb. None of the properties edgy or modern in the way that a W Hotel (probably my favorite hotel brand) is, with more of a subtle luxury. Conrad properties tend to feel more relaxed while a W tends to be party, party, party. And this is what I have seen from my several Conrad stays. In 2013 and 2014, I found myself at the Conrad Macau, Conrad Hong Kong, Conrad Miami and Conrad Chicago (how did I never write about that stay – it was just one night, but was amazing!). All were for the most part pretty excellent (exception maybe being the Hong Kong one feeling a little dated, but it is one of the older ones). As I was a Diamond during each of those stays I got phenomenal treatment; that suite in Macau for example was pretty amazing!

So it was only natural that when I first started looking at hotels over the many times that I’ve tried to plan out a trip to South Africa, that the Conrad Pezula would pop up in my results. The pictures of the property definitely stand out with views of rooms and villas that have views of the Indian Ocean, Golf Courses and more. But the surprising bit? The rates. Of course I went and always had been looking at travel to South Africa during their off-season. There were points where the nightly rate at this hotel was about $150US. When you see everything that the property has to offer as well as the rooms, that’s a crazy good deal. Of course, when I went to book the rates were closer to $200+ and I wound up using points for a cash and points award in the end paying 28,000 points + $99US

Arrival
My interaction with the hotel started about a month out with a hotel representative contacting me to see if they could do anything for my stay or answer any questions. Since I didn’t see any point in trying to set up reservations for anything such as meals or activities, I opted to try to get some information on the area. With some driving directions and a low-down on the weather in June, I was all set.

Now, I feel like I am jumping a little bit ahead here since the events leading up to checking into today will be in the next post that I cover on my drive Port Elizabeth to Cape Town with the couple of days in Knysna. Let me just say that by the time I had arrived at the hotel, I was ready for my day to be over!

It was already after dark when I pulled up to the hotel; circling into the entrance I jumped out of the car and was immediately greeted by the staff. They started unloading my luggage and transferring it to a golf cart while my car was taken away to be valeted as I went inside. I was enthusiastically greeted by the front desk agent who immediately started checking me in. Now, let me step back for a second – when I made the reservation I was still a Hilton HHonors Diamond Member, but I had unfortunately fell to Silver at the end of March (2014 didn’t have much work travel for me) and then got back to Gold in May.

Conrad Pezula – Main Building

Conrad Pezula

As the agent pulled up my reservation he got even more enthusiastic and thanked me for being a Diamond member and started going through all the benefits that I would get and that I had been upgraded from the Junior Deluxe Suite to the Junior Superior Suite. I’ll be honest, at first I thought about saying “Well, I wish I was still Diamond, but I dropped to Gold since I made the reservation”, but after my long day I decided to just roll with it. Once he finished up and gave me the quick info on the property, he asked one of the porters “Could you please take our Diamond guest Mr. Gysi to his room?” Seriously, they were really wanted me to know that they valued their elite guests. Actually, this agent was actually phenomenal over the entire stay as I had multiple interactions with him throughout.

The Room
With my bags on the golf cart, we made the very short trip to my suite, which was in a standalone building with three other suites (two stories, two rooms per floor). If I had to guess, the Junior Deluxe Suites are probably the lower floors while the Junior Superior Suites are the upper floor.

Pathway From The Rooms To The Suites

Building My Suite Was Located In

The porter let me into my room, carrying my duffel bag into the room and then proceeded to show me the features of the room, as you would expect in a hotel of this caliber. First of all, the room was amazing! Granted, I didn’t wind up with the best view on the property, however the room was everything that I expected and then some. For starters, the size – the room had more than ample space being an “open” suite. While there was no separation from the bed and the sitting area, there was so much space that they felt as if they were distinct areas.

Sitting Area + Desk + Fireplace

Large, Comfortable Bed

Another Angle – Shows How Spacious The Room Was

One of the features that I enjoyed very much so was the fireplace in the room. Since it was June, that meant that the Southern Hemisphere was in Winter. Granted, South Africa isn’t that “far south”, so it’s a fairly mild one. Still, having sitting in front of a fire at the end of the day is never a bad thing! Which, later on in that first night after I had dinner, I had called down to the front desk to have someone come and get the fire going (obviously for liability purposes, I’m sure, they don’t leave you matches or anything to start the fire in the room). The enthusiastic front desk agent was down at my room less than 5 minutes after calling and I was in front of a fire with a mini-bar beverage 5 minutes later. The hotel does a good job of keeping a stash of firewood next to the front door of each of the rooms, meaning that if you know how to keep a fire going, you can get probably a couple hours of time in front of a fire.

Fire!

Speaking of mini-bar, there was an amply stocked mini-bar and a wet bar area located in the main entry way. There was a good variety and a few snack options as well, and everything was *gasp* reasonably priced! I mean seriously, the bottles of Heineken were just over US$2! They could ahve definitely charged more!

Moving on to the bathroom, it was also very spacious with a large standalone tub, large walk-in shower (with excellent water pressure) and a separate toilet room with a bidet (if you are so inclined). The only thing that is of note is that it definitely could take a few minutes to get some properly hot water for the shower – my guess is that the water heater was on-demand, but that’s not that big of a deal.

Bathtub

Shower

Additionally, in terms of storage space, there was more than enough space for more than one person to unpack their bags in the walk-in closet.

For Those Closet Aficionados…

Outside, there was a balcony/patio that was definitely good for watching the sunrise and sunset. Take a look for yourself…

Sunset Over Knysna

Yes, those are Baboons on the Golf Course

And finally, the last thing: the room key. For starters, it was an actual key! The second part, it was on a ridiculously over-sized key chain. This meant it was a little awkward to carry around, but on the plus side I guess that makes it hard to lose, especially if you are partaking in the many activities offered by the resort.

Check Out That Key Chain!

Dining
I took the opportunity to eat several meals at the Conrad during my stay, considering that they have a number of available options. However, that being said I only found myself in “Cafe Z” which was the more casual restaurant located on property. I actually never even tried the bar, and never felt like “dressing up” for the more formal Zachary’s. That being said, I sampled a dinner, lunch, and the breakfast buffet over the course of my stay.

For the most part, my meals were all very good although there is a little bit of a disconnect in terms of service on the restaurant side. While I was in no rush, that first night I was there, given that I was seated in a corner, I found it difficult to flag down a server when I needed something or was ready for my bill. While, I realize in many countries they won’t present the bill until you ask, it was difficult just to ask. That being said though while I was eating, whom I assume was the F&B manager came by and had a little chat. It looked like she was making an effort to stop by each table to see how the stay was going, what people thought of Knysna and the area and what their plans were. It felt genuine and was a nice touch.

When I went back for lunch the next day before heading out to go Kayaking, the restaurant was not very busy and not being seated in a corner it was a easier to get service. For lunch that I day I opted for a BBQ sandwich based on the recommendation from the server. Actually felt a bit like home considering that it was served with a slaw on top. Definitely wasn’t bad at all!

BBQ Sandwich

On the final day I sampled the breakfast buffet. I had originally planned on doing room service, however I forgot to leave out the card the night before and then didn’t really feel like waiting since I needed to hit the road and drive all the way to Cape Town via Cape Agulhas. I found the buffet to have a decent selection, but by no means to be a massive selection. That being said, I think almost anyone would have walked away perfectly happy and having found something to eat.

Conclusion
The Conrad Pezula is a fantastic property and probably one of the better priced luxury resorts that I have stumbled on. Amenities? They have everything ranging from a private beach, to archery and trips to the surrounding areas. While I wound up not taking advantage of any of the amenities onsite (although I had planned to rent a kayak, but was informed once onsite that they don’t do unguided rentals anymore), based on what they offer, I don’t think anyone could come here and not find something to have a good time. It’s actually with regret that I never made it down their beach, although given the cooler temperatures that may have been for the best. Although I bet it would have been empty and quiet!

That being said, location wise the Conrad Pezula is located in a fantastic area and if spending time driving the Garden Route, it is most definitely worth spending a few nights here. Now, if I were to drive the Garden Route again, I probably wouldn’t try to drive from Knysna to Cape Town in a day like I did; it would be best to stop here for a few days and somewhere else a few hours west for another few days.

And let’s not forget the staff here – while the restaurant staff were either hit or miss, everyone at the front desk, valets, and porters were all very friendly and helpful. To elaborate further, beyond the extremely enthusiastic agent who checked me in, when I went to inquire about renting on of their kayaks and was shot down, they worked to find me an option in town at Thesen Island all while also giving me some great tips for spending my day as I drove around the area and explored a bit. After all, I only had one full day in Knysna given that I got in late my first day and my last day would have me leaving earlier in the morning.

In the end would I come back to this property or recommend it to friends? Enthusiastically!

Posted in Africa, Hilton HHonors, Hotels, RTW, South Africa, Travel, Trip Report | Leave a comment

Around The World In 21 Days: British Airways Economy JNB-PLZ

By Robert | Published August 2, 2015

Index:

  1. Introduction
  2. Delta Comfort+ ECP-ATL-JNB
  3. Hilton Sandton
  4. British Airways Economy JNB-PLZ
  5. Conrad Pezula
  6. Knysna and the Garden Route
  7. Westin Cape Town
  8. Exploring Cape Town + Penguins!
  9. British Airways Economy CPT-JNB
  10. Protea Hotel OR Tambo Airport
  11. Kenya Airways Economy JNB-NBO-DXB
  12. DoubleTree Hotel Jumeirah Beach
  13. Exploring Dubai
  14. Kenya Airways Economy DXB-NBO-SEZ
  15. Hilton Seychelles Northolme Resort
  16. Exploring Mahe Island
  17. Kenya Airways Economy SEZ-NBO-BKK
  18. W Bangkok Hotel
  19. Exploring Bangkok
  20. Vietnam Airlines Economy BKK-HAN-NRT
  21. Back In Tokyo!
  22. Delta Air Lines Main Cabin NRT-DTW-ATL
  23. DoubleTree Atlanta Airport
  24. Delta Air Lines Comfort+ ATL-ECP
  25. Conclusion

Introduction
Some of you may be surprised seeing that I am flying on British Airways considering that 1) They are not a partner of Delta Air Lines and 2) Aren’t you flying in South Africa? Yes, I decided to fly with a segment on a carrier that did not have a connection to Delta, but then Delta does not have any partners flying domestic South African flights. The only two “major” airlines are South African Airways and British Airways, with two LCCs that are owned by the majors, Mango and Kulula respectively. You are also probably sitting there thinking how British Airways is one of those airlines. Well actually, its a franchised-operation run by South African airline Comair. This means, Comair crews and planes, but painted in British Airways livery and service onboard.

So why did I choose British Airways over South African? Well, fares and times were nearly the same, so really it could have been either way. In fact I had thought about flying a flight on each over my trip to be able to sample both, but that didn’t happen. One thing that tilted my selection was that I asked for a status match to Air Berlin Top Bonus Gold from my Delta Gold Medallion status. This gave me Oneworld Sapphire status and with British Airways (including flights operated by Comair) being a Oneworld member, that meant things like lounge access, advance seat reservations, and excess baggage allowances. If you’re used to those things when you fly an airline and it’s partners 95% of the time and the time you don’t fly within that scope of airlines, you’re going to find ways to make it happen! I mean, I didn’t know of a Star Alliance program (South African Airways) that would help me there, so…

With the worst flight in South Africa though being no more than about 2 hours, really with status or no status I’m sure any airline would be fine. It’s not like you’re stuck on the plane for 9 hours with terrible food, no legroom, etc.

Check-In
I arrived at the airport from the Hilton Sandton getting there by way of Uber, and made my way to the Domestic British Airways check-in desks. Surprisingly with it being around 5AM and with my flight at 6:30AM there was no one at any single British Airways counter. While there was a line at the “bag drop” line, due to my Oneworld Sapphire status, I made my way to the Club (Business Class) check in and was the first in queue. Over the next 15 minutes staff would start trickling out and start setting up their stations. Soon enough though I was checked in by the agent who tagged my bag down to Port Elizabeth and handed me my boarding card.

British Airways Check-In Desks

From there it was through security, which was located just opposite of the British Airways counters, and thus one did not have to walk far. I didn’t see if there was a priority lane or not, but it definitely wasn’t busy. Work your way through the queue, get your boarding pass scanned, go through the detector and there you airside and ready to hit a lounge!

SLOW Lounge – Johannesburg Domestic
Let me preface this section by saying, the two SLOW Lounges that I visited in South Africa are easily in the top of airline lounges that I have been to anywhere in the world. Yes, some of Delta’s Sky Clubs are nice and I love the KLM Crown Lounge in Amsterdam, but this one in Johannesburg and the one in Cape Town just were phenomenal.

First of all, the SLOW Lounge is run by Comair and is for use by British Airways passengers (in Business Class or with BA/Oneworld Status) as well as a few other groups of people (I believe if you do business with a particular South African bank, for example). So therefore, I had no issue getting into the lounge – I handed over my boarding pass and my Air Berlin Gold card (thankfully they sent me an actual card after status matching me!) and I was let in. There was no wait or line to get in, and I made my way into the lounge area.

SLOW Lounge Entrance

Food
Upon exiting the reception area, you enter right into where the food offerings are, and a few small sitting areas around it. I was quite impressed with the spread that they had here – if only Delta would follow something similar for in the mornings with the Sky Club. If they did that, I would actually consider getting a membership again!

There was almost everything that you could want: many assorted pastries, fresh fruit, cheeses and meats (if the European breakfast is your thing), yogurt, nuts, cereals, and more. On top of that you had your choice of self-serve coffee and tea, but also with a final twist: the bar area in the morning had a barista working an espresso machine. So if you fancy a legit espresso beverage – latte, cappuccino, or just an espresso, they are more than happy to make it for you. It was definitely much better than going with the automated machine beverage of usually never-that-good coffee, and was definitely a nice touch that made the lounge feel classier.

Breakfast Spread

Enjyoing A Light Breakfast…

Layout
Speaking of classy, this lounge most definitely felt warm, comfy and modern, unlike so many sterile feeling airline lounges. The lounge is broken into roughly four areas – the entrance area with some seating and the food spread, the bar area, a large sitting area on the other side of a wall featuring self-serve wine machines with plenty of over-sized comfy chairs and a few tables, and a quiet room for those that need that extra bit of sleep or just to block out the noise of the lounge. Which speaking of, while the lounge never got crowded, I will say even with a good few people there it didn’t get ridiculously loud. Of course though, while most people stayed in the area near the food, I found myself on the opposite side of the lounge where just a few of us sat waiting for our flights.

Sitting Area

Quiet Room

One of the features that I thought was neat was that the SLOW Lounge features a sharing library; there was a good few books on the far wall that you were more than welcome to take with you on your trip, but that they encouraged you to bring it back to that or another SLOW Lounge. I wonder how many people actually take advantage of that – or even would know about that. Of course, there was also the “usual” selection of magazines and newspapers for one to grab if they so desired as well. I didn’t see anything that quite piqued my interest and with a relatively short flight, I figured I’d just stare out the window.

Good View For Watching Aircraft Movements

British Airways #6231 (operated by Comair)
Johannesburg, ZA (JNB) to Port Elizabeth, ZA (PLZ)
Friday, June 5, 2015
Depart: 6:30AM Arrive: 8:09AM
Aircraft: Boeing 737-400 Seat: 11F (Traveller/Economy)

I left the lounge a little before boarding, which actually turned out to be the closest gate to the lounge. This meant I go there and found myself getting to stand around and waiting. The only thing is that I never was able to find a premium boarding lane and found myself in a zig-zagged queue where they have you line up prior to boarding. It’s kinda like a free-for-all version of what Southwest does.

Boarding Gate

Considering how empty the flight was, there wasn’t exactly a fight for overhead space or anything and boarding didn’t take long. As such, it didn’t really where you were in boarding. Of course, I had no idea of this until I got to the gate and only saw a small group of people there. If I had to guess, there was maybe 30-40 people max on the flight that morning.

Pretty Decent Exit Row Leg Room

Across The Exit Row

Even with such a light load, we didn’t leave early. In fact, from the time most folks boarded we continued to sit at the gate waiting until our allotted departure time. Which wasn’t so bad, as I was in an exit row, with a window and there was no one else in my row. I stretched out, and watched the sunrise over the other British Airways 737 parked at the next gate over. It felt like this journey was getting off on a good foot!

Sunrise…

Eventually, we pushed back and taxied to the end of the runway. This didn’t take very long and soon enough we were airborne and climbing into the South Africa sky. Today’s flight was booked at around 1.5 hours, but the announced flying time was just over one hour. Not a terrible flight at all, and if this were a similar flight in the US, I would sit back put in my earbuds and zone out to music for the short hour. And while I did do this, there was a bit of a twist.

Departure And Climb Out

One thing I have discovered flying on shorter flights on foreign airlines, is that there are still many that do meal services in Economy Class. Even on this short flight, the cabin crew quickly got the carts out and into the aisles to begin the meal service. And believe it or not, it was actually a hot selection – what appeared to be a crepe with a side of yogurt and cereal. Simple, but definitely a nice touch! Add a cup of coffee and I was set. Even after clearing away trays, I still had about 20 minutes or so before we started our approach into Port Elizabeth, so it wasn’t even that I felt rushed. Of course had the flight been full, I’m sure this would not have been the case.

British Airways Breakfast

Arrival
For whatever reason, instead of feeling like early in the day, it felt like it was late afternoon. Perhaps with the way the lighting was outside or maybe for once I was jet-lagged. Either way, the plane touched down on time and taxied to the terminal in Port Elizabeth. It’s not a large airport and the only means of disembarking is via stairs – my favorite way to get on or off an aircraft! A short walk across the ramp brings you to the baggage claim inside, where given the number of passengers, it did not take long for the bags to be delivered.

On The Ground In Port Elizabeth

Disembarking

Oddly enough though was that when my bag came around on the belt, it had no tags at all. I’m rather thankful that my bag had not got lost and hopefully it had come off there in Port Elizabeth – but if the bag tag had come off say in Johannesburg I could have been very screwed. After all this was just day two of a 21 day trip with nearly everything that I needed in it and I didn’t have insurance. I think I lucked out there.

Conclusion
Overall I was very impressed with the service on British Airways operated by Comair. From the on-the-ground experience in the SLOW Lounge to the in-flight service it was very well run and presented. It actually has me curious about trying “regular” British Airways; obviously I would like to to their long haul Business Class, but that might have to wait until my post-Delta era (I’m sure that someday my loyalty to Delta will end and I think it may be sooner rather than later if SkyMiles keeps changing). Either way, I can say that I strongly recommend flying on British Airways within South Africa, especially if you have status within Oneworld.

Posted in Africa, British Airways, RTW, South Africa, Travel, Trip Report | Leave a comment

Around The World In 21 Days: Hilton Sandton

By Robert | Published July 26, 2015

Index:

  1. Introduction
  2. Delta Comfort+ ECP-ATL-JNB
  3. Hilton Sandton
  4. British Airways Economy JNB-PLZ
  5. Conrad Pezula
  6. Knysna and the Garden Route
  7. Westin Cape Town
  8. Exploring Cape Town + Penguins!
  9. British Airways Economy CPT-JNB
  10. Protea Hotel OR Tambo Airport
  11. Kenya Airways Economy JNB-NBO-DXB
  12. DoubleTree Hotel Jumeirah Beach
  13. Exploring Dubai
  14. Kenya Airways Economy DXB-NBO-SEZ
  15. Hilton Seychelles Northolme Resort
  16. Exploring Mahe Island
  17. Kenya Airways Economy SEZ-NBO-BKK
  18. W Bangkok Hotel
  19. Exploring Bangkok
  20. Vietnam Airlines Economy BKK-HAN-NRT
  21. Back In Tokyo!
  22. Delta Air Lines Main Cabin NRT-DTW-ATL
  23. DoubleTree Atlanta Airport
  24. Delta Air Lines Comfort+ ATL-ECP
  25. Conclusion

Introduction
One of things that was frustrating about finding hotels in South Africa was that the two programs that I participate, Hilton HHonors and Starwood Preferred Guest, have fairly limited coverage of hotels within the country. However, Marriott Rewards members have access to Protea Hotels due to that chain joining up with Marriott last year and Intercontinental Hotels has decent coverage as well. That being said, it made my decision for what was a quick overnight a bit difficult. Do I stay at the Hilton in Sandton on a reward stay to save a few bucks or do I venture to one of the many Protea Hotels properties in Johannesburg – specifically looking at the Protea Fire and Ice Hotel at Melrose Arch. Well, if you paid any attention to the title, you know the decision that I made.

Since I still had plenty of Hilton HHonors points, I decided to go ahead and spend the 40,000 to secure a standard room versus paying almost $200. Since it really was just a crash pad, I wasn’t too worried what I wound up with; just a bed and a ease of access to get to and from the airport was key.

In this regards, the Hilton is located a short 10-15 minute walk from the Sandton Gautrain station. The only thing that might be a bit of a challenge however is if you have luggage like I did. For once I was traveling with a heavy bag that did not have wheels. I’m sure I looked pretty funny walking with my duffel on my back and messenger slung around the front.

OR Tambo Gautrain Station

Speaking of the Gautrain, it’s quiet modern, clean, and quick. It took maybe 15 minutes to ride from OR Tambo International Airport to Sandton and was pretty similar to other airport/commuter trains around the world such as Heathrow Express or Hong Kong Airport Express. Ample bag storage, clear announcements and signage, and easy to use.

Gautrain At OR Tambo International Airport

Gautrain Interior

Arrival
Walking up to the gate of the hotel (all the hotels in Sandton seem to resemble more of an Embassy compound – assuming due to the relative levels of crime in Johannesburg) I found myself quite worn out from the hike. Why? Those 50 pounds of gear strapped to my back. I had not done that in quite a long time and after flying halfway around the world, I just don’t think my body was ready for it.

Unfortunately for me, a group from Australia was checking in before me. I got in the HHonors Gold/Platinum line thinking it would be quick. Nope. The person who was in front of me would ask if they would let her friend check in there as well and so I got jumped – and with it never being a good idea to argue, and the fact that I was worn out, I just kept standing there until another agent could check me in. Total time spent waiting: 15 minutes.

Check in through was pretty painless and standard procedure. I had not been upgraded, but that was fine since I didn’t really need an upgrade either. Directed to the elevators, I made my way up to the my room 532 to drop my bags in search of dinner.

Looking Down To The Lobby From The Fifth Floor

The Room
The room itself had plenty of room to move about; not cramped at all. At the heart of the room was a king-sized bed and like most Hilton properties it was pretty comfy. By the time I got back from dinner, and laid down in the bed I was out faster than you could say “asleep”. Granted that may not have necessarily been from the bed being comfy and could have been from my long journey, but it did the trick!

King Bed

Bed + Minibar

Also in the room were the very much standard desk, which I never even bothered to sit down at and a chair with a table next to it. Again, basic stuff for this kind of hotel. They had left a welcome gift of fruit out on the table, and what may have been a welcome gift bottle of wine, but with no note or price or anything I decided not to chance opening the wine. Didn’t want to wind up with a surprise charge to my room!

Desk + TV

Welcome Snack

There was also a mini bar located between the bedroom and the bathroom.

In the bathroom, I was glad to find that there were a separate shower and tub; the shower I pretty much jumped in right away to try to wash the many hours of travel off and to refresh before dinner. I can say that the shower was able to get very hot and had good water pressure. You pretty much can’t ask for anything better than that from a hotel shower!

Bathroom

Separate Tub

Departure
Given that I had a 630AM flight out of Johannesburg to Port Elizabeth, I knew that I was going to need to leave the hotel around 400-430AM in order to make it to my flight. I didn’t want to schlep my bags back to the Gautrain station (and wait for the first train), I opted to get an Uber ride after I checked out. That process, by the way, other than having to wait for an agent who could check me out to come to the front desk was otherwise quick.

As I waited through for my ride I had decided to venture outside to wait in front of the hotel, but immediately I discovered that it was a bad idea. It was barely above freezing and extremely windy. Of course I was standing there in shorts and a T-Shirt I think. Not exactly the weather I was anticipating (for the record though I did bring a very lightweight jacket).

I waited it out in the lobby until my ride arrived and then it was off to the airport to catch another flight.

Conclusion
My stay at the Hilton was obviously short. There was not time to check out the various amenities on property and when it came to dinner, I didn’t even eat in the hotel restaurant (I walked to a pub 20 minutes away, taking the well-lit long way instead). So can I comment on any of those features such as the gym? Nope, guess I can’t. So the question is, did the hotel meet my needs? Yes.

While there were some frustrations such as checking in, the hotel was comfortable, even if it wasn’t the most modern property that I’ve stayed at. Was it in a good location? Again, it definitely checks that box. The ease of access on the Gautrain is very convenient, although I will say that Uber rides within Johannesburg are very affordable – my 30km ride from the hotel to the airport was only 200 ZAR or ~$15US. Definitely would recommend doing that option if you have a lot of bags versus taking the Gautrain.

There’s plenty of things around in Sandton as well, so if you are going to Johannesburg this wouldn’t seem to be a bad place to make a base of operations. However, was it the ideal location for my quick overnight? No, I probably could have been better off just staying next to the airport – which is what I did the night before I flew on to Dubai. However, it did get me into the actual city versus a sterile, isolated airport hotel.

So, if I had Hilton HHonors points to burn again and I was in Johannesburg, I’d stay here again. However, if I didn’t have points to burn, I probably would have checked out a different property – really, the Protea Hotel Fire and Ice Melrose Arch looks really nice…

Posted in Africa, Hilton HHonors, Hotels, RTW, South Africa, Travel, Trip Report | Leave a comment

Around The World In 21 Days: Delta Comfort+ ECP-ATL-JNB

By Robert | Published July 25, 2015

Index:

  1. Introduction
  2. Delta Comfort+ ECP-ATL-JNB
  3. Hilton Sandton
  4. British Airways Economy JNB-PLZ
  5. Conrad Pezula
  6. Knysna and the Garden Route
  7. Westin Cape Town
  8. Exploring Cape Town + Penguins!
  9. British Airways Economy CPT-JNB
  10. Protea Hotel OR Tambo Airport
  11. Kenya Airways Economy JNB-NBO-DXB
  12. DoubleTree Hotel Jumeirah Beach
  13. Exploring Dubai
  14. Kenya Airways Economy DXB-NBO-SEZ
  15. Hilton Seychelles Northolme Resort
  16. Exploring Mahe Island
  17. Kenya Airways Economy SEZ-NBO-BKK
  18. W Bangkok Hotel
  19. Exploring Bangkok
  20. Vietnam Airlines Economy BKK-HAN-NRT
  21. Back In Tokyo!
  22. Delta Air Lines Main Cabin NRT-DTW-ATL
  23. DoubleTree Atlanta Airport
  24. Delta Air Lines Comfort+ ATL-ECP
  25. Conclusion

Introduction
In my previous post, I talked about all the ins-and-outs of getting this trip all lined up including booking the flights and why I booked it in Economy Class, or as Delta now calls it “Main Cabin”. I would be finding myself for 15.5 hours experiencing Delta’s Economy product, or because I was Platinum at the time of booking, I was in Delta Comfort+ which is the rebranding of Economy Comfort. Confused yet?

There would be no way to upgrade this flight, just like all the other segments, and a month out the flights started to look a bit on the full side. Would I get lucky and not have anyone sitting next to me? I desperately crossed my fingers in hopes that not only would I have a few extra inches in front of me from the increased pitch in this section, but to the side as well.

One thing I did not talk to in my previous post was that I had originally been looking at trying to route to South Africa via Amsterdam on KLM. This could have taken me into Cape Town versus Johannesburg and allowed me to get started on the Road Trip journey faster. And of course reduces the number of internal flights one would have to take. Plus, I could have had the added benefit of a long layover in Amsterdam to head into town for a few hours. Unfortunately though, I could never get the inbound flights to work out. This resulted in me having my one option: fly Delta all the way down, on the 2nd longest flight in the world.

Delta Air Lines #2506
Panama City, FL (ECP) to Atlanta, GA (ATL)
Wednesday, June 3, 2015
Depart: 2:32PM Arrive: 4:48PM
Aircraft: Airbus A319 Seat: 1B (First Class)

Unfortunately due to an accident involving my car (getting hit in the parking lot at work on my way home to finish packing and head to the airport), I was cutting it a bit close to getting to the airport. I was dropped off at the curb by my Mom (Thanks!) about 50 minutes before my flight, but made my way inside to the Sky Priority line inside and was quickly helped. The agents at ECP are usually pretty good, but it did take me a little bit to get checked in for my flight today. It appears the agent was new and my complicated itinerary must have confused her or something. Another agent came over to help her out and then with my duffel bag tagged it was off to the TSA checkpoint.

By the time I got through and had made it upstairs to the concourse, the inbound aircraft had just pulled into the gate. Good timing as I wouldn’t have to stand around the gate area!

Delta Air Lines A319 – Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport (ECP)

I had fortunately been upgraded a few days out thanks to being a Gold Medallion member, so at least my quick 45 minute flight up to Atlanta would be in relative comfort. Once boarding was called, I made my way onboard, stowed my bag in the overhead and plopped down into seat 1B. The flight attendant working the First Class cabin quickly started going through and asking if anyone wanted a pre-departure beverage. I, being ready to start my vacation immediately, especially after the car accident, went straight for the vodka! Yep, might as well sit back and relax and enjoy this, because after Atlanta it would be all too many hours in an Economy seat.

The flight itself was rather unremarkable. The flight attendants did a service shortly after take off in First Class, and I got another drink as well as some Biscoff cookies (because that is just what you do). The occasionally came back through, but I just stuck to the one drink. I didn’t want to make that long flight miserable after all.

We arrived into Atlanta on time and being in seat 1B, was the first person off the aircraft. I had a little over two hours to kill in the airport, and with my flight leaving out of Concourse F, made my way directly to the Sky Club there.

Delta Sky Club – Concourse F
I’ve written about this club a number of times before. It’s one of my favorite Sky Clubs in the system, primarily because of the large windows in the main area and the outdoor deck (“Sky Deck”) next to the bar area. And of course showers.

But before I went into the lounge, I decided to grab a quick meal since I had not had time to have lunch by going over the Varsity in Concourse F in the food court across from the Sky Club. I chowed down on a burger before heading back over to the lounge where I could wait in comfort.

Concourse F Sky Club

Upon entering the lounge, I was greeted by the agents, most of all whom looked (or at least felt) familiar. After getting my boarding pass quickly scanned, I made my way to the showers immediately. It having been a hectic day up to this point between work, the accident, rushing to finish packing and get to the airport, and everything else that I just wanted to refresh. Thankfully, there wasn’t even a wait for a shower! I guess it busier when there are more international arrivals, as most people on departures don’t seem to take advantage. I personally find it great as it lets me feel refreshed before I step on that plane, especially a long flight.

Once all clean, I settled into the main area of the lounge to take care of some business. Well, not for work, but try to resolve booking my rental car for my road trip phase from Port Elizabeth to Cape Town. I kept trying to make a reservation with Avis, but every time I would put in my company’s leisure AWD number, when I would get the confirmation email, it would have our full corporate rate listed. Not wanting to violate some sort of policy, written or unwritten, about using the full rate which includes insurance for personal travel, and after trying three times (and calling Avis twice), I just opted to make a reservation with Hertz.

Spotted A Virgin Atlantic Jet On My Walk To The Gate

That took up too much time and soon enough I figured I would stretch my legs and start walking to the gate. Today’s flight would be operated out of the end of Concourse F from Gate F2.

Gate F2 – ATL

Delta Air Lines #200
Atlanta, GA (ATL) to Johannesburg, ZA (JNB)
Wednesday, June 3, 2015
Depart: 7:29PM Arrive: 4:50PM +1 Day
Aircraft: Boeing 777-200LR Seat: 32D (Economy/Comfort+)

Settling in early in the boarding process just meant that I would have the privilege of enjoying my Comfort+ seat for just over 16 hours. Part of me actually was envious of the folks who would be boarding in Zone 2 as they would have an opportunity to stretch their legs a bit longer before cramming into a seat. Now if this had been a segment in Business Class then, yeah I would have been all so enthusiastic about some extra time. But today? Nope. All I could do is just think about the destination.

Much Safety.

Now, it’s not that Delta Comfort+ is bad or anything for Economy Class travel. I’ve found that those few extra inches definitely make a difference. I can actually open up a laptop without too much issue and my knees have at least a little bit of breathing room. It’s definitely better than the alternative, but still nowhere near as good as sitting up front. As I sat in my seat trying to enjoy my last few moments with a cellular connection and a lifeline to the internet, I noticed a card in my seat back pocket: why, it’s a card extolling the virtues of satellite based inflight WiFi! Thoughts of being over the middle of the Atlantic and aimlessly flipping through Facebook or Twitter filled my mind. Alas, though it was not meant to be; once we reached cruising altitude, the flight attendants would inform us that this aircraft had not yet had the system installed yet. Bummer.

Lies, Lies I Tell You!

We were airborne on time with an estimated on-time arrival halfway around the globe in South Africa. About just under an hour into the flight, the flight attendants started going through the cabin to start the pre-dinner snack service. They didn’t seem to have any Biscoff to offer, so peanuts, pretzels and a beer got me started.

Pre-Dinner Snack

An hour later or so, it was time for dinner to be served. There was the usual “chicken or beef” option, and I had opted to go with the chicken. Served with rice as well as a salad, fruit, roll, and a cookie bar. Pretty standard coach food and wasn’t the worst thing that I’ve ever ate on a plane. I finished up and before the lights were dimmed the flight attendants came through passing out 20oz bottles of water to everyone. Granted my last long-haul international flight in Economy on Delta was in 2013, so this is definitely new and something that I expect in Business Class. It definitely seems that Delta keeps making pretty good changes to their product, and as much as I am finding myself less and less enthused with the SkyMiles program, the actually travel experience is actually pretty solid these days.

As the cabin darkened, I started to watch a few movies to try to pass the time. Eventually though I would try to get some sleep, and I was somewhat successful catching a few hours before deciding just to stay awake. If you know me, that’s a bit of a victory there.

Of course, as a result, I wound up looking like this:

Not Exactly The Most Awake Looking

Yeah, so anyways…

Eventually, a pre-arrival lunch would be served, and I have to admit this was probably one of the best meals that I have had in Economy Class. In fact, it pretty much seemed to be one of the regular domestic First Class meal options, just served in a plastic bowl. Yes, it’s a pretty simple salad, but definitely a step up from some of the other things that they’ve served in the past for the second meal service.

Surprisingly Good Meal In Economy Class

Before I knew it…no wait, I knew how long this flight took, there is no way to kid yourself that this flight felt short. Eventually, our flight made an on-time arrival in Johannesburg and it was time to finally get up, stretch my legs ans make my way to immigration.

International Arrivals At Johannesburg

The queue at immigration was not bad at all, even with confusion over who had to fill out health screening forms or not (Arrivals from the US didn’t need to), and I was making my way to grab my bag at baggage claim. Surprisingly, by the time I had reached it, my bag along with a few other Sky Priority-tagged bags were sitting off to the side waiting. They sure did move quick in unloading that aircraft!

First Stamp In My Brand New Passport!

Of course trying to figure out how best to manage my bag and my messenger became a bit of a struggle, but I managed, made it through customs and made my way to the Gautrain station after first stopping at a Vodacom store to get a local SIM card. I would be staying in the Sandton district tonight at the Hilton, but only for a little bit, as I had to be back at the airport in 12 hours to catch a flight to Port Elizabeth…

Posted in Africa, Delta, RTW, South Africa, Travel, Trip Report | Leave a comment

Around The World In 21 Days: Introduction

By Robert | Published July 12, 2015

Index:

  1. Introduction
  2. Delta Comfort+ ECP-ATL-JNB
  3. Hilton Sandton
  4. British Airways Economy JNB-PLZ
  5. Conrad Pezula
  6. Knysna and the Garden Route
  7. Westin Cape Town
  8. Exploring Cape Town + Penguins!
  9. British Airways Economy CPT-JNB
  10. Protea Hotel OR Tambo Airport
  11. Kenya Airways Economy JNB-NBO-DXB
  12. DoubleTree Hotel Jumeirah Beach
  13. Exploring Dubai
  14. Kenya Airways Economy DXB-NBO-SEZ
  15. Hilton Seychelles Northolme Resort
  16. Exploring Mahe Island
  17. Kenya Airways Economy SEZ-NBO-BKK
  18. W Bangkok Hotel
  19. Exploring Bangkok
  20. Vietnam Airlines Economy BKK-HAN-NRT
  21. Back In Tokyo!
  22. Delta Air Lines Main Cabin NRT-DTW-ATL
  23. DoubleTree Atlanta Airport
  24. Delta Air Lines Comfort+ ATL-ECP
  25. Conclusion

I think it is the goal of every person who is really into the points and miles hobby to try to maximize the redemption for amazing experiences that otherwise they couldn’t afford. For most people this seems to be in the form of redeeming Business and First Class awards; and to be honest that this has been my primary motivator. Sure I’ve used miles for award tickets in Economy Class, but primarily for domestic routes where I know that either I will get upgraded or have a good chance. There’s nothing better than booking a trip to NYC or Montreal and winding up in First Class for each segment thanks to Complimentary Medallion Upgrades, and only paying 25,000 SkyMiles after all!

One other type of award that people definitely like to try to take advantage of are the Around The World (RTW) Awards. Most programs offered this up until recently, however it appears that these are mostly on the way out. American Airlines got rid of them in 2014 with no notice, while Delta sunsetted the award and thankfully giving flyers a few months notice (although it was buried deep on Delta.com) to make some redemptions. The theory is that these awards are generous and that they are likely expensive for the ticketing carrier.

Unlike the paid SkyTeam RTW Tickets, which have defined number of miles that you can fly for various price points, the Delta RTW Award allowed you to pretty much travel over as much distance as you possibly could, as long as you kept flying in the same direction (not even backtracking for a destination by a hair!) and kept it to 16 segments or fewer. The 16 segment part is due to the limitations that an airline ticket can only have 16 segments on it and this is common across, I believe, most carriers. When you look at the number of flights you can take and the distances involved along with the number of airlines that can be involved on a single ticket it has to be an expensive award for Delta. On top of this, one would assume that the redemptions were low due to it being a “hidden award” (you really had to get into the fine print on Delta.com to realize it existed), and this is part of why Delta claims they were ending the award type as they had to maintain a special desk to handle these.

You see, these awards are typically so complex that Delta’s ticketing system can’t process the ticket automatically. It takes an agent to find all the flights manually, build up the itinerary, manually price and add all of the taxes and then ticket. It’s a long process – for my itinerary it took roughly two hours on the phone (and that was with me having found all the available segments in advance!). As such, Delta maintained (well still does until 12/31/15 to service remaining tickets) the “Delta Multi-City Award Desk” which had some of the best and knowledgeable agents about routes, pricing, and all the ins and outs of these awards. They also did double duty as the rates desk, which involves helping other agents solve complex ticketing issues.

Booking the Ticket
I’ll be honest, booking this ticket tested my patience, my ability to find award seats, and my resisting the desire to book it in Business Class. On that last point, you might be surprised – here’s the thing, I did this all in Economy Class (we won’t count the ECP-ATL/ATL-ECP legs that I got upgraded on). I had wanted to do this in Business Class, but that would have meant draining my account all the way to 0 – I had essentially the exact amount of miles required, 280k SkyMiles, but as much as where the SkyMiles program is headed I wanted to be able to still have enough to redeem for a Business Class award to Europe or Asia as well as have a few in the bank if an emergency popped up and I needed to be somewhere.

When I found out the award type was ending, I found myself spending more time than is healthy using tools like ExpertFlyer.com, KVS Tool, alaskaair.com, delta.com and so and so on trying to find every possible seat and routing out there…and then putting it into one of too many Excel spreadsheets as I tried to find those elusive routings that would work! This is always the tricky phase of finding awards, and to put it in perspective, when I went to South America in May 2014, it took an estimated 40 hours of work to find flights that would work for that simple six-segment award with a stopover. Honestly, that is just how it is with Delta SkyMiles.

But back to this. I knew of where I wanted to go – after South America I had just two continents left that I had not step foot on: Africa and Antarctica. Seeing as Aerolineas Argentinas doesn’t have flights to Antarctica (although they show it in their inflight magazine route map as Argentine Territory!), I knew Africa was going to have be a part of this. Additionally, twice I’ve almost gone to South Africa for a trip, in both cases it lost out to Hong Kong and South America. Now was the time to cross off that country and that continent. Additionally, I knew that I really wanted to go to Dubai, as the only place in the Middle East that I’ve been to is Bahrain, and it hardly captures the imagination.

And then you have the fact that being in some tropical paradise is always great, so I kept jumping around the idea of Zanzibar, the Seychelles, the Maldives and even Palau. That became what had to be the hardest decision of my trip (although Palau was removed pretty quickly as there are very few flight options). Zanzibar would allow me to visit prior to Dubai, the Seychelles would require a lot of backtracking through Nairobi a few times, and the Maldives, while having a few options, was just going to be crazy expensive even on points. Ultimately I decided on the Seychelles, as being out in the middle of nowhere of the Indian Ocean just seemed like a better idea. Plus, I really got to know Kenya Airways…

The Asia legs were also difficult decisions. I had really wanted to visit South Korea and was trying to find away to make Shanghai or Beijing work so I could say that I had been to mainland China. I was even looking at Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia. There are a number of options, but Bangkok seemed to work best thanks to Kenya Airways NBO-BKK service (on a 787). It was the leg after Bangkok though that proved difficult. My last destination would need to be somewhere that would allow me to get all the way back to Panama City. Unfortunately domestic flights from the gateway cities in the US tended to be the issue. LAX, SEA, JFK, PDX, SFO….you name it. The flights over the ocean were there, just not to get me back to Atlanta to then catch a flight to Panama City. Heck, I even tried for Aeromexico though MEX! What I did find though was NRT-DTW-ATL and ATL-ECP the next morning. I knew that I would be able to change my flights down the road, so I would keep looking. Unfortunately, I was also dropping from Platinum to Gold and thus not wanting to have to pay change fees once I dropped in status on March 1st, I put that as a self-imposed deadline to find alternate flights. In case you’re wondering, I never was able to find anything else. It’s part of the reasons I wish Delta would offer service, even once or twice a day to another hub out of ECP, but I digress.

The actual ticketing of this award was quite the experience. Unfortunately, for me I was on travel for work during much of December which, as the Delta RTW Desk is only open limited hours and being three hours behind on the West Coast made it difficult to call in. Plus being gone during that time killed my free time for searching for flights as well. Just means that when I got back home I had a lot of legwork to do and it really got down to the last minute.

With ticketing ending on December 31, 2014 and in true procrastinating fashion, I called in for my first attempt on December 30th. I tried calling right after work, figuring that there wouldn’t be that many people calling in to book tickets, but after 2.5 hours on hold, and it being past the time they were supposed to be closed, I gave up. The next morning though I dialed in a minute after they opened for business. Unfortunately due to the building I work in, my call dropped after an hour on hold. It probably would have not happened if it hadn’t been for the fact that I was running around with an earbud in my ear trying to get everything ready for a major milestone. This actually resulted in me being disconnected a few times and me getting a few odd looks. Eventually though my phone call at 10AM held on all throughout the day and as the day kept on going I started getting comments about my determination. That was better than the odd looks!

I kept on holding and holding having been on the phone for around seven hours – at which at this point the desk should have been closed. I started thinking about hanging up, wondering if I was in a queue to nowhere. Thankfully, it wasn’t long after that point a voice finally came across from the other side…I had made it through!

The agent on the phone explained that they were incredibly swamped with calls and because schedules were set a long time before Delta had announced this change, they had a whopping four agents total working. Considering how long it can take to put one of these tickets together, you can easily see how with only four agents would create these long hold times. I was assured that everyone who was calling in was going to be taken care of, and I even heard stories where Delta was still ticketing the next day on Jan 1, 2015 if you called in and said that you were never able to get through. They didn’t exactly advertise that, but at least they were going to take care of those that had been trying to get through.

I started giving her the flights I wanted and she had almost no problem finding any of them. It was the BKK-NRT option that presented the first issue. I believe I had originally found flights on China Southern, but she could not see the flights at all (or it may have been a combination of Kenya Airways [BKK-CAN] and China Southern [CAN-NRT]). Sometimes though what you can find through other channels aren’t always available to Delta for whatever reason. She did however, find flights through Hanoi, Vietnam on Vietnam Airlines. Considering that I had not read really much at all about Vietnam Airlines I figured why not! With that issue solved, I was able to get the rest of my flights NRT-DTW-ATL-ECP without any issue. Of course with all the flights found, it became time to actually ticket, which involved calculating all of the taxes. This whole part of the transaction took about 45 minutes, but once it was done, I was booked! Success! And only $229 in taxes, which by any means is extremely affordable! I thanked the agent for hanging in there and for sticking around past the time they were all supposed to be off for the day and figured that this was the perfect opportunity to use some of the “thank you” awards that Delta would send me for being Platinum to hand out to employees. Since I had two sitting there right on my desk and that I had never given any of them out before, I figured I’d just give them both to the agent who helped me. It gets the employees points which they can use for little awards or other things, and this agent was either surprised or really thankful or both that I was going to give her two of them! But, hey it was the holiday season and she just made my dream trip possible.

The Final Result
So with all that relatively unnecessary backstory out of the way…Let’s go over the final itinerary. For the actual RTW ticket on Delta it wound up looking like:

The Final Itinerary

The Final Itinerary

On top of that, I had two flights that I booked on British Airways within South Africa to support my Garden Route road trip:

  1. British Airways JNB-PLZ
  2. British Airways CPT-JNB

These two flights were both paid flights as I do not have any miles in any Oneworld program. However, I did get a status match to my Delta Gold Medallion status with Air Berlin, which granted me Oneworld Sapphire status – this entitled me to lounge access, Business Class check in, advance seat selection and extra luggage allowance. I had originally considered just booking into Business Class as it wasn’t very expensive, but this route turned out to be best. Neither of my flights were packed and you get a meal in Economy/Traveller on British Airways so really there wasn’t much of a reason to with that newly acquired Oneworld status. The status match I got is good until next May, so I think I’m going to keep my options open in terms of traveling on some other Oneworld flights. Heck, I may even check out American…

As for hotels, thanks to spending several months in the months prior, I made use of my stash of Hilton HHonors and SPG points to book my hotels. Some were for regular awards and a few cash and points. I think I had only one non-award stay my entire trip and that was the Protea Hotel OR Tambo Airport; and consequently the only hotel that wasn’t part SPG or HHonors.

So with this all said – and likely this is going to be have been the most difficult post to write – it’s time to move on to the trip. I’ve broken it down in my usual fashion, with reviews of the flights, hotels, and my experiences in the places I visited. With so many different stops, and so many different legs, it’s definitely going to take a little bit of time to get through it all, and I’m still working my way through all my photos and videos!

Posted in RTW, Travel, Trip Report | Leave a comment

Thoughts Upon Circling The Globe

By Robert | Published June 28, 2015

I’m sitting back in Panama City, back in my usual routine – for a Sunday morning that means enjoying a cup of coffee (or three) at my favorite local coffee shop. It almost feels weird after having been used to every few days finding myself in a new country and flying thousands upon thousands of miles. So, it seems like this would be the perfect time to sit down and reflect on the initial thoughts that have entered my head since I’ve completed this journey and before I sit down to start cranking out the full story (which, I promise, I will be completing in a much more timely manner!).

Survival
For starters…I survived! I think considering all that I could have been potentially exposed to, all the time spent onboard aircraft, the changes in climate and so on, it feels like I should have caught some bug along the way that would make me temporarily miserable. I’m very much thankful that did not happen, given that my average time in a destination was around 3 days. Also a good thing that nothing major happened, because this was one trip where I was going to buy travel insurance, but I forgot to actually purchase it…

On Economy Class
It’s amazing how much of a difference Economy Comfort / Comfort+ on Delta can make when you’re stuck in the back of the plane. Obviously having been Platinum for almost four years before just getting the downgrade to Gold back in March of this year, the majority of times I have flown in Economy over the past several years it has been in the Economy Comfort / Comfort+ sections with the extra legroom. There is nothing that makes you appreciate those few extra inches of pitch like sitting on an aircraft for nearly 16 hours (~15.5 hour flying time + time on the ground). In comparison, the trip that first got me to Medallion status on Delta, back in 2010 to Sydney was a lot more miserable due to the fact that on my return flight I could not recline and my knees were right up against the seat in front of me. Actually this is what it was like on a large number of my flights on this RTW trip – Vietnam Airliens A330 being quite possible the worst.

Next time (well, who knows when that would be since RTW awards do not exist anymore), I’d definitely do a Business Class award. In fact my next overseas trip will most definitely be a Business Class award. Like how I usually do it…

Why Haven’t I Done This Before?
That was probably the biggest thought in my head here. Granted feeling like I could take three weeks off from work has always been something that I’ve struggled with and was probably the biggest obstacle to overcome. Part of that was the fact that I’m still relatively early in my career (8 years of working at my company and 5 years since I graduated with my Engineering degree) and making sure I was doing everything that would put me on a solid track at my company. I mean, I travel for weeks on end for work, but personal trips it had at most been where I might take slightly more than a week off. Heck most of my trips throughout the year are quick weekend trips. It’s not exactly unheard of me to fly to Seattle on a Friday afternoon and then back to Florida mid-day Sunday. And then the one time I went to Alaska, I only did it by taking a Friday and a Monday off for a long weekend.

Then there was the thing that had confronted me since the end of 2014 – “use or lose”. Basically, given the number of hours I had been working I was having to take time off for example when I would return from work travel just to ensure that I wouldn’t lose any of my PTO hours. Actually, even with trying that I still lost a number of hours. In the end I rationalized it with this three week trip would make up for it all.

Considering that I have spent hundreds of thousands of Delta SkyMiles over the past 5 years (I think it stands at around 750,000 miles spent on various award tickets), I’ve had plenty of the years to burn on either Economy or Business Class RTW awards. One thing that did probably hold me back is that my account, under the now old SkyMiles earning rules (distance-based with %-based bonuses for Medallions) resulted in my account usually hovering around 200,000-300,000. I never really wanted to drain my account with the 280,000 SkyMiles required for the Business Class RTW (which so totally would have been worth it), despite the fact that it was “easy” then to keep replenishing my account. Now under the new SkyMiles program, I’m earning on a per dollar basis with multipliers based on Medallion status and on average for a transcon itinerary, I am only earning 60% of what I used to earn. This means I’ll accumulate fewer miles and it will be harder to do as much award travel as I have previously. And then there is the whole thing about the RTW Award being discontinued (in fact I had one of the last-issued tickets, mine having been booked on New Year’s Eve at around 7PM after having been on the phone for 9 hours).

Or perhaps, that despite being well traveled and nearly the majority of my trips ex-US being multi-country trips, perhaps I had not matured enough in a sense to be ready for a trip like this. Which, even just a few years ago even with multiple trips under my belt around the world, I may not have been. I mean, when I was last in Japan back in 2011, you wouldn’t have found me in a basement karaoke bar like on this trip.

But here is what I do know. Mentally, it’s like I crossed a line that I didn’t think existed. You see, I thought the line had been crossed a decade ago in 2004-2005; this is the time frame where I feel that I can trace back to where I really caught my wanderlust and started seeing travel as a necessity in life. Certainly that was the initial line, but now it’s like that I’ve traveled so far past that initial line that I can see other lines in front of me. Going around the world had to be one of those, because it’s hard to kinda one-up a trip where you do that. Granted if I had months on end available to me to do exactly that, that would have been wonderfully fantastical. Again, I feel like I fall back to the comment about maturing. It was in the waning months of 2014 that I set myself up with a new travel goal: Antarctica before I turn 30.

While this trip isn’t what led me to this goal, now that I have been to six out of the seven continents, this is the definite next line in the sand. How I will go about reaching and crossing this next line will be interesting. There’s obviously the cruise option which is expensive taking the trip from anywhere from $7,000-$15,000 or there’s the option that I like to flirt with: working in Antarctica. Granted, I kinda like my current job and the work that I do, so I don’t see myself exactly going that route. But you never know where life might take you!

So basically to answer the original question, I had a line to cross and I just wasn’t ready to cross it.

Timing
The time that I picked for this trip probably was not the most optimal. I had been initially eyeballing going in March which would have put me in South Africa in late summer, Dubai and Bangkok in comfortable temperatures; the Seychelles seem to be 87F and Sunny year round. That right there would have been perfect versus my June trip which put me in South Africa in Winter, Dubai while it was an oven and Bangkok with the hot and humid (to be fair, I’m from Florida, so not that bad). It was a good thing I did not go in March in the end as I was needing to be on the road for work the majority of that month, but when I booked this I didn’t know. Perhaps I lucked out with my decision to with June as compared to everything else, June was otherwise planned to be a quiet-ish month for work.

The challenge though is when you are traveling around the world and jumping between radically different climates though is packing all the right things. I really should have packed a fleece jacket in my bag for South Africa, however it would have just become extra weight for the following two weeks. If I do this again, I would definitely try to either travel in the more of the shoulder months if bouncing between North and South or potentially sticking more so to one side of the equator.

On Lodging
It’s not secret that I love luxury hotels and I love not having to use real money for them (hooray, points!) and that I have elite status in a few hotel programs. But, with that comes with the feeling that I maybe have strayed from my original travel roots. I’ve never really been one for hostels, even when I went to Europe those two spring breaks at UCF, but I used to stay at a lot of smaller hotels/guest houses/etc versus say a W or Conrad hotel. You definitely get different experiences, and despite the fact that I love big hotel rooms and upgrades to awesome suites, perhaps I need to find that balance to take me back to some of those smaller more intimate hotels in my future travels.

So there, those were some of the thoughts that I had whilst out there in the world on travel. Now, I just need to start working on the roughly 70GB of images I took and 200GB of video from my GoPro. I’ve got a lot to sort through and edit, but once I get that started I’ll start working out the posts for here too. I should have the first post or two up later this week!

Posted in RTW, Travel | Tagged , | Leave a comment

A Few Quick Photos…

By Robert | Published June 13, 2015

Well, I haven’t made any headway in editing my photos from the first half of the trip yet. In fact, I should really get on that. In the meantime however, here’s a selection of photos that I’ve uploaded from my phone to Instagram. Enjoy!

PENGUINS.

A photo posted by Robert Gysi (@bertoucf) on

That's one tall building! #RTW #Dubai #Travel

A photo posted by Robert Gysi (@bertoucf) on

It's a tad on the cold side here… #RTW #Dubai #Travel

A photo posted by Robert Gysi (@bertoucf) on

Time to get checked in for another leg of this adventure! #RTW #Travel #Dubai #DXB #KenyaAirways

A photo posted by Robert Gysi (@bertoucf) on

Posted in Africa, Dubai, RTW, South Africa, Travel, Trip Report | Leave a comment

Hitting the Halfway Point

By Robert | Published June 12, 2015

Soon enough, I will be reaching that point, both in time and distance traveled that will mark the halfway point of my journey around the world. I’ve only been gone for just over a week, having left on June 3 for South Africa from my home in Florida. Since then, I’ve crossed both South Africa and the UAE (Dubai) off on my list had have had some pretty great experiences thus far. There’s been plenty of penguin-centric itinerary items from hanging out at a colony of African Penguins near Cape Town to “hugging” an Emperor Penguin at Ski Dubai at the Mall of the Emirates (!!!!!).

So, this puts me at just shy of a week and a half in here at this point in time. My trip is roughly three weeks long, so by the time I hit the Seychelles tomorrow morning, time wise I will be halfway there. As for the distance traveled, I’m less sure about that. One could say that the Seychelles might be the halfway point as well, but given all this backtracking that I am doing through Nairobi (where I am flying back to tonight) and will be flying through again next week on my way to Bangkok, that it might be somewhere between Nairobi and Bangkok. Nevertheless, about the time I do reach Bangkok, I think my brain will be mentally in that “half-way point” as it marks the point at which I stop getting further away from the US and start getting closer back to the US.

So far I have to say, I’ve done fantastic about not thinking about work. One might say I was worried about that, but so far? Nah, no worries! Now, I’m still taking bets that something will pop into my head while I’m in the Seychelles. Let’s just see how that goes…

Posted in Dubai, RTW, Travel, Trip Report | Leave a comment
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