Today is an exciting day. We are off to South Africa, specifically Cape Town! Living in a hub, we got to have a normal work day, then head to the airport for the 5:45 pm flight to Johannesburg. It's pretty surreal to live somewhere with multiple direct flights to South Africa and Hunter and I were antsy all day because it felt like we needed to go go go but we had plenty of time!
Some PF Changs in the airport while we wait for our flight
As always, we had many plans for various routes, and Hunter has spent the last week watching everything like a hawk to ensure our best options at getting a business class seat. We almost headed to Newark to take a United flight to Cape Town, but in the end, decided to try out luck on Delta. These flights are extremely challenging to get on as a nonrev, and we were pretty stressed out, but alas, we made the flight in 2B and 2C! Once onboard, we had a delayed departure due to a minor electrical issue. Hunter and I added the flights to our maps (https://my.flightradar24.com/StormyH15 & https://my.flightradar24.com/orcajet/) and we found out this was the same aircraft and same seats from our ICN-ATL flight coming home from Thailand! Crazy!
Success! Yay Delta One
Once in the air, the wonderful service began. We started with a nice towelette and then drinks with delicious date and cheese mix! Then the soup & salad arrived. It was butternut squash with apple! For mains Hunter and I both had the pasta dish which was spinach and ricotta ravioli
with brown butter, sage pesto, toasted almonds and grana padano. Definitely a tasty choice! To top off an excellent dinner, I had an ice cream sundae and Hunter had a chocolate tart.
Towelette
Movie time!
Dates and cheese with some walnuts
Soup and salad
Main Dish
Sundae
Chocolate tart
After dinner, Hunter and I both headed to bed. With this being a 16-hour flight, we could sleep 8 hours and awake when it would be around 10am South Africa Standard Time (3am Eastern). Honestly, for me, it wasn't too bad as I've been getting up at 4am these last few days for work and studying for my exams before I started my work days. This past week j had various 7-730 am meetings so I was up early regardless. Anyways after about 6 hours of sleep, I woke up. I probably could have slept some more, but I wanted a drink and some snacks. Hunter slept till and I worked on some blog stuff prep while finishing out the flight. We also both had another small nap before landing
Around 90 minutes before arrival, arrival service started. This included breakfast oddly enough even though it was 5pm local time. Hunter and I both picked the mushroom frittata option. It was delicious.
Breakfast!
We touched down in Africa for the second trip in a row after our last adventure to Cairo. However, we were almost 4,000 miles from where we last left Africa on Air France from CAI - Africa is a BIG continent. (We were also over 8,000 miles from Atlanta, making this our longest flight ever, beating out our trip to Australia). We had a short taxi to the gate past beautiful fields of flowers as it is summer down here, and got to see a diverse collection of planes including Lufthansa's retro-painted Boeing 747-8i and a TAAG Angolan 777-300ER with their signature ibex logo along with a couple A380s from Emirates and British Airways.
Arrival at JNB
When we arrived I quickly joined an impromptu Microsoft Teams meeting with one of my sky club design teams. We had to sort out the kitchen layout to get final confirmation on our design layout. I had one earbud in so Hunter guided us through the airport customs and then to the South African Airways check-in counter. While waiting to check-in, my meeting finished and once at the counter we were told that we would be cleared if there were seats available at 5:35, about a 10-minute wait. While waiting, I went on a hunt for a bathroom and then returned to the check-in counter while Hunter went. Shortly after he got back, we got cleared and proceeded to security which was a very basic x-ray machine and luckily no line! We then headed to our gate, D7, and boarded in 14C and 15E (exit row seats) on flight SA359, a lovely A320! The flight was only 2 hours long. Surprisingly it was a full-service flight! I had the beef option and hunter had the fish option. Drinks followed the meal, but I just wanted water. There was no in-flight entertainment, but Hunter and I just listened to music on our phones and used airdrop to message back and forth. I also did some picture cleanup on my work phone since I am low on storage.
Our aircraft tail
Fish
Beef
Making our way to CPT
We arrived in Cape Town at 8:20 pm local January 27th (1:20pm EST). We landed during sunset which made for some lovely pictures. Once we were out of the airport, we went to the uber pick-up location and took a ride to our hotel. For this trip, we are spending 7 nights at the Westin in the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront area. The ride took about 20 minutes and was only $11 USD. Once we were dropped off we quickly checked in and headed to our room. We decided to make a quick trip to the pool before it closed for the night at 10pm. This hotel has two pools, one indoor and one outdoor. We decided to check out the indoor pool on the 19th floor! It did not disappoint.
Sunset
Hotel floor to our room
Our room looks down on the outdoor pool
The TV in our room
Nice infinity pool on the 19th floor
After swimming, we returned to our room where we had a lovely welcome snack box full of desserts from the hotel due to our loyalty to the Marriott brand. We also showered and then got into bed where I worked on my blog! This trip I am trying to get all my blogs posted ON TIME, but we will see.
Thursday January 26 - Friday January 27, 2023
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