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Note form Stephen:
This couple had a delay in Southa firca due to weather....so I have included there whole testimonial.
Stephen,
On the delay, here is exactly what happened. We were flying a charter from Joburg International out to Londolozi. There was bad weather at the airport, so we were delayed for about two hours in the late afternoon. By the time we departed, we were too far behind schedule to land at Londolozi, since their landing strip has no lights. So we landed at Mpumalanga airport and stayed at the Jatinga resort. We drove out the next morning to Londolozi arriving at about 11:00. As I noted, I asked Marcha to obtain a letter on this point from Sefafone charters (our pilot was a young red headed guy named Robert), but I never received anything from her either by fax or email. I asked Robert (manager) at Londolozi to write this up as well and send me a summary via email for our insurance. He had my business card so he did have my email address. We did not receive anything from him either. I am waiting for the claim forms to see exactly what is required.
My view is I lost one day at Londolozi for 3 persons at R3950 per person per night (Marcha told me that was our rate). We paid about R3600 at Jatinga, but I assume I will pay that bill. Jatinga was a pretty nice fallback, by the way. Beautiful hotel, good food as well.
hope that is specific enough for you.
As to the trip, we enjoyed it a great deal. Zuks and the cultural tour was terrific; very nice guy.
The highlights were Londolozi and the cultural tour with Zuks. Both were terrific. Londolozi's service, food and rangers were great. The people there were gracious and thoughtful, exceeding our expectations.
Zuks and the tour were terrific. We really learned a great deal about the Xhosa, the history of the Eastern Cape, apartheid and life in
South Africa. The hotels were fine and varied in their styles. I'm not sure how much detail to offer.
The driving tour through the Little Karoo and the garden route were excellent. Beautiful things to see. We went to places like Cango cave (great cave, not such a great tour) and saw the Meerkats (we really liked that very much). Knysna was fun as well. It would have been nice to go a bit more slowly, but we decided to do a lot of things, so occasionally rushing a bit was a price we paid.
We had fun in Cape Town with Jonathan( Stephen note there son studying in Cape Town). Very beautiful city. Bishops Court guest house was excellent. Great service and very helpful whenever we needed help of any kind. We went to Landdudno so they packed us a picnic lunch just because they thought they should. Our favorite outing was Francshoek (sp). Charlene at Bishops Court got us a reservation at Le Quartier Francais (wow, amazing restaurant).
Weak point was Joburg. The tour guides (Shopie and Joe) were not very responsive to who we were; it felt very packaged. Shopie took us to a squatter area for a brief tour, and we felt as though we were set up to be hit on by the guide and someone selling things. Though she warned us, it would have been better not to have these guys working this way with her. Soweto was interesting but the discussion was at a basic level, when we already knew something and Jonathan was very knowledgeable. Nevertheless, seeing Soweto was interesting. However, I would not use them again. The hotel in Sandton was lousy, with poor service and rooms. Moyo's turned out to be an exciting place but too noisy; we could barely hear each other and the music and other sounds were continuously at a high decibel level.
The other weak point was that Marcha was only somewhat helpful, sometimes not responding or returning calls. (Stephens note I spoke to my office in Cape Town, and she did retrun the calls but possibly not fast as these folks wanted...a little anxious and impatient possibly??)
Our flights were screwed up returning from Joburg to Cape Town. We had tickets telling us the flight was at 13:35 but those had changed on Oct. 7 to 12:40 and you never got it rewritten, so we missed the flight and had to spend some frantic time straightening that out. We flew out at about 15:30. That should not have happened.( Stephens note Travellers assumption..My computer ssytem warns me of any scheduel change the airline did not tell me)
Ruth could tell you more.
All in all, the trip was terrific excepting these few glitches. Most of your recommendations were on the money and were very exciting. If you have any questions about our trip, please ask. If you can help us on Londolozi and recovering those monies, that would be much appreciated.(Stephens note...I have obtained a letterf rom the pilot of the plane for them)
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