Visiting South Africa

UncleMarvo

I'm heading to South Africa on a three week holiday over Christmas with my girlfriend. We're flying in and out of Cape Town, but we have no plans in between as yet. Can someone suggest somewhere to stay in Cape Town for the first few days just to get our bearings? Somewhere reasonable within access of some bars & restaurants etc.

Any other suggestion while we're there would be great.
Thanks.

Lambsbread

I was just down in South Africa several weeks ago and flew into and out of Cape Town. I stayed in hostels all the time so am not sure if you'd want to do the same. I stayed in the Ashanti Lodge, which is pretty central and they can organise a lot of activities for you.

I'd definetly advise you to travel along the coast, staying in Jeffrey's Bay especially and do the bungy at Bloukran's Bridge! There's an unbelieveable amount of stuff to do in S.A. but if your travelling at peak summer time i'd advise you to try and book in advance. If you're not renting a car, you can get the Baz Bus between Cape Town and Port Elizabeth that stops in all the towns along the way.

Also to note that internal flights are pretty cheap as well. I flew with national airways from Port Elizabeth to Cape Town for €40 and i booked it 3 days in advance.

shrapnel222

don't walk up table mountain. I was there about 6 months ago and every day people were getting mugged on the way up. I don't know if the situation has changed or not but worth checking out. when i was there 2 guys got arrested when they tried to mug this little japanese girl who turned out to know quite a lot of karate and she kicked the **** out of em

Zaph

Do a search for some websites for guest houses in South Africa (sorry, don't have any links any more). They're often of a very high quality and reasonably priced. And what shrapnel saad about Table Mountain still goes, there was an article in the paper about muggings there a week or two ago.

Have a look at this thread and this thread, they might be of use to you.

scoot on

Does anyone know who would be best for flights to South Africa?

Myself and my boyfriend are planning on going in Nov/Dec. I was going to book with trailfinders but just wondering if there is cheaper options out there?

TravelJunkie

Lufthansa is usually best for flights, but visit www.worldtravel.ie for comparisons, that's the one we always use when we go.

Re: hiring a house - I wouldn't. There are so many burglaries and rapes, etc. I would definately stay at a decent hotel where there is someone there 24hours, if you're staying in a lodge, don't be on the ground floor or anywhere near access.

Zaph

scoot on wrote:

Does anyone know who would be best for flights to South Africa?

Myself and my boyfriend are planning on going in Nov/Dec. I was going to book with trailfinders but just wondering if there is cheaper options out there?

Try Slatterys, they're the only ones who do direct flights from Dublin to Cape Town and prices aren't too bad from what I've heard. No idea what the service is like though. I've flown both British Airways and KLM to Cape Town and would always use the latter if I was going again. Going through Heathrow is a lot more hassle than Schiphol as you have to change terminals, and the BA flight we were on went via Jo'burg, which meant we ended up sitting on the tarmac there for an hour and a half before flying on to Cape Town.

For the OP, just to clarify TravelJunkie's point, I wasn't recommending renting a house, although I've done that too and it was fine, I was talking about guest houses, i.e. B&Bs.

scoot on

Thanks for the advice everyone.

We're flying from Cork not Dublin so Slatterys probably isn't going to work out. It'd be just as easy for us to fly to London or Amsterdam and get a connecting flight from there.

Has anyone ever flown with Virgin Atlantic?

Villaricos

If you want cheaper flights I reccomend you fly to Joburg and get an internal to Cape Town. Im going in December and my flight path is Dublin-London-Joburg-CapeTown. Possibly exhausting but Im young

Im flying Virgin to Joburg and then www.kulula.com for internal flight. Got my Virgin flight on lastminute.com. Never flown them before but have heard nothing but good about them.

You'd want to get booking flights quick enough, I had trouble getting mine, although I have to fly specific days, going over for a wedding. Its on Dec 28 so have to fly Dec 26. grr...

Slatterys is a do it once only thing. You ususally get a Lithunanian Airways plane and they will show only one movie the whole flight. So if your flying them you really need to think about investing in a spare laptop battery or a portable dvd player. My cousin is doing that.

Spider_Baby

If you are thinking of hostels the Africa Hostel and Travel Centre place on New St is super. Really really great place, super staff, great bbq's etc in the place. Good place to meet people and they can organise heaps of activities for you like trips to Cape of Good Hope, wine tours etc. Its situated quite close to Long St which is the main night-life area. Its also a short and cheao taxi ride to the V&A Waterfront where there are heaps of shops, restaurants, pubs. Really beautiful area.
We climbed Table Mountain while we were there last year and didnt hear any stories of muggings etc there thankfully.
I stopped at a good few places along the garden route. If I had to recommend one place only it would absolutely definitly be Coffee Bay. To get there we got the Baz Bus to Umtatta and then a shuttle bus from there. Coffee Bay was my fave place of my whole world trip.