Dubai & South Africa experiences

gaillimh

Hi.

Am looking for any first hand experiences of Dubai & South Africa in preparation for a possible twin centre holiday next year (March or April most likely).
Just trying to gather as much info as I can before making any decisions so would be grateful for any information,tips etc anyone could provide.
I have searched on this forum and others but found a lot of the info to be a few years old and also am looking to get some specific info so I decided to start a new thread...

So the basic plan would be to spend 4 days in Dubai, followed by around 10-12 days in South Africa depending on the amount of holidays we can get off work (myself and OH on this trip).

DUBAI
I assume we will have enough time to experience Dubai properly in 4 full days?
My main question re Dubai is around which area is the best to stay in. I am finding conflicting viewpoints on this & would be grateful if anyone on here could share their experiences. We would be planning to do a mixture of sightseeing, shopping, sunbathing, eating/drinking etc. Which are do you think would best serve this?
Also, if anyone could recommend a not madly expensive hotel with a pool that would be great. We do not really want to splurge on a mad expensive hotel as we will also have 12 nights worth of hotels to pay for in SA.

SOUTH AFRICA
So the rough plan for SA would be to spend around 5 days around Cape Town, then do the garden route 2-3 days stay in Stellenbosch, 1-2 in Plettenberg Bay & then finish off with maybe 2 days staying in a safari place before flying home (can be from Port Elizabeth or Cape Town).

So the SA questions I have...
1. Is 5 days around Cape Town about right?
2. Would you stay 5 nights in Cape Town itself or break it up into say 3 nights in Cape Town and 2 in Camps Bay?
3. Is 3 days in Stellenbosch too much?
4. Where would people recommend as a good place to do the safari?
5. Is it preferable to go from Port Elizabeth to Cape Town or the other way around or does it really make no difference?

Thanks so much for any info anyone can provide and apologies if any of the queries seem a bit vague. I really do not know an awful lot about either Dubai or South Africa.

roundymac

I would stay in Cape Town for 5 nights. Plenty to do and see, you can get some great tours. 1 day on the hop on hop off bus, this will allow you to do Table Mnt as part of it. 2 A township tour, try to get one that includes a history of district 6 which was the start of the apartied system and townships. 3 Wine lands tour, most include Stellenbosh as part of it, 4, Robbin island, might be advisable to book this in advance, this can be hit and miss sometimes if one of the ferries is out of commission. 5 Cape Point tour, this should take in Cape of Good Hope, False bay,(breeding ground for Great White shark) Boulders beach which has a penguin colony. You have to walk on a boardwalk which is about 2 feet off the beach, the penguins have full use of the beach, you are in the middle of the colony. Depending on who is the tour operator, it may include French Hoek where there is the Huguenot Momument and Muesum. 6 Whale watching at Hermanus, between June and November AFAIK. This is just a sample of what you can do in Cape Town, so I would say plan it well if you are only going to spend 5 nights there.
I have never done the garden route, my other trip to SA was to Umhlanga Rocks which is about 20 km north of Durban. A beautiful place especially if you just want to chill out for a few days. Again plenty of tours if you want to, the battlefields tour,(Roarkes Drift, Isandlwana, Spion Kop). This tour would be a early start, 6am, if you were to do all three it would involve an overnight stay. There is also various tours of plantations, banana, sugar cane, apple/orange, a coulple of them are so large you do the trip on narrow gauge steam railways. Also the Sharks board have their base in Umhlanga, you can watch a disection of a shark which has been caught in the shark nets protecting the beaches. Shakaland, the Zulu interapitive village, the Zulu dancing alone is worth seeing. There are also several game reserve's if you want to see them instead. Hope this is a help. Any questions, ask away.

Hanners

Check out Franschhoek in the wine lands, beautiful little town. Cant recomend highly enough to stay in a guest house called the Plumwood Inn, amazing little place. When there book lunch for vineyard called Le Petit Ferme, amazing. Also check out Ryans kitchen. Spent 3 days here on Honeymoon in September and they were unforgettable.

Roundymac above has some great suggestions, we stayed in Camps bay and it was beautiful. About 20min from city centre, 100% safe with no guards etc, on beach and wonderful restraunts (Codfathers best fish restraunt I've ever eaten in!)

If you want any more suggestions I haev a bag of them!

gaillimh

Hanners wrote: »

Check out Franschhoek in the wine lands, beautiful little town. Cant recomend highly enough to stay in a guest house called the Plumwood Inn, amazing little place. When there book lunch for vineyard called Le Petit Ferme, amazing. Also check out Ryans kitchen. Spent 3 days here on Honeymoon in September and they were unforgettable.

Roundymac above has some great suggestions, we stayed in Camps bay and it was beautiful. About 20min from city centre, 100% safe with no guards etc, on beach and wonderful restraunts (Codfathers best fish restraunt I've ever eaten in!)

If you want any more suggestions I haev a bag of them!

Thanks a million to both of you for your replies.very helpful.
Would you recommend anywhere in particular to stay in Camps Bay?it does look lovely but accomodation seems very expensive.
You would recommend a stay here over Cape Town city itself?

gaillimh

gaillimh wrote: »

Thanks a million to both of you for your replies.very helpful.
Would you recommend anywhere in particular to stay in Camps Bay?it does look lovely but accomodation seems very expensive.
You would recommend a stay here over Cape Town city itself?

PS Do absolutely feel free to post any other suggestions you might have.All suggestions will be gratefully received.
Thanks a million

dingding

Just back from SA. Stayed in the plumwood inn also. Have a look at the 2inn1 Kensington in cape town About 10 min walk to a tour bus stop.

Also stayed in hermenes on the way back.

In Dubai I stayed in the park Regis kris kin.

This is near the old town. Very handy for a tram stop and very reasonable.

Hanners

Yea Camps bay is expensive as its one of the most afluent suburbs, we stayed in the Bay Hotel but as it was the end of low season got a 5/4 night deal. There was one other place I looked at called something like 51camps bay.

I was totally unprepared for the high quality of guesthouses, their actually more like boutique hotels, excellent places. If I was gong back I'd stay in a guesthouse in CAmps bay if there was one available. Also the Red and blue tour bus leaves from the beachfront at Camps bay.

We had one night at the end of holiday back in Cape Town and stayed in the Commadore hotel in the V&A, very good location and very comfortable.

Basically our trip which we also based on a friends experience worked out like this:

5 nights - Camps Bay
3 nights Franschheok
1 night Hermanus
1 night Wilderness (Garden Route - would not stay here again)
1 night Plettenberg Bay
1 night Jeffreys Bay
3 nights safari - Amakala (outside Port Elizabeth)
1 night Cape town

To be honest the Garden route is only as good as the stops you make on it. We drove from Hermanus to Wilderness and stayed there, its a bit of a sleepy village so we should have bypassed it. Plettenberg Bay is lovely, stayed in a guesthouse called Christinas, bit out but fantastic place. Knysna is nice as is the Tsisikama national park visitors centre. We only stopped in Jeffreys bay to break up the journey to the safari the following day, just a surfing town not much else

Would go back to any of the places i stayed in tomorrow if i could and I'm an absolute travel snob who likes comfort!

schemingbohemia

Do you mind me asking what is drawing you to Dubai?

I haven't been to either but if I was going to SA i'd rather spend more time there rather than waste 4 days on the way down.

pontia

have to agreed,wouldent bother with dubai,been there,nothing much to offer,you would get far more for your money in sa,try grand roche hotel in paarl,its an hour from capetown in a vineyard beside mountains,fab and reasonable

gaillimh

There's nothing specific drawing us to Dubai really I guess. I noticed that the flights stopped over in Dubai enroute to Cape Town and just thought it might be nice to spend a few days in the place as neither of us have been.

Thanks again to everyone for your info so far. It has been very helpful.
Keep any more info ye might have coming!
Cheers

babaracus

I was in S. Africa in October.

4 days in Cape Town would be a good amount of time there. As mentioned above Table Mountain, Robben Island, V&A, day on the beach in Camps Bay and a trip to the Cape of Good Hope would be some of the main things to do. There is plenty to see and do but I thought the V&A, while worth an evening was a bit overpriced and sanitised. The Mitchells pub there is pretty good though.

I also stayed in the Plumwood Inn in Franschoek and recommend it. Franschoek is a lovely town and the food and wine are fantastic.

Only visited Hermanus for a few hours and saw some whales from the shore but was not overly impressed with the place.

Plettenberg Bay is nice, maybe stay just outside town near Robberg Beach - we stayed in a B&B called the Dolphins Playground which was a little old fashioned but very friendly and in a great location for strolls on a lovely beach before breakfast.

From Plett you can visit Tsitsikamma, Storms River Mouth (very nice), do a bungy, go to Monkeyland. Plenty to do round there. Knysyna was nice enough but Plett is much nicer.

We also went to Oudtshoorn and did the Swartberg Pass which is a bit out of the way but suited our route at the time. That pass is amazing. You might not want to detour that far off your plan though. Storms River Mouth was as far as we got so can't advise on anything beyond that (we had already spent 10 days in Joburg visiting family so had done safari etc already).

I would do:
4 nights Cape Town (we stayed in Seapoint and it was quite nice and safe and only about 6 euro in a taxi to the V&A or Long Street)
2 nights Franschoek
3 nights Plettenberg Bay (use it as a base for day trips)
Then your safari


I found flights via Dubai quite pricey. We flew Air France via Paris.

Oranage2

There's a game park called Addo park and it's just outside Port Elizbeth, probably your best bet if you want a Safari Park. Also Plettenburg bay has a biggish game park too though not as big or as impressive as Addo.


You could do Cape Town in 3 days or you could stay the whole 2 weeks, big place and a nice place. I've done the Garden route and along the east coast all the way to Joburg and pretty much all the stops were amazing.