- The Journey Begins – The 2018 Grand World Voyage
- Leaving San Diego for Fort Lauderdale
- Arriving in Fort Lauderdale and our first day
- Fort Lauderdale – Day 2
- Day 1 – The Adventure Begins
- Day 2 – Our First Sea Day – Abba Fabulous!
- Day 3, Georgetown, Grand Cayman
- Day 4, At Sea En Route Puerto Limon (San Jose), Costa Rica
- Day 5, Puerto Limon, Costa Rica
- Day 6, Transit the Panama Canal
- Day 7, Fuerte Amador, Panama
- Day 8, At Sea
- Day 9, At Sea
- Day 10, At Sea
- Day 11, At Sea
- Day 12, At Sea
- Day 13, At Sea – Enroute to Nuku Hiva
- Day 14, At Sea, Enroute to Nuku Hiva
- Day 15, At Sea – Enroute to Nuku Hiva
- Day 16, Taiohae, Nuku Hiva, French Polynesia
- Day 17, At Sea
- Day 18, Avatoru, Rangiroa, French Polynesia
- Day 19, Papeete, Tahiti, French Polynesia
- Day 20, Mooera, French Polynesia
- Day 21, Bora Bora, French Polynesia
- Day 22 – At Sea
- Day 23, Avarua, Rarotonga, Cook Islands
- Day 24, At Sea
- Day 25 – Alofi, Niue
- Day 26 – At Sea – Crossed Dateline – Jan 29th GONE!
- Day 27 – At Sea
- Day 28 – At Sea
- Day 29 – Auckland, NZ
- Day 30 – Tauranga – 3 Feb 2018
- Day 31 – Napier
- Day 32, At Sea – Super Bowl Monday
- Day 33, Port Chalmers, Dunedin
- Day 34, Fjordlands National Park – Milford Sound
- Day 35 – At Sea – Enroute Sydney
- Day 36 – At Sea
- Day 37 – Sydney, Australia
- Day 38 – Sydney, Australia
- Day 39 – At Sea
- 2020 World Cruise Possibilities
- Day 40, Hobart, Tasmania
- Day 41, At Sea
- Day 42, At Sea
- Day 43 – Penneshaw, Kangaroo Island
- Day 44 – Adelaide, South Australia
- Day 45 – At Sea
- Day 46 – At Sea
- Day 47 – Albany, Western Australia
- Day 48 – 21 Feb Perth
- Day 49 – Perth Yarn Crawl
- Day 50 – At Sea
- Day 51 – At Sea
- Day 52 – At Sea
- Day 53 – Benoa, Bali
- Day 54 – Benoa – Bali
- Day 55 – At Sea
- Day 56 – At Sea
- Day 57 – At Sea
- Day 58, Puerto Princesa
- Day 59, – At Sea
- Day 60, Manila, Philippines
- Day 61, Manila, Philippines
- Day 62 – At Sea
- Day 63 – Hong Kong
- Day 64, Hong Kong
- Day 65 – At Sea
- Day 66 – At Sea
- Day 67 – Phu My, Vietnam
- Day 68 – Siem Reap (ms Amsterdam at Sea)
- Day 69 – Siem Reap
- 2020 World Cruise – w/detailed dates
- Day 70 – Singapore
- Day 71 – At Sea
- Day 72 – Phuket
- Day 73 – At Sea
- Day 74 – At Sea – Enroute to Sri Lanka
- Day 75 – Columbo, Sri Lanka
- Day 76 – At Sea – Enroute to the Seychelles
- Day 77 – At Sea
- Day 78 – At Sea
- Day 79 – Victoria, Seychelles
- Day 80 – At Sea
- Day 81 – At Sea
- Day 82 – St Denis – Reunion Island
- Day 83 – At Sea
- Day 84 – At Sea
- Day 85 – At Sea
- Day 86 – Maputo – Safari Day 1
- Day 87 – Kambaku River Sands – Safari Day 2
- Day 88 – Kambaku River Sands – Safari Day 3
- Day 89 – Kambaku River Sands – Safari Day 4
- Day 90 – Cape Town, South Africa
- Day 91, Cape Town, South Africa
- Day 92 – At Sea
- Day 93, Walvis Bay, Namibia
- Day 94 – At Sea
- Day 95 – At Sea
- Day 96 -Luanda, Angola
- Day 97 – At Sea
- Day 98 – At Sea
- Day 99 – Crossing the Equator
- Day 100 – At Sea
- Day 101 – At Sea
- Day 102 – Banjul, Gambia
- Day 103 – Dakar, Senegal
- Day 104 – At Sea
- Day 105, Praia – Cape Verde
- Day 106 – At Sea
- Day 107 – At Sea
- Day 108 – At Sea
- Day 109 – At Sea – April 23, 2018
- Day 110 – At Sea
- Day 111 – San Juan, Puerto Rico
- Day 112 – At Sea
- Day 113 – At Sea
- Day 114 – Fort Lauderdale
- 2018 World Cruise Entertainers
Day 91 – April 5th, Cape Town South Africa
After getting up early for most of the last week, we slept in this morning and left the ship around noon. The skies were clear blue but looking over at table Mountain there is a small clump of clouds at the summit right over the viewing area. If you have an interest in going to the top of Table Mountain you want to do it whenever you see a clearing, because if you wait you may find the cable car closed or the weather and visibility not suitable.
Here is a video of the days highlights
Bunny Chow
While researching Cape Town for this trip I discovered two local dishes that I was anxious to try: Bunny Chow and the Gatsby sandwich. Bunny Chow, is a quarter loaf of bread that’s hollowed out and filled with a curry of lamb, chicken or vegetable. Bunny Chow was created in Durban, South Africa and is quite popular with Indians. The Gatsby, is a large submarine type sandwich, with a loaf of bread sliced lengthwise, hollowed out, and filled with a variety of ingredients with the common ingredient to all Gatsbys being French fries. We’ve read that a Gatsby can easily feed two people.
Unfortunately, we would only have time today to sample one, and we chose Bunny Chow which was featured at the Eastern Food Bazaar.
The Bizarre was about two miles away from the Amsterdam. We hailed an Uber which came in seven minutes. Fifteen minutes later, we arrived at the Eastern Food Bazaar.
The Eastern Food Bazaar is an Indian food court featuring a variety of Indian cuisines. There were probably four or five different stalls each featuring a different style of Indian food. After checking them out, there was one which featured Bunny Chow. This was not a typical tourist spot, as the clientele seemed mainly local.
Ordering was a little confusing. At first, I waited in line and asked the server behind the counter for Bunny Chow but he said I needed to pay in advance and then give him the receipt ticket. Each item on the large menu behind each stall has an adjacent number. After noting the number of the Bunny Chow we wanted, I waited in line, paid the cashier who gave me a receipt that I then handed it to the server behind the counter. The price for one order of Bunny Chow was 55 Rand (US$4.00).
We ordered the chicken Bunny Chow which was served with a side salad and rice. One order was enough for the both of us. There is a lot of bread and we probably ate about half. The food was mildly spicy, hot and very good. We spent about 25 minutes here before heading out to the street to order another Uber to take us to the Victoria and Alfred (V and A) waterfront back near the ship. Here is a link to a map of the waterfront area.
V and A Waterfront
The V and A waterfront has a large shopping mall and a variety of other shops, restaurants and outdoor plazas to explore. This is the destination of the ship’s shuttle bus. One strategy if you didn’t feel like walking as much would be to take the ship’s shuttle bus to the V and A Mall and then walk back to the ship which is just under a mile away. Not easily seen on the map is a swinging bridge over a small canal which connects the waterfront to the wharf area. The swinging bridge is about 3/10 of a mile from the ship. This entire area is filled with tourists and is quite safe.
We had the Uber drop us off near The Watershed, which is a large open building filled with a variety of stalls, each featuring a different vendor. Featuring local craftsmen, this is a good spot to shop for souvenirs or other local goods. A yarn shop called cowgirlblues has a small shop here, which we discovered after wandering around for about 10 minutes.
Cowgirlblues Yarn Shop
Cowgirlblues is a Cape Town based dye house and design studio. Specializing in South African wool and mohair, they sell yarn and a selection of scarves, shawls and socks. Judy bought some Merino Lace and some Kidsilk (a mohair and silk blend) in two colors; Cobalt and Faded Rose.
There were a lot of interesting shops and you could easily spend an hour to wander about. We needed to get back to the ship, so we made our way to the exit and headed towards the swinging bridge.
Nobel Square
Along the way we came across Nobel Square, featuring statues of the four South Africans who have won the Nobel prize: Albert Luthuli, Desmond Tutu, FW de Klerk and Nelson Mandela. There was a one-man band playing an interesting style of music using a didgeridoo, guitar and keyboard. We watched for a few minutes before moving on.
It was a beautiful day, and while walking back to the ship, we noticed that Table Mountain had finally cleared up so it would be a spectacular view from the top.
Back on the Ship
Back on the ship we had about an hour before our fourth and final muster drill for this cruise. Muster drills for long cruises are held once a month.
Mania and Gossip
You’ll recall that several weeks ago we placed a bid during the silent auction for drinks with Connor and Michael from the HAL orchestra, which they advertised would feature mania and gossip. This evening was the night we agreed to meet in the Crow’s Nest. It was fun chatting with Connor and Michael, and they didn’t disappoint with the mania or the gossip. The featured drink was the Wang Wang along with some very tasty hors d’oeuvres. We didn’t get much juicy gossip but we did enjoy hearing about what goes on sometimes during the one-hour rehearsals prior to the evening’s performance. Michael brought several party hats and his recorder and offered to play a song of my request. I asked him to play in In A Gadda Da Vida, by the Iron Butterfly, first performed in 1968. (Here is a link to that performance.) Michael wasn’t familiar with the song but after I played it for him on my phone he picked it up very quickly and performed a nice rendition. Here is a short video of our mania and gossip hour.
Our happy hour ended a few minutes before 8 o’clock and we headed straight to the main dining room where Michael would be our guest for dinner. We enjoyed his company very much as did the rest of Table 303.
Alan Committee
Comedian Alan Committee was featured in the Queen’s Lounge this evening. Alan put on a solid performance, that was quite entertaining. He was one of the better comedians this cruise. A native of South Africa, he mentioned that this was his first performance on a cruise ship, any cruise ship as he spent most of his time previously doing comedy clubs throughout South Africa, the United Kingdom, Los Angeles and New York. He plans to tour Australia later this year so if you’re in the area he’s definitely worth seeking out.
