May 6, 2012 - Cape Town

May 6, 2012 - Cape Town

I think we are over the jet lag, the alarm woke us both up at 6:30am. We are meeting Don and Myrna for breakfast at 8am and then go to Table Mountain.

The weather is great, lots of sunshine, warm during the day and cool in the evening. No rain in sight.

I had purchased tickets for the cable car ride up Table Mountain before we left home. We took a taxi from the hotel. It took about 15 mintues and cost $12.50 with tip. Because we had tickets we skipped the long ticket line and were able to get on to the cable car (holds 65 persons). Everyone wanted to be by the open windows, but the floor of the car revolves so everyone get a chance at the open windows both looking back down and looking up. The ride takes about 5 mintues. The weather was great, no wind and sunny. We were told that there are more days when the ride does not operate because of weather then when it does.

There are a number of walking paths and the view is all the way to the Cape of Good Hope, which is about an hour away by car. We spent about an hour at the top and then rode the cable car down. For a early Sunday morning it was getting crowded. Table Mountain has been selected as one of the seven natural wonders of the world. It is really pretty amazing.

We took a taxi back to the hotel to check out and board the Ocean Princess. We never needed the late check out. We will spent the night on board the ship in Cape Town and sail at 5pm tomorrow.

With only 600 passengers boarding was quick. Having been on board just 6 months ago we know our way around and after dropping our hand luggage we all moved to the buffet for a lunch. After lunch Evelyn and I took the ships shuttle to the Waterfront to do a little shopping and buy some wine. The ship does not allow you to bring on hard liquer, but we can bring on wine and beer. Our friends Kobie and Roche, who are from South Africa, gave us a list of South African wines and we used it to select the two bottles we bought. We will buy some more tomorrow. We returned to the ship about 4pm and found that three of our 4 bags were in the cabin, Evelyn's large bag was missing. We unpacked what we had and our cabin stewart Dennis came in to introduce himself.

At 5pm we all headed to the lounge for the Suite passengers nightly cocktail party. The hors d' oeuvres are free, but you have to buy your own drinks.

At 6pm it was time for dinner in the dinning room. Normally we have a reserved table, but tonight it was open seating. After dinner there was an African folkloric in the show room. It was nice to have some thing different then the normal entertainment. The rhythms of the music remind you of American jazz and melodies you would associate with the Caribbean. Funny how we get it backwards. The melodies were brought here by the slaves from west Africa.

We got back to our room and still no bag. Evelyn and I headed to the passenger desk to see what was happening. We must of passed our bag on the way down the 4 flights of stairs because we were told that if it was a big blue one it had Been sent up to our cabin. It seemed that the baggage tag with our cabin number had been torn off and it took a while for them to check the ID on the bag. But alls well that ends well, thou Evelyn was already planing on spending Princess's money on a new wardrobe. Not really!

Tomorrow we visit Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned.




Sent from my iPad

Hal