Danhauser Travel Blogs

12/16/21 and 12/17/21-  I receive my Covid results promptly at 10pm (negative as always) but Sharece didn’t. When we still didn’t have it by 12:30am I knew something was messed up so I get out of bed, put some regular clothes on and march to the front desk for them to call for me. The lab technician on the phone was quite rude to hotel reception, even though they messed up, and wait an hour before the email finally comes through. Losing sleep wasn't ideal but I was able to chit chat with reception during that time as he was eager to know about America and if people were actually protesting wearing masks and such. The next morning, it takes only fifteen minutes to get to the airport with the roads almost empty for 7am and very peaceful. Looks like Covid all over again. We arrive with plenty of time to skate through passport control (which the guy didn’t even ask us to pull down our masks and waives us through), but our British Airways flight is being held at the gate for “paperwor...

  12/15/21-  Breakfast is the same as yesterday, still good, and we take our Covid tests inside our hotel room (thanks to our last hotel for setting that up). She took credit card, which is awesome, and now we wait until tonight for the results. Unfortunately, we’re not able to check into our flight with British Airways online and have to do so at the counter, so hoping we get seats together. It’s supposed to rain today, but we don’t see a dark cloud anywhere. That’s good news for our last day as we venture to the Zeitz Museum, which is full of contemporary art about the apartheid in the 1900s. This era was responsible for over one million Africans being slaughtered and the displacement of native families. There wasn’t much to it as several floors were closed off, but the building itself was quite interesting to see. As the wind picks up again, we take an Uber to the Parliament building (Company’s Garden), but when we arrive we can’t find where it is. Unsure if there are t...

  12/14/21-  We get a decent night’s sleep despite having to wake up early for our day trip tour to the Cape Peninsula. Breakfast was good with eggs, ham and fruit and wait for our pick-up at 8:45am but arrives a half hour late. Then it drives to pick up the next group and we have to wait another twenty or so minutes for them to be ready, so already this tour is starting off an hour late but at least the skies are blue, and there's only four of us. The couple picked up is from South Africa but I swear they sound Australian. We travel down to Hout Bay to get a great view of the harbor, then our driver tells us if we don’t have enough cash for the entrance fees coming up to use the ATM as their credit card machines don’t work half the time. I wasn’t expecting to spend more fees taking out cash but what’s a few more dollars I guess. Now off to the main attractions. We arrive at the Cape of Good Hope, which is the southern most end of Africa you can get and where the currents ...

  12/13/21-   ♪♪ Wake up in the mornin' feeling like P. Diddy! ♪♪ What an awesome couple of days at the Hyatt Cellars-Hohenort. We feel absolutely spoiled and can definitely recommend. I can’t confirm you’ll receive the same service as us, but they are all friendly and attentive. They even help schedule our Covid test for later this week having someone come to our next hotel. After our big breakfast, we check out around 11am and catch an Uber to our third hotel in Cape Town, Aha Harbour Bridge Hotel. At check-in we mention that we will need to check out a day earlier than paid for as our flight changed and they processed a refund for that last night. I’m impressed with how easy that was. A representative from Kenya Airlines is showing up to take our luggage we claimed as damaged, so we take everything out and leave at the reception for him to collect. We’ve been assured that our bag will be returned before our flight out so hopefully that’s the case, otherwise we’ll have to ...

  12/12/21-  Update to the new flight. Looks like the UK has a mandatory quarantine for anyone arriving from South Africa, so we won’t be able to leave the airport during our long 14 hour overnight layover. That’s going to be interesting. Breakfast is elegantly served in the courtyard with the beautiful greenery, ponds and ducks waddling around. We order the French toast and omelet as well as crumpets, which is a thicker type of pancake and very good. We notice on the menu a charge around $25 US each and ask if breakfast is included with our room and she says, “Everything is at no charge as you are in room #5”. Well then, don't mind it I do! After breakfast, the hotel allows us to go to one of their higher up floors to take photos of their vineyard, which was so awesome of them. This place has gone well beyond anything we could’ve asked; matter of fact almost all of the places we've been to have been most helpful.  We call an UBER to take us to Table Mountain. We opt ...

  12/11/21-  Cape Town reminds me of Australia in many ways, especially with all the British/Australian accents. It’s a nice reprieve from Tanzania as it feels much less hectic and more peaceful. We sleep in with a full night’s sleep on one of the most comfortable beds we’ve had so far on this trip. Our host makes us breakfast with scrambled eggs, toast, fruit and French-pressed coffee and it’s very well made. My expectations are already surpassed. We check out at 10am and take an UBER to our next hotel, Cellars-Hohenort, which we used our Hyatt points for. This hotel was once a farm vineyard and still has the vines (which they outsource) and a beautiful garden surrounding the property.  We stroll around for an hour as we wait for our room to be ready and when we check in we're amazed at how large it is. They upgrade us to their suite with a pool view, separate living room and complimentary min-bar. There’s so much detail that we spend ten minutes taking it all in wit...