Honeymoon PTR (feat. HK DL)

[PrincessInOz]

Nice deal from Expedia.

I'm hoping that you'll come back and have nice things to rave about the hotel...plus tips on what you liked.

How many days to your wedding?

 

[zanzibar138]

There are 36 days until the wedding

I will definitely put up a detailed TR when we get back, but it might not be in time for you to read before you go. I'll make sure I let you know specifically how we enjoyed the DL Hotel though.

 

[zanzibar138]

Our flight tonight doesn't leave HK until nearly midnight, so we pretty much still have a full day. This is the Saturday that we won't be able to visit the park though. I did consider booking a high tea at the HKDL Hotel, but on second thoughts if we're going to be out exploring it seems silly to have to interrupt our afternoon to go back to DL for high tea. So I'll see if I can book it another day.

Not much interesting about our flight. It's a long one! Nearly as long as Melbourne - LA. We're flying South African Airways, and get into Johannesburg at 7:10am local time.

 

[PrincessInOz]

High Tea in Asia is an experience that I remember from my childhood. Instead of the DL Hotel, have you considered a hotel in the city? The InterContinental is meant to have great views as is the Mandarin Oriental. The Peninsula is the most famous but that comes with lots of people and queues.

 

[zanzibar138]

Actually I did consider a hotel in the city, but I wouldn't have known where to start! So thanks for the advice

 

[zanzibar138]

A bit off topic, but I was in a car accident during the week. 2nd from the front in a 4 car pile up. I'm ok, just got a bit sore from whiplash, but have been given the all-clear from the doctor etc. My car however, is not ok, and we'll probably never see it again We have insurance, and the accident wasn't my fault, so we should get paid out, but I really liked my car! And in the meantime it's going to take me 2 hours to get to work on public transport.

I'm starting to feel like I really deserve this holiday!

And back to the PTR...

We arrive at Victoria Falls early afternoon (well, about lunch time, but by the time we get through customs etc and actually get to the hotel...). We're staying at the Victoria Falls Safari Lodge - it looks beautiful!

The lodge is situated on the border of the Zambezi National Park, and 4km from the falls, with a complimentary shuttle. There is a waterhole onsite for game viewing so we'll be able to get a taste of it before we start the 'safari' part of our trip. All rooms have private balconies overlooking the National Park, and most also have views of the waterhole.

There are so many activities to do around Victoria Falls, with only 2 nights, it's tricky to decide! Some options we can choose from include:
* Hide sits and guided safari walks down by the waterhole
* Game drives (we'll probably give this one a miss since we're also visiting a specific game lodge)
* Sunset river cruises (shortlisted)
* White water rafting (probably a bit too adventurous for me)
* Walking with lions at the lion encounter (shortlisted)
* Scenic flights over the falls (shortlisted)
* Crocodile farm and nature sanctuary
* Elephant back trails (we'll probably give this one a miss since DF did this in Thailand only a few months ago - and I think I'll stick to riding horses lol!)
* Horse riding (now we're talking!)
* Spa treatments
* Steam train trips
* Trips to Zambia
* Canoeing

And of course, viewing the falls lol!

March is apparently at the end of the wet season, so the falls will be absolutely thundering! This means that we may not be able to get very close or do the whole walk along them. And we will get wet. But it will be at its most spectacular so I want to make sure we do a scenic flight to really take it all in.

Next up, onto Chobe!

 

[PrincessInOz]

I cannot wait to see your pictures from this part of your holiday. Victoria Falls is on my bucket list.

 

[PrincessInOz]

Zanzibar - Friends of mine have just come back from holiday in Vietnam and Cambodia. They had a great time but they came back with a warning about catching taxi's. They said that they were glad that they pre-booked transfers to/from airport to their hotel.
They heard of a number of people that were ripped off by taxi drivers on the tours that they did.

 

[zanzibar138]

Thanks for the heads up!

 

[zanzibar138]

Next stop is Chobe National Park in Botswana. We're actually doing an 'independent tour' throughout Africa, which means that basically we'll have private transportation and a local guide for things like border crossings etc, but there is no group so we can still do things our own way (for example, we added 2 nights at Chobe). It worked out a little more expensive and a little less flexible than doing it on our own, but neither of us were that keen on taking on Africa without some professional help lol!

We're staying at Muchenje Safari Lodge. It's on the west side of the park, so will be a little more driving from Vic Falls, but it's apparently it's less crowded so hopefully we'll have better viewing on our safaris.

The lodge overlooks the Chobe River and flood plains. The lodge offers river safaris (as in on a boat) as well as 4WD drive ones morning and night. They also offer visits to the local village. Not sure how far away that is, but we're interested in doing it. They are all included in the price so we can do as many as wel want.

Chobe has the Big 5, and is especially famous for its massive herds of elephants. There are also leopards, which I hope to see, and African wild dogs, as well as numerous other animals of course.

 

[PrincessInOz]

It it weren't for the fact this this trip is also your honeymoon, I'd so be crashing your party and tagging along!