Another beautiful day dawns here in Cape Town as we wake from our comfy hotel room, hit the gym and breakfast – which is a madhouse of people!  There is a huge convention here, making every venue slam packed busy.  We just want something light, so it isn’t any big deal really, except having to chase down the waitress for coffee.  Eh, whatever.

Breakfast done, we shower and make our way out into the sunshine, walking down to canal walk and stopping for a cappuccino at a little coffee place – which is also slam packed because it is the breakfast place for a hotel across the canal.  We luck out with a little table in the corner and enjoy a nice little break alongside the canal.  After walking a bit more, and being chastised for taking a picture of the Ferrari garage that is right on the canal (weirdly placed – how do they get those cars in there? They must drive them right down the canal walk.  Bizarre.), we return to the hotel to check out by the 11:00am deadline, leaving our bags with the porter, then head back to V&A for lunch.  We don’t have to be back to the hotel until 1:30 for the buses to take us to the ship, so we have plenty of time to wander and have a bite to eat.

We cross the bridge just in time to miss it opening and wander around toward the mall, before reversing course, just in time for the bridge to reopen, and heading for the Cape Town Fish Market again.  We normally try not to eat at the same restaurant twice, but that place was so good, and conveniently located with a table in the sunshine, how can we resist?  Another great meal of Hake and Calamari for Ed, sushi roll for me and Prawn croquettes to share.  Perfect. 

On the way back to the hotel we stop for photos of the Silo building – from this angle you can really see the old structure and the new additions above it – love that place! We also take a diversion over to the cruise terminal to check out the SH Diana – our ride for the next 3 weeks.  She is there, being refueled and restocked for our journey.  Such a small little thing – will be an interesting journey, that is for certain!

Back at the hotel – it is a total CF!  The one tour lady who is trying to coordinate everything isn’t very organized – not necessarily her fault.  This is a one off port call for the Diana and it isn’t a normal activity, so there isn’t much of a protocol in place. She is waiting for the ship to send over lists of passengers and the bus they are assigned.  There will be 3 buses to take us to the ship (which we know is only a few minutes walk or drive away), but by 1:30, our appointed meeting time, the ship hasn’t sent anything.  The minutes tick by, the other passengers, the bulk of which are Mainland Chinese who do not speak English (joy!) are getting restless, one Russian woman throws a hissy fit when the poor frazzled tour-lady can’t tell her when we are leaving.  Not a very auspicious start.

Eventually the ship sends the lists, but by now people are spread out all over the place and there isn’t any way to announce who is on what bus or when they should leave.  Ugh.  The tour-lady calls out bus #1 and a few people trickle out, but not many.  Bus #2 is the same way.  It is just a circus!  We finally get her attention and ask her if it would cause trouble if we just grabbed a cab and went over to the pier ourselves.  She says we’d just be at the back of the line, but at this point, what line?  We are considering doing just that when she tells us to just get on bus #1 because she can’t find the people who are supposed to be on there!  Okie dokie.  Off we go – to a virtually empty bus!  They’ve been sitting out there for at least 30 minutes – where did everyone else go?  We’ve no clue, but we’re aboard and on our way to the ship after a brief wait, thankfully.

Boarding is pretty simple – we dump our bags with the porters, go through security in the terminal then hop on board, going up to the Swan’s Nest Lounge to check in.  Here we are given our keys – as in real old school keys – to the cabin.  Apparently, they are missing a shipment and the new electronic card keys never arrived, so we are old school for the next 3 weeks.  Not a big deal – except the damn key in on a lanyard, so now we are forced to be lanyard people.  Ugh. (We find out later that there was a civil war going on in Maputo, which was where all the ship’s resupplies were supposed to be loaded during the last few days of the last cruise.  Because of the unrest, a few containers didn’t make it to the ship – and thus – no electronic keycards. Sadly, as I will find out shortly, the Sauvignon Blanc supply didn’t make it either!  This could be a long, long cruise!)

The cabin is amazing – really big and spacious with more storage space than ever necessary!  And a fireplace!  We’re so excited – we didn’t know if all the cabins had a fireplace or not – but ours does.  Yay!  Along with a massive shower and bathroom, a fold down mirror on the vanity and a monstrous TV.  And of course we have our parkas (which are really two coats in one – a waterproof shell along with an insulated lining that can zip out to be a jacket with pockets all on its own) and our aluminum water bottles.  We’re all set!

We are on the lowest floor in an outside cabin – no balcony – for 2 reasons:  1 – me and my seasickness – lowest mid-ship is best (turns out to be very prescient) and 2 – the price jump from here to a balcony was ridiculous.  If we need fresh air it is only 3 decks up – we can deal with that!

The ship is compact but really well equipped and designed – brand new, and you can tell it – the lounge is comfy and big with tons of screens to make viewing each presentation easy for everyone there.  The club lounge serves light breakfasts and lunches with the pool grill open when weather allows. The main dining room is large with lots of booth seating and lots of 2-top tables – a huge bonus for us!  Lunch today is a buffet, which is very good with lots of options. 

Later in the afternoon we meet our expedition staff – there are 12 on the team!  That’s a ton of expedition staff!  Each with their own specialty – whales, astronomy, birds, history – a full complement of knowledge and expertise.  This should be very fun and educational.

We also find out that we will not be sailing this evening.  We didn’t think we would, actually.  The winds are still really crazy strong, with gusts upward of 50 knots.  The port is closed and we will have to wait until they reopen to leave.  Means one more night of smooth, non-movement sleeping for us.  I’ll take it!

The rest of the evening is spent at dinner – nice buffet (only on the first night do they have a buffet for dinner – the rest of the cruise will be ala carte) and then up to the Swan Lounge bar where we befriend Allan, our bartender, who regales us with stories of the last 2 charter cruises.  One of the guests purchased a $200 bottle of wine on the last night of the cruise and then didn’t finish it, just left it by the jacuzzi.  Allan still has it and asks if I want to try it – heck yes!  But, ew.  I don’t care how much it costs – it was not to my liking!  Give me my $5 Sauvignon Blanc – I’m much happier with that!

We wander around the ship a bit, taking pictures of the infinity pool, then down the cabin for a great night’s sleep.