Here we are! After a brilliant sunrise over the Cape of Good Hope, we arrive to a very cloudy and overcast Cape Town.  Still beautiful even with the cloud cover. 

Arrival time is late – 9:30 – and to add insult to injury, we are at the crappy dock. And we mean crappy!  We are way down at the end of the commercial pier – seriously as far as District 6!  We can see it right across from us in our berth.  Sigh.  We need to take shuttles to the cruise terminal, which is fine for today, but tomorrow?  Disembarkation day?  Shuttles. Oh, as we have to pick up our luggage on the pier right outside the ship and take it to the shuttle with us.  Oh, this will be a disaster of massive proportions, we can just tell.  What to do?

Nothing for now, go with the flow. Which means getting off on what we hope will be the first shuttle – it was not.  It was standing in line, smushed up against each other like a mosh pit, waiting on deck 4 forever until they could offload one of the people in a wheelchair and then finally get out and onto the shuttle for the 5 minute drive over to the terminal.  Pain in the you know what.  We don’t really care, we have a very easy and relaxed day today riding the HoHo bus to Hout bay for lunch, but for everyone else?  Eek.  Not the smoothest experience.

We know exactly where we are going, walking over to Two Oceans Aquarium where the HoHo office is located just like we live here (Cape Town is beginning to feel like Barcelona Lite to us! Almost like our 2^nd home we’ve been here so much lately), get our tickets (which we got a total deal on – really cheap for 2 days with all the extras we aren’t going to use this time around) and hop on the bus, upstairs under cover to watch the city and the world go by.  A fabulous drive, first through the city, then on into the suburbs and out past Kirstenbosch and Constantia to Hout Bay.  I love the area around between Kirstenbosch and Constantia that suddenly looks like dense forest! (For a full description of the drive, see the blog post dated Dec 20, 2023 here.)

Arriving in Hout Bay right at noon, we head over to The Lookout, a huge restaurant at then end of the Harborside complex for an excellent lunch of Foccacio bread with caramelized onions (it is the size of a pizza, ay yi yi! And it is just a starter), Warm oysters in a tomato, garlic and chipotle soup (yep, for Ed) followed by Grilled Hake and Tuna Maki rolls.  Oh, plus this great wine called Deck-adent!  So cute – and a huge virtually carafe pour for way cheap.  All sitting right on the marina overlooking the water and the fishing charter boats.

We miss the outgoing bus by seconds as we had been meandering around the stalls on the wharf looking for tiger’s eye bracelets (way to pricey for our tastes), waiting around for 20 minutes in the shelter, then settle into seats downstairs in the nice air conditioning for the hour long ride back along the coast, through the crazy busy Camp’s Bay, past the 7 Apostles, beautifully lit in the now sunshiny day, and back to V&A.

On our way back, we pass by Audrey and Dan playing photographer to each other at the Table Mountain picture frame, with Audrey catching up to us at the swinging bridge for a quick selfie before we head our separate ways – us back to the ship, he and Dan off to shop and play.

We make it back in time to hit the gym and head out to the pool deck to listen to the local Cape Town Showcase band with their snappy rhythm and fabulous singing and dancing.  The male dancer, who we have dubbed Gumby, is amazing – he has such moves and rhythm. It is a great time, chatting with Kenneth and Harold at the bar, and  watching the absolutely great show on our last night on Journey. 

Then it is onto give out little candy gifts to all our girl pals – Susan in Aqualina, Jeannie in Prime C and Zippy in GR – we can’t say enough about any or all of them.  So, so sad to leave them (not the ship at this point as we do not want to do the next itinerary going back up the W. African coast – been there, done that, it was great, but once was enough).  Then onto dinner, where shock of all shocks, we actually do have table #2!  We had been told there were interlopers as we hadn’t been in Discoveries for the last 3 nights (Azamazing evening, Aqualina and Destination Showcase).  Another couple started coming in right at 6pm and requesting that table.  Thieves!  We fully expected to be at another table, but lo and behold, we are back in our normal place for our last evening.

And to celebrate?  Joel has reminded Chef Sri that he promised us a Filipino dinner and Voila!  No menus for us tonight, just a fabulous Filipino meal starting with Singigang, the sour soup considered the “king” of filipino soups – filled with lots of great veggies and chicken.  Then of course, my favorite (which Joel absolutely knows!):  Pancit!  Yay.  Then a side (yeah, a side) of Pork Sisig – which I really enjoyed, even if it was entrails (on a normal day, I’d never, ever try it – but tonight is not normal) – and Pork Adobe – so rich and tender, fall apart, melt in your mouth.  Couldn’t finish out our meals any better.  These guys are the best.

Our last stop was the Living Room for Harmony Hive who played one of their best sets yet to the few of us there!  We had a long talk with Mark and Abby and took photos with the whole band and another couple who have been there every evening.  What an excellent, if not really sad, night.

Ending – of course – on the balcony with the moon.  Overall assessment:  Journey is an excellent ship – whether management or the crew onboard or what, these cruises have been our favorite of all our most recent sailings with Azamara.  Sort of colored our view and is making us rethink our travel choices, tbh.  It was that great.   We shall see…..