Sun, 3/9/25  Cape Town Day 1

Day 63 - Sunday, March 9th, 2025 – Cape Town, South Africa – day 1

Because of the weather, the ship could not dock at 8:00 like it intended. It was almost 10:00 by time we'd actually docked. So this threw everything off schedule. It didn't bother us because we didn't have a schedule, but I'm sure it impacted others. There were a lot of folks that were taking airplane rides out of Cape Town to their next stop was. I can imagine there were a lot of flights that were missed.

Because it was the end of a leg and the start of a new leg, everyone had to get off the ship. This was complicated by the fact that you had to go through South African immigration. This meant everyone had to go to the booth and show your passport. They scanned it and let you through. Actually, they actually stamped our passport. I think this is the first time we have a stamp in our passport. This also meant that there were long lines to get off the ship. We were initially told that we would get off around 9:00. Then we learned that it might be 10:00. We went up to 14 and had breakfast. Mary brought her laptop and I was working on the crossword puzzle. We had a card that said we were grouped 26 and they were still working on group 5. It was the way it was until around noon when the tone changed to everyone must get off the ship as soon as possible. We went back to the room got rid of the laptop, peed one more time and then headed out. We got off the ship pretty quickly. There was a shorter line for immigration but it still took time.

Mary did a ton of work trying to find an excursion for us. Unfortunately, everywhere she called they were already booked. We also looked for taxis or other avenues to get into town. This was no-go too. This meant our only option was going into town. We were told that it was a 15 minute walk to a huge shopping area. The weather was perfect. It had to be 75 with a nice breeze. We went through the cruise terminal and tried to figure out the way to town. We basically followed other people because it looked like they knew what they were doing. Of course, the walk was more than 15 minutes that wasn't an issue. We knew we were going in the right direction.

there were several places where we had to guess what the right direction was. At one point we had to go into a store, find its elevator, go up to the next level, go out to the store back to the walkway. And another point there was a switch back going up the stairs about 20 feet. We went back and forth 6 times I think. Mary was not happy with all this. Thankfully the weather was cooperating. We rested when we needed to. Before long, we started to see stores.

Mary had a list of things she wanted to get while we were in The marketplace. The first one we ran into was sunglass Hut. I brought one pair of sunglasses and they are scratched pretty badly. Mary decided that I needed a new set. I wasn't complaining. I wanted to see what they would cost. We go into the store and we find the glasses that I wear – Oakley. For the next 20 minutes or so we try different sunglasses. We then started talking about replacing the lenses on the current set. That was a no go because they didn't have the color I wanted. So at the end of the day I bought a new pair of glasses. They are gold. You might see them in some of the pictures.

We walked a little further and we ran into an information desk. I need a haircut badly. Mary had done some research and said there were two or three haircut places in this marketplace. We happened to be about 50 feet from one, so I went in and got my haircut. They did a nice job and it only cost about $25 - that included the tip. I looked respectable again. From an earlier stop, we knew that Woolworths was a grocery store. I saw one on one of the direction boards and we headed towards it. Initially we thought that it was not the right place, up but we ran into a couple guys from the ship and they said that the groceries were downstairs. So we went on hunt for an elevator, found it and went into the grocery store. I have to say I was disappointed right off the bat because they did not have Monster Energy. What kind of grocery store does not carry Monster Energy? I almost went back to the ship I was so irate. Well, maybe not that mad.

For grins, we walked over to the wine area. They have some interesting wines. We ran into one that we have seen on the ship. We could have bought it at that wine fair we had a week ago or so. It is a Cabernet called chocolate block. I remember it on the ship and it was pretty good. Mary said that it was 295 Rand dollars. To get U.S. dollars you divide that by 18. You come up with $16.00 give or take. I could not believe that this bottle was only $16.00. We decided to put it in our cart. I don't remember what else we put in our cart, but Mary had her arms full. We always buy too much crap. Then we have to lug it all the way back to the ship. Of course we were not done buying stuff. Somewhere in here we bought a wine opener and a  scale. We now have wine in the room without a wine opener. We could ask our room steward but it'd be easier if we had one. Mary is concerned about gaining or losing so scale will help there.

We were pretty far into the marketplace, so we decided to turn around and work our way back. There was a beer place near the beginning of the marketplace that we decided we were going to late lunch. It was about 3:30 at this point. It really didn't matter because the ship wasn't going anywhere, but now we were getting hungry. There was one last stop on the way out the marketplace. Mary found a bookstore where she bought 2 books from South African authors. I don't know the details beyond that. Somewhere after the bookstore we went into one of the souvenir shops and picked up refrigerator magnets, T-shirts, postcards and stamps.

On the way back we took several pictures. We ran into another couple that we have met on the ship more than once. Laurel is in a chair. Her husband Ron isn't. They had just finished dinner at a place called Karibou. Lauel liked it because she was able to eat meat she wouldn't normally have eaten, for example ostrich. I was actually interested in going there but Mary had no desire to be eating things like ostrich. We sat and talked and rested with them for a good hour. We took several pictures of Table mountain. In one of the pictures you can see the McDonald's which was also at the marketplace.

We still had about 20 minutes to walk to the restaurant. Along the way we took other pictures. We had to remember our way through this switch back in that elevator and take this direction. Mary gets frustrated when she cannot see her way to where she wants to be. Nonetheless, we made it to the beer place after one last elevator ride. It was a German inspired Brewery restaurant. We found the table inside. I ordered a lager of some sort. I'll have to look at the pictures again. The beer was pretty good. For my second beer I had a pale ale which was better. We had jalapeno poppers. They were real jalapeno poppers - they have the seeds in them so one of them made me tear up pretty badly. Of course, I loved it. Mary had ate one very cautiously. Mary had a burger which looked really good. I decided I was having the Wiener dog. It was a big long hot dog with mustard and sauerkraut. It was amazing. We sat there for a while and worked on puzzles and finished my beer. We decided to take the last half mile to the cruise terminal.

It was a successful trip. Obviously, we did not see any wild animals like most people would think you were going to see in Cape Town. There were several people that were going on safari so some sort or another. We need to talk to any of them yet to see if they were worth it or not. We have hopes of seeing animals in Namibia. Did we see Cape Town? Did we see South Africa? The answer to both of those is not really. Who else can say they've got a haircut 8000 miles from home?

By the time we got back on the boat it was already 9:00. It had been a long day, but I would say it was a success.