Category: 2025 Long Cruise

I have wanted to visit Madagascar for years and now that I’ve had a very short visit, I’m ready to go for a longer visit. When we arrived I smelled smoke from all the wood stoves the people use for cooking. I was surprised I could smell it while on-board the ship.

Jennifer and I took an excursion to Lokobe Natural Reserve where we hoped to see lemurs, which are only found in Madagascar, and chameleons in the wild. It was very fun but quite warm.

The cruise line rated it as a strenuous excursion with slippery & muddy trails requiring folks to be able to exit a small boat and walk thru water to get to land. I was completely flabbergast at the number of folks that had difficulty walking on the ship and flat land that came on this excursion. And amazed at the number that were surprised that they would need to walk thru water and might want to wear water shoes. This isn’t the only excursion where I couldn’t understand some of the folks who joined and wondered if they read the excursion description before signing up.

To get to the reserve, we boarded a boat directly from the ship; it was a 30 minute boat ride to the reserve where we had a wet landing where we stepped off the boat into the water and walked to shore. It was a short walk- maybe 10 feet- to shore and the deepest water went just past my knees. Once on shore we were split up into smaller groups to hike thru the forest to look for animals.

I was not prepared for the lemurs that were in the trees at the beach so I didn’t get my camera out in time to take pictures before we started our hike- no matter I saw another lemur (or two) on the hike. We also saw a beautiful green chameleon and the world’s smallest chameleon which is about the size of a thumbnail. It’s impressive that the guides can even find them.

After the hike we re-boarded the boat(another walk thru water) and rode about 10 minutes to another beach where the villagers gave us a soda/beer and some delicious food after we disembarked. They also danced for us and had items for sale.

After refreshments, we boarded the boat again(another walk thru water) and went back to the pier(30 minutes). At the pier Jennifer boarded a tender back to the ship and I walked around town for a bit. When I returned to the pier, I enjoyed the women dancing on the pier while waiting for my tender back to the ship.

Another day at sea…the water is about 9800 feet deep and we’re 60 nautical miles from Madagascar. The water temperature is 84 degrees and we have 8 foot swells. At 84 degrees the water temperature was warmer than the air temperature.

Between the swells and waves, I feel like I”m sleeping on a bowl of jello when I’m sleeping because the bed jiggles, jiggles, jiggles. Many folks are seasick and the crew has put out the ‘white paper bags’ for passengers to use if they need them.

It takes quite some time to have a meal. We have met a lovely group of women and we usually have dinner together at the buffet. Between waiting for everyone to arrive, getting our meals and talking dinner takes about an hour.

If we eat at one of the ‘specialty dining rooms’ it takes 2 or more hours. The ‘specialty dining rooms’ are like a restaurant and there are two on board- Polo Grill (think steak house) and Toscana(think Italian restaurant). Additionally we have the Grand Dining room that has a different menu every day. It takes 2 hours because we: are seated, wait for the waiter to get our beverage choice & deliver our water/wine/drinks, wait for the menu, decide what we want to eat, place our order, wait for the food to arrive, eat, wait for table to be cleared, get dessert menu, select dessert, wait for dessert to arrive, eat dessert and then we can leave. Of course we are talking and enjoying ourselves the entire time so the time goes by quickly.

The menus change daily so it can take some time to decide what we want to eat. One item the Grand Dining room offers at lunch is “Taste of the World”. It’s a sampler plate of food from that area. I’ve tried Scandinavian, English and Mexican so far as I just recently discovered discovered this option. England was definitely NOT my favorite as I discovered that Yorkshire pudding is NOT a pudding/dessert! I had the Scandinavian twice- the first time was much, much better than the second time. Mexican was so-so. No matter- it allows me to try different flavors.

Today was another cloudy day but not as much rain as yesterday. The seas have been relatively calm.

Every night after dinner when we come back to our nice clean room, there is the 4 page publication on our bed- Oceania Currents. The Currents lists all the things that are happening on-board the ship the next day. This is what we use to determine what we’re doing and why we are generally very busy on the sea days.

Below is today’s currents. I only included the top part of page 1 and didn’t include the last page which has the times the dining rooms and services are open.

It was our first rainy day today. It rained off and on all day. We’ve had squalls before but not such a concentrated rain. We’re traveling thru a tropical depression- see photo below.

A note about excursions- the cruise line offers excursions at almost every port they stop. These excursions typically last between 2 and 8 hours and cover many of the tourist highlights of the port area. They can be bus tours, walking tours, snorkeling trips, museum visits, garden visits, boat trips, etc. There are multiple excursions offered at each port. Passengers can sign up for these ship excursions a year or more in advance or they can sign up to the day before. If you sign up the day before you are limited to the excursions that still have space available.

Or passengers can arrange independent tours outside of any the cruise line offers. Passengers can also get off the ship at the port and hire a taxi or Lyft/Uber or use other transportation to take them to the location of their choice.

If you don’t get back to the ship before it’s all-aboard time(typically 30-60 minutes before departure), the ship won’t wait for you. If you took a ship sponsored excursion they are responsible for getting you back to the ship.

Another time change day today. We’re getting further and further ahead of California time.

A new country- Mozambique- and no excursion today. Jennifer and I took the ship-provided shuttle bus to the local market and spent a nice morning there admiring the fabric and batik artwork.

Everyone wanted to sell us something but graciously took ‘no, thank you’ as a response. Well almost everyone, the self-named Mr. Discount was harder to get past.

I’m not such a good bargainer. Jennifer got the special ‘first customer’ price while I got the tourist price. Mainly because they could tell when I liked something because I’d say to Jennifer “This is perfect, I love it!”. And once I found a piece of fabric that I liked and wondered if they had a larger piece. Someone went all over the market looking for a larger piece so it was pretty hard to bargain when they found it and brought it to me.

After spending a few hours at the market we went home with our treasures and pampered ourselves with wine and a face mask.

Today I went on a game drive at Hluhluwe Game Reserve. The reserve was about an hour drive from the port. Once we arrived at the park we switched from buses to the safari vehicles to go on our three hour game drive.

There were 3 buses holding a total of 57 people which were split into 6 safari vehicles. I got to sit in the front seat of my vehicle. This meant I had some nice views but most of my photos are facing forward so less of the vehicle is in the photo. And it was difficult for me to see the animals on the driver’s side of the vehicle. All in all, because I like to take pictures, I prefer the less desirable (harder to get into and it has a rough and bumpy ride) back seat.

We had beautiful weather but I was still surprised at all the animals we saw, many of which were on the roads. We saw 4 of the big 5. The big 5 (African buffalo, elephant, leopard, lion, and rhinoceros) are so named because they are the most dangerous to hunt via foot.

To prevent poaching of the rhinoceros horn, the horns are cut off the animal. The horn grows back in 3-4 years and has to be removed again.

Today’s excursion was a Birding walk in iSimangaliso Wetland Park which is a UNESCO world heritage site. We drove about an hour and a half from the pier to the park. It was quite an interesting drive thru the countryside and the tour guide gave a number of interesting bits of information.

The walk was about 4 kilometers and it was 70% humidity and 82 degrees. We walked in the heat of the day without much shade so it wasn’t very pleasant plus the birds were all hiding! We saw more zebras than bird species. I was dripping sweat by they time we got back to the bus. A couple from Florida said the temperature and humidity was normal for them. I”m not moving to Florida and was happy to be in the air conditioned bus and heading back to the ship. One advantage of traveling without a partner is that I could use both of the air conditioning vents in my row in the bus.

Today one couple was 15 minutes late to the bus- very frustrating since that means that there is less time at the destination. Tours are strongly bound by the time they need to return to the ship.

Here are some interesting facts from the tour guide:

• Richard’s Bay has the largest coal storage facility in the world- it holds 90 million tons! And the export of coal is main use of Richard’s bay
• The top 3 industries are Agriculture, Tourism (internal and external) and Manufacturing (Toyota assembly, clothing)
• Richard’s bay is the fastest growing area for heavy industry (Aluminum processing, fertilizer and paper processing) consequently many children have asthma from the associated pollution
• Their paper processing uses the Eucalyptus tree and they use all of it. The leaves are for medicinal purposes, bark is used for synthetic fiber and the wood is used for pulp.
• Interestingly, the digital age hasn’t reduced the amount of paper being used because the packaging used by all the delivery services requires quite a bit of paper.
• In Richards Bay 1 in 3 adults have the HIV virus. Currently the government offers free medicine for it; much of the cost is/was subsidized by USA foreign aid.
• Land
  • Zulu typically do not own land. The king owns the land but Zulu can give the king a fee for a plot of land and then that plot belongs to them and their descendants.
  • Since the plot of land isn’t owned by the family, they can’t get a mortgage. Since they can’t get a mortgage they can only improve/build their home if they have cash to pay for any improvements. That’s why there are many partly finished homes in villages.
  • Each home includes a separate round house for the spirits of their ancestors. They go to the round house to pray and get advice from their ancestor’s spirits and to conduct traditional ceremonies. Some homes have more than one round house but only one is designated as the ancestor’s spirit house.
  • Zulu prefer to bury their dead at home as they believe that the dead spirits provide protection
  • Many homes have/use outhouses

Today we left the lodge about 5am so I could get to the ship before noon. That way I wouldn’t stress on missing the boat that was leaving about 5pm. I figured we’d have some traffic or something would happen. Nothing happened, there was no traffic and I got to the ship at 9am- just as the first passengers were getting off for their excursions! Tibor and I could have slept in!

I spent the rest of the day catching up- laundry, unpacking, etc. Tibor rented a car and drove back to the Drakensberg area for a couple more weeks of hiking before he heads back home.

Durban has a Toyota factory so the port was full of brand new cars that were being loaded onto a car-carrying ship. Durban also ships out lots of copper.

Today Tibor went on a longer hike to the top of a local mountain and I walked around the lodge. We both had great times. Tibor hiked in the rain and I walked around between rainy periods.

Later in the day, we went out to look for birds in the nearby ponds. We completely forgot about our afternoon 4-wheel drive. Luckily the guide came and found us. The drive ended up going up towards the same mountain Tibor hiked to earlier in the day. It was a very steep road and Tibor figured he could walk faster than the 4-wheel was going. We had our sundowner (drink and snack) at the nearby ridge.

We saw two secretary birds in a tree on the afternoon drive! Very interesting as they are usually in the grass hunting for snakes to eat.

We spent the evening packing since we are heading back to Durban tomorrow.

Today we did a 5K. Nope- we went on a 5 kilometer hike up into the hills/mountains in Royal Natal Park. It was wonderful. A bit misty so we never saw the very tops of the mountains but that meant we didn’t overheat. I’d heard it was hot and humid this time of the year and was worried I’d overheat- that didn’t happen.

We did get a few drops of misty rain at various times during the hike but it didn’t start raining until we finished the hike just before our driver picked us up. We had amazing views and the waterfalls/cascades were beautiful after all the rain. They have been having lots or rain recently. It’s rained for 5 days straight. They usually get an afternoon thundershower but it’s raining much of the day.