I've posted this mini trip report on a few other Dis safari threads, but I wanted to post it here too because so many of you CC experts helped me figure out how to get my Marriott/Protea Hotel stays for free for my July 2019 London/South Africa trip, which really helped me stretch my budget! Our trip was absolutely AMAZING!!! I was a little stressed about it because I planned it 100% by myself with some help from the Fodor's folks, but no
travel agent or tour company, so everything was 100% my responsibility. It went flawlessly with the exception of 2 minor car issues. 1) After an overnight flight from London to Johannesburg, we picked up the rental car and drove the 4 hours to our hotel in Hazyview just outside Kruger Park. It was around 5:15, starting to get dark and we were about 15-20 minutes away from Hazyview when a tire blew. We called Budget Roadside Assistance, but got no help. They just told us to put on the spare, turn the car into the closest Budget office (45 min away) the next day, and pick up a new car. The next thing we knew, a truck load of Afrikaners stopped to help us. It was a dad, his son, nephew and a friend. They changed the tire! They stopped because they could see we were tourists and it was getting dark. They didn't want us out on the side of the road after dark; they wanted us to truly enjoy our visit to their country. We tried to buy them some beer as a thank you, but they said no. We did take a big group picture with all of us though! They were such nice people! 2) After 25 hours of travel back to the US, we got to our car at the airport. It was about 100 degrees outside and the battery was dead. We saw a sign for airport car assistance in the parking lot, called, and were on our way home in about 15 minutes. So all in all, things went very well.
I really wish I'd started reading this thread a few years before I started planning my trip. It would have been awesome to get free flights. But alas, that was not the case. We had to pay OOP for airfare. Our flights were about $2000 over budget (my original trip budget for everything was $10,000 - pretty small). When I priced things out for Summer 2018, flights were around $1250 each, so I budgeted $5000. I couldn't find anything under $1600 for Summer 2019, so I kept waiting (shouldn't have waited!!!!) and ended up paying $1800 each. I'm still paying off that bill! We also ended up adding two more guided game drives while we were there because my DH loved them so much. Out of the 8 game drives we had, 5 of them were private with only the 4 of us in the jeep with the guide!
Here is what we (me, DH, DS22, DD20) did -
London:
London House Hotel in Kensington Gardens/Bayswater area (family suite OOP)
Day 1 - double decker bus tour with The Original Tour, dinner at a pub
Day 2 - Tower of London, Thames River cruise, Trafalgar Square, Rock & Roll walking tour of Piccadilly and Soho, pub for lunch (I had high tea scheduled but got outvoted), Evensong at Westminster Abbey, pub for dinner
Day 3 - Churchill's War Room, flight to SA
South Africa:
Day 4 -
Protea Hotel Hazyview (2 rooms for 4 nights plus 5th night free using Marriott points - They had a bottle of wine chilling for us in each room upon arrival, and we got free hot breakfast each morning), didn't get there until around 6:00 PM, dinner at hotel (DS loved the monkeys on the grounds here)
Day 5 - Kruger Park sunrise game drive with Kurt Safari (hotel gave us breakfast boxes to take with us, we saw a leopard sleeping on the side of the road first thing), dinner at hotel
Day 6 - had to exchange the rental car, breakfast at hotel (included each morning), lunch at Harrie's Pancake in Graskop, Panorama Route (didn't do the whole thing due to the rental car exchange and late start), dinner in town
Day 7 - breakfast at hotel, Kruger Park afternoon game drive with Kurt Safari (a whole herd of elephants coming up from the Sabi River came right up to our jeep), dinner at hotel
Day 8 - breakfast at hotel, DD and I went to the Elephant Sanctuary to brush down elephants while DH and DS golfed at Sabi River Sun, relaxed by the pool in the afternoon, cultural dinner and show at Shangaan River Club in Hippo Hollow
Day 9 -
Tamboti Tented Camp (1 family tent), breakfast at hotel, then drove up through Kruger Park (drove slowly, game drive style and saw sooooo many animals! elephants, giraffes, rhinos) to Tamboti which is inside Kruger Park, cooked dinner over campfire at camp
Day 10 - sunrise game drive (saw another leopard and 2 female lions but lions were really far away), lunch at camp, sunset game drive (saw a genet and a honey badger), cooked dinner over campfire at camp
Day 11 -
Shindzela Tented Camp (2 tents), after breakfast we drove out of Kruger into the Timbavati Reserve to Shindzela (a beautiful full service classic safari camp with 3 meals a day and 2 game drives a day included. The beds had hot water bottles in them and mosquito netting over them each night when we got back after dinner - so pretty!), afternoon game drive with sundowners (we saw a pride of 5 female lions with 3 sets of cubs that afternoon)
Day 12 - morning game drive, afternoon game drive (saw a hippo marking his territory, so funny!), all 3 meals at camp (and they were yummy, dinner was served in the Boma around the campfire each night - very lovely!)
Day 13 -
Protea OR Tambo (2 rooms for 1 night free with points, with a complimentary late 2:00 checkout the next day), we had one last morning game drive at Shindzela (saw a 500 large herd of water buffalo at a watering hole, and the pride of lions came back to drink as well. The male lion was with them this time!!! After drinking, they stalked the herd of buffalo, we followed them hoping to see a kill, but it didn't happen. It was AMAZING nonetheless!) After one last breakfast at Shindzela, we left for OR Tambo.
Day 14 - breakfast at hotel, naps to prepare for the looooong travel day/s, early dinner at hotel, flight home that evening
We were really happy that we stayed in 3 different places in the Greater Kruger Area because each area had different animals and different size herds. We could not get over the volume of each species we saw. Driving through Kruger to Tamboti, my DS looked to the left and yelled because he couldn't believe how many giraffes were right there. There were 15-20 walking and running right next to the road. The next second my DD yells "look", so we turned to the right. There were 50 or 60 elephants all gathered at the watering hole drinking. The volume and variety were incredible! We saw all the big five multiple times, plus tons of other animals and lots of amazing birds. And even though it was winter, we saw lots of baby animals (rhino, hippos, baboons, zebras, lion cubs, giraffes, water buffalo calves, elephants). It was a GREAT trip! And I can't believe we did all that we did, saw all that we saw, and stayed in the quality lodging that we booked all for a $12,000 budget.
PS - These Marriott/Bonvoy points have also come in handy a couple of other times. We booked a free night in Charleston, SC before our Christmas cruise last December. We also booked a free night in Philadelphia for the Rolling Stones concert this past July. And we still have enough points left for 2 free nights in Virginia Beach (oceanfront); plus we are earning more each month. Thank you all so much!!!!!
