Take at least one change of clothes on the plane in case your bags get delayed. I usually bring two because it's nice to change clothes in the middle of a long trip. Plus, it's easier to make do for a few days with three sets of clothes, harder to make do with only two.

Thanks for the reminder hills27, I will be sure to take a change of clothes in the carry on, in case the luggage gets delayed.

That makes me wonder, our bags are checked to JNB and then we leave the next day for MalaMala. If our luggage is delayed, and not there the next morning ... who do we report this to and such to get it sent to MalaMala later to catch up with us?

- Granny Joan

I suggest getting in line at the airline's luggage counter and calling your travel agent immediately while waiting.

Though, if I remember correctly, you are only going to Mala Mala and might have booked it directly. If so, I'd call Mala Mala while waiting in line. I'm sure they deal with this more than ocasionally.

MM has a treadmill, exercise bike and a rowing machine, all with views of Elephants.

SAA gives you a bigger weight limit, if MM is on the same ticket as your transatlantic flight. Also if you are overnighting then you will have lots of time to check in and head over to the counter to pay f you are slightly over.

Thanks NapaMatt,

I appreciate the answers to my questions about luggage on SAA and treadmill at MalaMala.

10 days to go ....

- Granny Joan

Our passports arrived this morning and are headed to Afree-Kah next week. Turn around time on the expedited service to and fro through a private service took about 7 days coming and going included. So relieved to have the passports in my hand.

- Granny Joan

May I ask which passport service you used since I need to do the same thing for my husband's pp quickly? Thanks.

I am not sure if this man offers services outside of the travel agency I used. I don't have a website for the company and hesitate to give out the phone number in a posting. My travel agent arranged the connection with him and may have been given preferential treatment.

If you are working with agent I suggest calling them for recommendations. How much time do you have to process the request?

I have seen someone post another service in this forum. It might be worth time to search for that service or just post a question on the forum for help.

- Granny Joan

Thanks GJ-I was just wondering if you had used the service that I had seen mentioned on this forum. 7 days is a great turnaround! Have a wonderful trip too!

moremiles - I needed to add pages to my passport for an unplanned trip and used www.traveldocs.com
This was in Dec 06. I had appx one month to get it done so I wasn't in a huge rush but I did it back quickly. Divewop (Sandy) recommended this company to me.

Thanks sundowner-that is the co. I had seen mentioned so am happy to hear that you also had good luck with the turnaround time.

GJ,thanks for the passport reminder. I sent mine in to have more pages added and am curious to hear how you enjoyed staying at MM for 12 consecutive days. Did you go on all the game drives or feel it was repetitious? Not sure if I want to do an all MM trip or MM and one other tented camp like Mashatu or Ngala. Thanks for your input.

Carla, a nice trip I think would be 7 nights at Mashatu and then 7 nights at Mala. Not sure how easy/expensive air would be to/from Mashatu. I can't see going all the way to Africa without spending at least two weeks there.
regards - tom

Hi! When I needed to get extra pages added to my passport I was able to do it at the passport office in San Francisco. It took most of a day and cost $50, but if you live near a passport office it's an option.

Moira

GJ, maybe you are not home yet. I will wait patiently if that is the case. Adding pages to my passport was FREE, but I am not in a hurry...yet!
Tom, I want to do 9 days (max) of nothing but game drives, so I will post a separate thread when closer. Just not sure if I should break it up or not.

Pls do that Carla. I'd be interested on other's ideas about how to split 9 days or so and what would you do in between. In a sense we have done that when changing camps like from Zambia to Botswana, you likely stay overnight in a "city" to get flights matched up. But I wonder how would you do it if you wanted to spend 5 nights at perhaps Leopard Hills, take off for 3 days and then come back for 4 nights? Anything is possible though, I guess and guess I'm getting us ahead of ourselves here.
regards - tom

Also, waiting for GJ reply to your queston on how their 12 nights at MM went. That might help.
regards - tom

Hi all! Just returned last nite from 12 nites at MM. It was great! Spent 8 days at Sable Camp at MM and 5 days at Rattray's Camp. They upgraded our accomodations as we spent the full 12 nites with them. Service was great at both camps and splitting between the two camps was a nice change and gave us opportunity for two different rangers while on game drives.

We went on game drives both morn and evenings on all but one day (we came down with 24 hour bug and spent one day in bed). Everyday was different and had some great experiences with viewing of game. Several mornings were very slow and saw very little but that was on some of the cooler mornings, but those evenings provided better than normal viewing.

Hope to post a trip report soon as possible. It took us 39 hours to get back home and even going business class did not offer much sleeping opportunities. We had broken sleep type seats on way over as well as entertainment units were not working. On the way back, each flight had small children in business class section and they provided "crying" to keep us from falling fast asleep.

Temperatures were cooler than normal at MM, but we heeded advice and took gloves, scarf, and medium weight jacket and with water bottles and blankets in jeep we stayed relatively comfortable.

We saw lots of leopards, lions, rhinos, etc. We were able to see many smaller animals and birds as well. We never seemed to tire of the game drives.

We have so many photos that it will take forever to pick out the better ones to post. I actually used the Canon D2 backup camera and got some great shots as well as some fantastic video clips of some of the better action: leopards mating, lions mating, leopard and porcupine confrontation, rhino charging 5 lions next to our jeep, elephant trumpeting and 7 lionesses devouring a kudo.

-Granny Joan

Tom,

How was your stay? How did it compare to MM?

-Granny Joan

GJ,
GREAT to hear from you and so soon.
Happy to hear you liked MM because IT IS STILL my favorite safari camp. I'm about half done sorting photos, have not yet started on a trip report for Fodors. Give me two more weeks please (for report with photos).
Again welcome back and looking forward to hearing more about your trip.
regards - tom
ps - I know about 39 hours to get home, but mine was shorter, maybe 32 hours (to LAX). Seems like it never ends and you forget when you started it !!!!!