Clematis1

If you're flying in from the US to JNB, I think you arrive in the morning, can you then fly that morning to Arusha (even if via Nairobi) to get to the Crater Lodge? What time roughly would you get there?

sandi

If a morning arrival into JNB, you'd have to check when the flight to NBO or JRO depart. Flight time is about 4-hrs. So, if into JRO, and not using a private charter, the drive from here to Ngorongoro will take a good 6-hrs. (if not more). If you choose a private charter, ascertain where they land... it may not be at the Crater proper, but a distance away. Here, either the Crater Lodge or your private guide from a tour operator would meet you to get to the Lodge.

If you fly into NBO, you'd have to fly to JRO and depending on time of arrival may have to overnight Arusha; continue to Ngorongoro next morning. The scheduled fligts depart Arusha about 8am, but the closest scheduled stop is at Manyara (about a 15-min [or less] flight; here someone from Crater Lodge or a private guide from a tour operator to handle the transfer.

The afternoon flights on the Northern Circuit, departs JRO and/or Arusha around 2pm.

There are options, so find out about the flight times from JNB to NBO or JRO, so you can arrange ongoing to Ngorongoro.

Patty

I checked schedules for first week of June next year.

Air Tanzania has one stop JNB-JRO service that leaves JNB approx 1:00pm and arrives JRO around 7:30pm, so you'd have to overnight in Arusha.

SAA and Kenya Airways both fly JNB-NBO. SAA's flight leaves at 9:35am and arrives NBO at 2:50pm. I believe there's a 6:00pm departure from NBO on Precision Air to JRO you can connect to, but again would need to overnight in Arusha.

Kenya Airways hasn't published schedules for June 2007 yet.

Clematis1

Sandi and Patty, thank you so much for helping out here. I am dizzy over these schedules. I am looking at my tour operator's first itineraries (when we thought we'd be arriving from Europe to Nairobi - which is no longer the case). She had us arriving at Jomo Keyatta Airport, getting our visa, clearing customs, collecting luggage and being met and transferred to Wilson Airport for a flight to Kili on Kenya Airways. There we would fly to Manyara and then transferred to the Crater (by car).

However we need to fly SAA for all inter-Africa flights now so we have to do that 9:35 AM - 2:50 PM Nairobi. Patty, help me here, why would we have to overnight in Arusha? This is key now as we're in the process of securing our international flight from the US. We already are looking at a schedule where we'll have to push up our itinerary or cut out a night.

We figure, for example, if we fly June 1, we arrive jnb on June 2. We thought we could make it to crater lodge by June 3rd. But you're saying we wouldn't make it until June 4? Maybe I confused you by mentioning Arusha. We don't need to see it, we're just trying to get to the Crater Lodge. Does that seem do-able?

Patty

Maybe I missed something somewhere but can you explain why you're locked into SAA for both your flights from the US and internal Africa flights?

Are you still trying to redeem two business class tickets through Delta? If you don't have any objections to flying KLM and Air France, you can do an open jaw ticket into NBO and out of JNB. Seems this would make things simpler since you're starting your safari in Tanzania. The KLM flight does arrive NBO in the evening, so you'd overnight in Nairobi but could continue to Tanzania early the following morning. For example fly out of US June 1, arrive NBO June 2 evening, and proceed to Crater Lodge June 3.

Going back to the scenario of flying SAA JNB-NBO, the reason I said you'd need to overnight in Arusha was because I assumed you'd take the 6:00pm Precision Air NBO-JRO flight. Arriving NBO at 2:50pm means you would've missed the WIL-JRO-Manyara flights already. But perhaps you could still charter, that might be do-able?

Whether you can make it to Crater Lodge by June 3 also depends on what time your flight from the US arrives JNB. Is it early enough to connect the same morning to the 9:35am JNB-NBO flight? If so, you can still make it to the Crater Lodge by June 3 even if overnighting in Arusha.

Clematis1

Hi Patty. Please drop me an email at [email protected] I can explain my personal reasons. Part of this is that we may have an award ticket on SAA to JNB landing at noon. And there is an African Pass that we may qualify for, but I'm not certain now. It depends whether two people can use one pass as there are at least 4 coupons which must be used. It is around $.15 a mile to fly inner Africa. However when I call SAA, no one knows about it. I'm pretty frustrated and I've got a deadline for this.

Clematis1

Sorry - I'm tired - it's [email protected]