While having dinner with Graham a few months ago, he mentioned he had spare tickets to the Federer Nadal match in Cape Town and didn’t know what to do with them. We put up our hands and said we’d be happy to help use the tickets if he couldn’t sell them to anyone else!
After a few days of debating if we should go, checking our budget, checking flight and accommodation prices and realising we most likely would never see these world-class tennis icons in our lifetime, we decided that we had to go for it.
We contacted family and friends in the Cape and booked flights. I would fly down on the Thursday morning and work from our Cape Town office, and Seoras would fly down on Friday afternoon. (The match was on Friday evening). Seoras’ flight would land just after 17:00, and even if it was delayed by an hour, he would still get to the stadium by 19:30pm in time for the match.
As the match approached, we started planning more and more activities for our little trip. On the Monday night before the match, I asked Seoras to send me his flight booking confirmation so I could check him in the day before he flew, as flights are often overbooked, and we didn’t want him to be bumped to another flight due to an overbooked flight. While he was searching for the mail he kept saying, ‘this isn’t my flight, this isn’t what I booked’, and I could understand what he was talking about. Eventually I understood. The flight details in his inbox were different to the one he had initially booked and received confirmation for. I always check numerous times when I book anything like a flight – we had booked a different flight. The new flight was set to land at about 19:10, and we knew he would not be able to get to the Cape Town stadium by 19:30, when the match was due to begin… and we know from experience, flights are never on time at that time of the day on busy tourism weekends. Not the additional stress and complication we were needing to deal with at 22:00, four days before our mini-break.
It appears what happened, is 10 days after making the flight booking, Kulula sent through an email with the subject ‘your booking reference is _____’. Since we had checked the flight was correct, and there are often reminder mails that are sent before flying, we didn’t check the mail. Nowhere did the mail say IMPORTANT NOTICE, YOUR FLIGHT HAS CHANGED. Kulula, a phone call regarding such a critical change, that would have led to us missing the whole event would have been a more appropriate means of communication.
I quickly checked what flights were available on all airlines at the times we required, and all flights before 19:00 on the Friday or after 12:00 on the Thursday were SOLD OUT! At this stage I suddenly also realised I needed to book a hire car – there was only one class of vehicle left available on Tempest / Europe Car, which I quickly booked – I had been meaning to book this type of vehicle a few weeks earlier, but just hadn’t gotten around to it.
Neither of us slept very well that night. I kept wondering if we had booked incorrectly, or if we had logged in to check the booking at some stage and in fact changed it by mistake. Also, when we had initially booked the flight there were a number of mishaps: the internet kept disconnecting, we were ready to pay then the booking wouldn’t let us proceed so we had to start again, then the Discovery Bank site wouldn’t transfer funds into the credit card we wanted to use (even though they were available in a Discovery savings account). It took a lot of effort to book that flight.
The next day Seoras tackled Kulula. The call centre agent understood there was a problem, and said the change was made as the flight Seoras was booked on had been cancelled, so they moved him onto another flight. She noted there were now only business class tickets available on the 13:30 Friday flight, but she didn’t have the authority to change him to business class. He asked for a supervisor, who we think may have started fixing the problem, but then the call dropped.
A little while later I decided to try. The lady I spoke to at Kulula was very helpful, and when I explained Seoras would miss the event he was flying down for if he stayed on the new flight. She realised something had to be changed, and that it was all Kulula’s fault. She discovered someone in the call centre had his booking open, and as a result couldn’t change anything. She also couldn’t get hold of the lady dealing with his booking and assumed she’d gone home for the evening, so sent her an email to please contact us.
The next day I contacted Kulula again. I spoke to a different call centre agent. She informed me his booking had been changed, but when I asked for the email confirmation, she realised it hadn’t fully been changed. She fixed the problem and got Seoras onto the 13:30 Friday flight – hooray! Seoras even received an email with confirmation.
The weekend arrived. I flew down on the Thursday morning and picked up our rental. It had only done 289km and was brand new! A cute little Hyundai i20. Re-learning and remembering to use the clutch again was a bit of a challenge, but (after a few days) I got used to it again.. I also completely underestimated the traffic in Cape Town. It took ages to get to the office.
After a day’s work, I had a lovely run on the promenade – I ran from Granger Bay (near the Waterfront) to Seapoint and back. It was beautiful, windy and hot. But it was devastating to see the once grassy parks along the promenade looking so dry and dusty.
Friday arrived, with much excitement. Seoras got onto his 13:30 flight, which was delayed, and he eventually got to the Waterfront where we were meeting at 17:30. I often think things happen for a reason, and am grateful he managed to get onto an earlier flight, as his initial flight would most likely have been delayed making for a very stressful trip to the stadium in the traffic.
At the airport while Seoras was trying to work out the MyCiti Bus system he saw his cousin. What a coincidence! She had just dropped off a friend and offered to take Seoras to the Waterfront – so kind of her!
We met at the Kauai at the Waterfront and then walked to the stadium in good time. (As a side note, that Kauai did not impress us – they had run out of straws and lids for drinks. Spooning a smoothie while avoiding spillage on the move is not easy.) It was chaos inside the stadium. The memorabilia stands were packed with people and many of the shelves were bare as so much had already been bought.
Walking into the stadium was very exciting. We were rather disappointed by how far away we were seated from the court – it’s not easy to turn a soccer stadium into a tennis-friendly stadium. There was a large ring of space around the court separating us from the players. Regardless, we had a great time. There was an awesome vibe in the stadium, and what a great match it was. Federer and Rafa’s enthusiasm was infectious, and to see Bill Gates in person was incredible, he has been such a famous businessman throughout our lives, and his foundation does so much good work for Africa. Trevor Noah was hilarious in the way he engaged with the players and the crowd. He is an amazing South African export and a fantastic advertisement for the way he makes light of our dark history and comedy of all different people of the South African rainbow nation.
Leaving the stadium at the end of the match was another story. We waited for the mass exodus to occur before leaving. Traffic was madness, so we thought we would get a snack at the Waterfront (we hadn’t had dinner). The queues in the stadium had been crazy – the boys couldn’t get near a beer tent, so we didn’t have a single drink. We were also not keen for the junk food (chips and sweets) sold in the stadium. The Waterfront was heaving. McDonalds and Nandos were closed and there were a few other fast food places open, with queues of about 45minutes long just to place an order. Then the bars (that were open) didn’t have a dry seat or standing space in the house.
We went back to the car and decided to sit in the traffic with the apple and 2 biscuits I had in the boot from lunch. We waited 20 to 30 minutes just to pay for parking. Then started the long drive home. We tried to stop at another fast food place in Claremont on the way home, but it was also shut. So we went to bed (after 1am) hungry after a long but awesome day.
The next day we were up at 6:30 for Parkrun. I’d calculated a 20 minute drive to Greenpoint and time to look for parking meant we needed to leave by 7:15. We left at 7:30, found the Greenpoint Parkrun after 7:50, parked illegally after taking quite a while to find the illegal park, then ran to the start line. We were close to the start when everyone started running, so just continued running.
The Greenpoint Parkrun is beautiful. It starts near the stadium, runs around Greenpoint Park, through Greenpoint Park and finishes near the stadium again. Greenpoint Park was such a pleasant surprise, it is lovely, and I never knew it existed. It’s been added to the list of places to visit again. I’m easily distracted by beautiful places and spaces, so the run was not my fastest while I took in the beautiful new surrounds. The cool sea breeze blowing in your face when in close proximity to the ocean is invigorating, and greatly appreciated by us Joburg visitors.
After the Parkrun we found a restaurant with a view in Seapoint - Rockpool and enjoyed a croissant and coffee while we waited for our friends to arrive. The food was slow to arrive and they ran out of croissants when the others got to ordering, but we still had a great time. And, the waitress warned us the food service would be slow as the restaurant was busy (not even ¾ full), but I appreciated her honesty.
We took a meander along the promenade after brunch enjoying the paragliders, horizontal trees, see breeze and sunshine on our skin. I walked on a beach and felt the sea (something I always have to do when at the coast). The Cape Town weather couldn’t have been better.
That afternoon Seoras, Matt and Graham played tennis at the Claremont tennis club, inspired by the pros we’d seen the evening before. The tennis club was friendly to visitors of members and had up to 10 well maintained courts with fantastic views of Table Mountain. There were also very competitive league matches on the go at the same time which made for more good viewing. The locals, on average, mid-60s, had a traditional wily game which made up for their lack of speed and agility with their craft, mastered through decades of Saturday tennis.
The following day we saw my oldest friend (my very first friend from Grade 00) and her family at Steenberg Estate. The boys hit a few golf balls on the driving range which Seoras loved, the backdrop is spectacular to say the least.
That night we stayed in a BnB in Greenpoint. We took the scenic route to get there, along the Atlantic coast, stopping in Llandudno for a walk on one of my favourite beaches. It was unbelievably windy, we almost got taken out by a stray windswept surfboard, dipped our feet in the sea for about 30 seconds (which was so cold they almost went numb, and the pain of the cold burned), and enjoyed the view. We watched the surfers and were astounded by their ability to withstand the extreme cold of the water.
For dinner we walked down from the BnB to the nearby restaurants. We had been looking for another restaurant but stumbled on The Butcher Man. What a fantastic concept. We walked in to view the menu, ended up buying biltong and sauces (and would have bought more [including meat] if we lived in the area). We then stayed for dinner, after not being overly impressed with the competition on the strip. I have never received a meal so quickly after ordering (in a sit-down restaurant) as this place - literally 10 minutes from order to table, and the restaurant was full! The food was delicious and the service and staff excellent. We look forward to returning on our next trip to the Cape.
Thinking back on that mini-break, with the current lockdown situation, we are so grateful to have had the opportunity and made the decision to go away. Despite all the complications, those are such wonderful memories we now cherish.