We ended up staying in the Free State the whole time. Next trip we will hunt in the East Cape.
How was the United flight?
The new 787s are very smooth. Going over the flight was about 2/3 full so we all had lots of room. For a 16 hour flight it was pretty good. Coming back it was full. Still very smooth. They ran out of the mid flight snack so our side of the plane didn't get it. Oh well. I ate too much in camp anyway. The biggest issues coming back were security. They tore our stuff apart twice in Johannesburg. One in the security line once at the gate. Make sure you are on top of you Covid tests. You need hard copies with names and dates. Don't take any tools no matter how small through in checked bags. Don't carry on any duty free liquor. Check it. They took my fix it Stix mini tool kit and 2 tiny Allen wrenches in Johannesburg. Also some how 2 of our bags had empty rifle cases in them and that caused a big stir. They even took my empty leather cartridge belt. Frankly the less you carry the better off you'll be. The rifles and ammo were no big deal. I had paper work done 3 months ago.
Thanks for the report. We just got back 3 days ago via Doha with Qatar. We usually fly business with Delta but they cancelled our flight. It looks United business class might be a good option for next year. The trip with Qatar, while nice, is just too damn long. 16 hours from New Jersey to Joburg rather than 30 hours (with the layover in Doha) sounds a lot better.
I agree. The return flights on Qatar was killer - even with the excellent service in business class. Unfortunately, getting to NJ from my location is time consuming as well.
Fortunately we have a direct flight from Austin to Newark so it would be OK for me. I had to fly Austin to DFW (where the Qatar reception was extremely disorganized) to Doha to Joburg. The reception and repeat security check at Doha on the return flight was also very disorganized.
