Over New Years we traveled to the Seychelles and Kenya. Why those two locations? A big part of my planning is usually searching for what airline award space is available and choosing interesting locations from the resulting list of options. Much of East Africa was available so then it became what I could string together without too much time spent in airports. We also liked the idea of mixing a relaxing beach\ocean vacation with a safari. This was a bit harder for Africa because connection times do not line up well. At all. So I hunted for some that might give us a few hours to explore places like Frankfurt, Zurich and Addis Adaba. This was the resulting routing:
DTW-FRA-ADD-SEZ-ADD-NBO-DAR-ZRH-YYZ-DTW
We were originally on a variety of aircraft all in seats 2a and 2c but aircraft changes and a problem where my wife lost all her seat assignments meant this was a tour of various A330 aircraft in various business class seats. She wasn't the only one who lost her original seat assignment. At least 3 other people on our first Lufthansa flight did too so a bit of musical chairs was played after boarding.
Camera equipment taken:
Canon 5d Mk III
Canon 70-200mm f2.8
Canon lens extender 1.4x (Effective range 98-280mm)
Canon 24-105mm f4.0
Canon 35mm f1.4
Fuji Finepix XP70 underwater
Samsung S9
We ended up using the extender + 70-200mm pretty much exclusively on the Safari. While a great combination overall at times the 280mm range was not quite enough while others 98mm was too much. If we did another Safari and only a Safari I would bring our second camera body to mount the 24-105 to and go for either the 2x extender + 70-200mm or rent\buy the 100-400mm on our 5D Mk III. Also AI Servo worked extremely well to keep the moving animals in focus
Various other lessons learned:
-Be prepared to act like lines don't exist
-Various recommendations for 'Safari clothes' are overblown, at least for the Masai Mara in Kenya. We saw a lot of people in shorts and sandals
-The mosquito situation was not as bad as expected. We have more at home (But much fewer Malaria carrying ones)
-American passport holders are treated differently at various checkpoints. We were consistently treated better and asked fewer questions. Or even just waived on without a glance beyond the cover of our passports while others were stopped and questioned
-Have proof of your onward flights available. We've almost never been asked to show these before but was consistently asked to show our onward tickets on this trip by Passport Control. I recommend taking screenshots of flight information as wifi and cell service can be unreliable
-You, and everything else in the vehicle, will be covered in a fine coat of dust at the end of each Safari day.
-One other oddity was that NO ONE looked at our Yellow Card vaccination forms. You need to get the Yellow Fever vaccine for Kenya and when traveling to other areas after visiting Kenya. Not a single official opened them up to make sure we got the vaccine
Anyway here are the various A330 seats ranked in order of my preference:
Lufthansa:
Swiss:
Air Canada:
The Lufthansa non-bulkhead ones win out if you don't care about direct aisle access from the window seat. They had the best width for my broad shoulders, best length and most space for my size 13 feet. The bulkhead ones were pretty close but the foot cubby was enclosed meaning less room for my feet. Also Flight Attendants like to store stuff on the shelf in front of you so there is a bit of interruption from that.
Swiss was next but their seat was noticeably narrower. The fuselage was actually in the way of my shoulder a bit which is not something I recall happening before on an international business class configuration. I was still able to manage a solid 6 hours of sleep in the seat so it couldn't have been that bad though.
I really wanted to like the Air Canada seat and layout. Direct aisle access. More privacy. more spaced out layout. But there were just too many misses. There was very limited storage at the seat itself so no room for a personal item bag at the seat - or really any good place to put the blanket, pillow, etc. Also they removed the center overhead bins. While it made for a slightly more spacious feel in the cabin, when combined with the lack of seat storage, meant there was a scramble for overhead bin space. I don't think this should be something you have to deal with in business class on a wide body aircraft. The seat was also the shortest and narrowest of them all when fully reclined. So going forward I will actively avoid the AC A330 if there are other options available. (This was also originally going to be their new 789 aircraft with a better seat)
With quite a few hours to kill on our first layover we headed into Frankfurt
After spending a few cold, foggy hours in Old Town we headed back to the airport and to the Lufthansa Arrivals lounge for a shower since we had another 8 hour flight to Addis Ababa. The shower facilities there are fantastic with 24+ personal shower areas and a lounge with a decent array of food and drinks
I'm a big fan of showers after\in the middle of a long trip so I was quite happy with the facilities
Up next: Addis Ababa and the start of the Seychelles
DTW-FRA-ADD-SEZ-ADD-NBO-DAR-ZRH-YYZ-DTW
We were originally on a variety of aircraft all in seats 2a and 2c but aircraft changes and a problem where my wife lost all her seat assignments meant this was a tour of various A330 aircraft in various business class seats. She wasn't the only one who lost her original seat assignment. At least 3 other people on our first Lufthansa flight did too so a bit of musical chairs was played after boarding.
Camera equipment taken:
Canon 5d Mk III
Canon 70-200mm f2.8
Canon lens extender 1.4x (Effective range 98-280mm)
Canon 24-105mm f4.0
Canon 35mm f1.4
Fuji Finepix XP70 underwater
Samsung S9
We ended up using the extender + 70-200mm pretty much exclusively on the Safari. While a great combination overall at times the 280mm range was not quite enough while others 98mm was too much. If we did another Safari and only a Safari I would bring our second camera body to mount the 24-105 to and go for either the 2x extender + 70-200mm or rent\buy the 100-400mm on our 5D Mk III. Also AI Servo worked extremely well to keep the moving animals in focus
Various other lessons learned:
-Be prepared to act like lines don't exist
-Various recommendations for 'Safari clothes' are overblown, at least for the Masai Mara in Kenya. We saw a lot of people in shorts and sandals
-The mosquito situation was not as bad as expected. We have more at home (But much fewer Malaria carrying ones)
-American passport holders are treated differently at various checkpoints. We were consistently treated better and asked fewer questions. Or even just waived on without a glance beyond the cover of our passports while others were stopped and questioned
-Have proof of your onward flights available. We've almost never been asked to show these before but was consistently asked to show our onward tickets on this trip by Passport Control. I recommend taking screenshots of flight information as wifi and cell service can be unreliable
-You, and everything else in the vehicle, will be covered in a fine coat of dust at the end of each Safari day.
-One other oddity was that NO ONE looked at our Yellow Card vaccination forms. You need to get the Yellow Fever vaccine for Kenya and when traveling to other areas after visiting Kenya. Not a single official opened them up to make sure we got the vaccine
Anyway here are the various A330 seats ranked in order of my preference:
Lufthansa:
Swiss:
Air Canada:
The Lufthansa non-bulkhead ones win out if you don't care about direct aisle access from the window seat. They had the best width for my broad shoulders, best length and most space for my size 13 feet. The bulkhead ones were pretty close but the foot cubby was enclosed meaning less room for my feet. Also Flight Attendants like to store stuff on the shelf in front of you so there is a bit of interruption from that.
Swiss was next but their seat was noticeably narrower. The fuselage was actually in the way of my shoulder a bit which is not something I recall happening before on an international business class configuration. I was still able to manage a solid 6 hours of sleep in the seat so it couldn't have been that bad though.
I really wanted to like the Air Canada seat and layout. Direct aisle access. More privacy. more spaced out layout. But there were just too many misses. There was very limited storage at the seat itself so no room for a personal item bag at the seat - or really any good place to put the blanket, pillow, etc. Also they removed the center overhead bins. While it made for a slightly more spacious feel in the cabin, when combined with the lack of seat storage, meant there was a scramble for overhead bin space. I don't think this should be something you have to deal with in business class on a wide body aircraft. The seat was also the shortest and narrowest of them all when fully reclined. So going forward I will actively avoid the AC A330 if there are other options available. (This was also originally going to be their new 789 aircraft with a better seat)
With quite a few hours to kill on our first layover we headed into Frankfurt
After spending a few cold, foggy hours in Old Town we headed back to the airport and to the Lufthansa Arrivals lounge for a shower since we had another 8 hour flight to Addis Ababa. The shower facilities there are fantastic with 24+ personal shower areas and a lounge with a decent array of food and drinks
I'm a big fan of showers after\in the middle of a long trip so I was quite happy with the facilities
Up next: Addis Ababa and the start of the Seychelles
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