We chose this 12 day cruise as a special celebration of my husband's and my big birthday year. It was very expensive (including RT airfare on BA from the UK). The reason we chose this cruise was because we wanted to see a lot of wildlife so we bought 5 tours (4 animal reserves and 1 desert trip). 3 of the tours were cancelled at the last minute supposedly for weather conditions in two cases and no explanation given for the third. So we were very disappointed and mainly sat around the ship for days at sea. The onboard activities were not very good. There were only two speakers who gave lectures on S African history and customs. When we were on other cruises, notably Cunard, there were many different lecturers who were from many diffferent backgrounds. The evening entertainment was awful with the exception of a good comedian from Cape Town. The day of embarkation was awful. We checked our luggage in at 11 15 in the morning and it wasn't delivered to our cabin until after 5 PM with no explanation given. There was no information given throughout the first day and we had to learn from cabin stewards and other guests that weather was delaying our departure. We finally sailed late that night and were subsequently delayed by half a day to our first port in Namibia. Our first tour was at Port Elizabeth a week later and was really great. We spent a half day at an elephant reserve where we saw several herds very close up and learned a lot from our excellent guide. The only other tour that wasn't cancelled was another animal reserve near Richards Bay. Although we saw quite a few animals the 4x4 vehicle we were in was very uncomfortable with no leg room and crowded. It needed to be started with jumper cables. At one point our driver/guide suddenly decided to have a drag race with another vehicle which was scary and resulted in several people's hats being blown off. The best thing about the cruise was the excellent food and the staff (although the ship was understaffed in the diningroom and cabin crew). Given how much this short cruise cost us, the few positives hardly made it worth the expense.