My initial thoughts.
ROAR 2 after thoughts-
Used up all our frequent flyer miles so did AMEX Platinum buy one get one free business class. From LAX determined that LH was the best carrier and routing was LAX-FRA-JNB. I thought business class on LH was very good seats and room a bit more than American. Food has a German bent but was adequate. The layover in FRA was 10 hours so LH provided a voucher for a day room in an airport hotel. This was a good routing for us. The jet lag gets to us and we did two nights in Cape Town before starting the group stuff. Adds to the cost but well worth it in our opinion.
Packed too much. Two pair of safari pants would be enough. The pants were the type that you could zip off but never did that, more trouble that it was worth. Three safari shirts would be enough. Two long sleeve and one short sleeve. I also took a couple of Patagonia light weight capilene undershirts, they worked well in the early morning and do not weigh anything or take up room. I had a fleece vest that I used under a rain jacket. That worked well. Take gloves. I used a pair of light weight fleece type. Something to keep head and ears warm would be a plus. I keep a head band warmer in my rain jacket all the time and that worked well to keep ears warm in the early morning and early evening. Some people bought fleece jackets at the game parks. When riding in the upper tiers of the game drive vehicles the wind makes it colder and I wanted to be comfortable. Good souvenir and not very expensive. I had a pair of shorts that I wore during the day for lunch etc. several times. I bought a golf shirt at a game park that came in handy for the warm afternoons. I have a Tilley hat and that worked well.
Keeping track of pictures can be a challenge. I ended up using a different SD card for each game park. That helped categorize the pictures. I used several 2 gb cards instead of one large one. Next time we go I plan on having a video camera as well as the dlsr that I will use. Carol would use the video camera. Charging batteries each night in the room was easy. Ngaire provided a plug adaptor. I used the Nikon 70-300 zoom 4.5-5.6 and it was very adequate. If I could aford it the 70-200 lens at 2.8 would I think work very well also. Some people had very good results with the higher end point and shoot cameras with the higher zoom ability. Unless you are very serious I think that is a very viable option.
Luke, I see you are on FUN as Carol and I are so we can chat some during the cruise.
