Questions for any who have taken PRE-Cuise Victoria Falls - Smoke that Thunders

[mj_holiday]

Looking over details for our Cape Town cruise and this Pre-Cruise trip, I have some questions that some of you who have taken this may be able to help with.

We land in Johannesburg and spend the night there.  It doesn't mention our large suitcases that they forward to the ship in Cape Town until the next day when we return to the airport to go to Victoria Falls.  Does this mean we need to lug our large suitcases with us to the hotel and bring back to the airport to check them to go to Cape Town?  It clearly says we are walking to the hotel.

We will require a Zimbabwe Visa that we can purchase at airport - is there a place to exchange USD for Zimbabwe currency?  It states some other place that USD are not accepted in Zimbabwe.

Any other lessons learned for this would be most helpful.

[ssawjo]

Regarding currency, when we landed in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe many years ago, they wanted only US dollars.  It was $30 in cash per person.  Their currency is pretty bad, exchange wise.  I don't think you can even get Zimbabwean dollars in cash in the US anyway and I would not trust their ATMs.

 

Otherwise, enjoy your trip.  It is beautiful there.

[audobon_tx]

1 hour ago, mj_holiday said:

Looking over details for our Cape Town cruise and this Pre-Cruise trip, I have some questions that some of you who have taken this may be able to help with.

We land in Johannesburg and spend the night there.  It doesn't mention our large suitcases that they forward to the ship in Cape Town until the next day when we return to the airport to go to Victoria Falls.  Does this mean we need to lug our large suitcases with us to the hotel and bring back to the airport to check them to go to Cape Town?  It clearly says we are walking to the hotel.

We will require a Zimbabwe Visa that we can purchase at airport - is there a place to exchange USD for Zimbabwe currency?  It states some other place that USD are not accepted in Zimbabwe.

Any other lessons learned for this would be most helpful.

 

Just did land tour, no cruise.  You can buy Zambia visa on arrival at Livingstone airport.  If you want to see Vic Falls from the Zimbabwe side (airport is in Zambia) you can buy a "Kaza" visa.  Visas are priced in USD and I paid for ours at airport immigration via credit card.

[cwn]

We actually landed in the Zimbabwe airport. Paid fee for visa there with US. This was pre Covid but we used credit card or US while there. You could go across the bridge and see the falls from Zambia side but we didn’t. At that time the local people were aggressively begging and we were traveling on our own and the taxi situation wasn’t the best. 
 

The park is very safe and the Falls are beautiful. Since you will be with Regent, you will have guides and maybe things have improved.

 

We were on a long trip having cruised from US to Sydney on the Queen Elizabeth and worked our way over land to Africa before meeting the Queen Mary in Cape Town. Since we couldn’t ship luggage into Cape Town, too much theft at the airports, we were carrying everything. Hopefully Regent can store you large cases. 
 

Have a great time!

[Csphoenix]

I was there in August and they happily accept US dollars or Rand. We paid $50 cash for a Kaza visa that allowed us to go to both Zambia and Zimbabwe. Vic Falls was beautiful, except I was bitten on the leg by a vervet monkey! Had a great local doctor who gave me a tetanus and rabies shot.