The full report plus pictures can be found here: http://travelwithsheldon.blogspot.co...joburg-on.html

We arrived at Heathrow and watched as the unfortunate man in front of us presented an expired passport at check-in and was denied a boarding pass. After some confusion, he was sent off to a different ticket counter. Without bags to check, we breezed through security and headed to the Star Alliance Lounge.

Christmas night in the lounge was a pretty quiet affair. I counted less than a dozen people and we had a few beverages, read the newspaper and made some FaceTime calls home to family, just waking up in California. Food in the lounge was pretty disappointing. They had a beef stew, sad looking salad and plenty of sugary snacks. The bar and drinks were "self serve".

Finally it was time to board, and it was quite a long walk to the gate. The departure board in the lounge went from "on time" to "flight closing" so there was a sense of urgency to get to the plane. It seemed like most people had boarded when we arrived and we were on the plane in the business class cabin almost immediately.

This very new A330 had a nice clean interior with earth tone colors... lots of browns and tans. The flight attendants identified me by name and we relaxed and I checked out the seat. South African has a 180 degree lie flat business class seat in a 2-2-2 configuration. Unfortunately, we were in the middle but had the bulkhead in seats 1D & 1G.

I asked the FAs if I could see the cockpit and I was told the pilots were busy. About 10 minutes later, I was beckoned up to the front. The captain and first officer were on their laptops. I went back to my seat and told my wife we were in good hands with a bald brother at the controls. It was nice they let me in there, but they didn't seem very interested in having guests.

Before we pushed back from the gate, there was an interesting little argument between flight attendants in the galley in front of me. It involved whether the emergency exit had been properly set. They went back and forth for a few minutes. I think it probably wasn't armed properly. The debate stopped when someone hit the call button, one left to attend to the passenger and the other flight attendant made some adjustments to the door. The captain announced just over 10 hours in the air to Johannesburg.

Food service began pretty quickly once we were in the air. I will say it was a much better meal and presentation than my experience in British Airways Club World. The appetizers were very good and fresh. Smoked salmon and shrimp was the highlight of the meal. My steak was well done, but very tender. My wife's fish had a strange creamy sauce on it that I would have preferred going without.

I was ready to go to sleep, and they brought chocolates before bed which was a nice touch, but not what you want lingering in your mouth before you go to sleep. I put on a movie and laid the bed flat. South African provides you two blankets for the bed: one for the seat and one to cover yourself. I found this to be a little too warm as I woke up a few times in the middle of the night trying to adjust to cool down. The headphones provided for the IFE didn't work very well to begin with and were even worse lying done. I think SA could improve this product.

I slept okay. As I mentioned before it seemed a little warm in the cabin and being by the bulkhead made it seem kind of bright from the galley. The cabin lights came on for breakfast and I put my seat back upright. Now I had 2 blankets and I didn't really know what to do with them so I stuffed them under the leg rest in front of me. They were pretty much in the way for the rest of the flight.

On arrival, it was a long walk to immigration and then we hit the arrivals lounge. The lounge was a little hot and very small, but the showers were huge. A nice hot shower and a cup of coffee and we were good. We still had about 90 minutes before our flight to Port Elizabeth, but we decided to get out and walk around. The airport has it all: shopping, food and lots of people. We sat down by the gate for about 20 minutes waiting for our flight.

To board, you take a bus out to the plane and then walk up some stairs. We were in economy for this leg and the seats felt even smaller after our previous flight. This flight was pretty uneventful and we landed at Port Elizabeth just needing to collect our rental car.

The rental car was quite an ordeal as I wanted to pay for the car with my Chase Sapphire Preferred card. If you have not seen this card, it is blue with a metal inside. The numbers, name and magnetic strip are all on the back and this thoroughly confused the young lady that was trying to get us our car. I explained it was a credit card from the United States, but she had to call her manager who said not to accept the card, because they only accept cards with "numbers on the front" and it didn't say "credit card". I offered to call Chase to confirm it was an acceptable card, which they decided to call their bank. After a lot of back and forth and a line forming behind me I relented and used a different card with numbers on the front. After she ran the card I pointed out that this card didn't say "credit" on it either. I don't think I'll do business with First Car Rental again.