Hi all,

I'm heading to Africa this June, and for "much cheaper tickets home" reasons I am spending one night in Cape Town on the tail end of a 10 day safari trip. I'll be departing CPT (in J, if it matters) on the 7:50pm direct flight to EWR, hand luggage only, on Sat July 5th. I see lots of things on the Internet saying arrive for international departures 3 hours prior, but as I try to plan out a day in Cape Town, I am wondering if that is really necessary, or if 2 hours would suffice?

Secondarily, anyone have experience with Cape Town traffic? Google says the drive from our hotel (Cape Heritage Hotel near the Central Business District) to the airport is 20-25 minutes. Should I worry about traffic on a Saturday afternoon?

Really I'm trying to figure out if it would be realistic to do some type of day tour that didn't get back to our hotel to 4:30pm or whether that would be a terrible idea.

2 hours is plenty for check in and immigration. Traffic in Cape Town is pretty bad however, so I'd allow yourself another 20-25 mins buffer on the drive. Sat afternoon shouldn't be too bad unless it rains.

You'll be in a shorter check-in line w/ J. Checked or carry on doesn't really make a big difference. I'd say 2 hours is OK. The only thing that could muck it up is on a Saturday afternoon the outbound passport control (e.g. outbound immigration) could be short staffed and thus could have a long line w/ folks heading out on the various nighttime-ish flights to US, Europe and elsewhere.

Here's a thought. Given that you're only dealing with hand luggage. Why not consider checking out of the hotel in the morning keeping your luggage with you and heading out on the day tour and then having the day tour folks drop you at CPT. Admittedly it'll be a long day. But why battle your way into CPT just to fetch luggage from the hotel and basically turn around to head to the airport. It effects the 2 hour check-in math, but you could also get into a J lounge before your flight to freshen up, etc. after a day of touring.