We’ve set a date for our wedding:
Jackie and I have found our wedding venue, Le Franschhoek, and set the date for 21st November 2009. That took about 2 months of driving on weekends to wine farms (which I quite enjoyed) in Stellenbosch, Paarl and Franschhoek. Le Franschhoek was able to offer us everything in one place and the setting is awesome.

We flew up to Joburg for Morne and Liezel’s wedding:
With GPS in hand we flew into Joburg (Lanseria) and made our way to Avianto for Morne’s wedding. The venue was awesome, tuscan villa style and was great to share their special day with them. After that we headed over toIllovo Protea Hotel for the night and I wanted to visit as much family as possible (pretty much all my family’s in JHB). Jackie and I had a great time and realised that a weekend in Joburg is good fun.

Christmas with the family at my parents place:
Pretty much the norm. Jackie’s parents live in Manchester so we all headed to my parents place in Camps Bay. Jackie had taken charge of table decorations to experiment with ideas for the wedding. We therefore had the fanciest christmas setting ever complete with formal menus. It was good fun until my mom put the Mama Mia DVD on (xmas gift) – 2 hours of torture. By the end of the day we were all stuffed and tired and took a slow drive home for an afternoon powernap. Jackie gave me a tyre pressure checker so I can make sure my tyres aren’t going to explode on me when they heat up

Best New Year’s Eve in a long time:
I had almost given up on New Years until this year. It had gotten more and more bleek with age. The house parties had become calmer, people had babies, we stood around a braai etc. This time Wesley (best mate) and I had vowed to make it legendary. Morne and Liezel would be down from JHB so we wanted to hook up with them too. Wesley and Ezelle (g/f) have a very smart flat in town. The plan was for that to be HQ so that we wouldn’t need to drive drunk. I brought the cocktail accessories and we had cocktails etc up to about 11:30pm where we made our way to Bang Bang. Andy got us all on the guestlist so we cruized in nicely and then Morne’s buddy Troydon was playing the 12am set so we hit the dancefloor for the countdown. Countdown was awesome and then we headed indoors to jam some more. Richard had joined us and we got the tequila flowing. We walked home and all crashed at Wesley’s place. Great nite!

Sven’s wedding:
We were invited to join Sven for his special day at Backsberg wine estate. It was a beautiful setting and we got some cool ideas for our wedding. We ran into Elize (ex work colleague) and had a fun night. David Spade’s twin brother joined us at the table and Michael Boltons twin brother took some photos. I set some sort of time record of 20 minutes from Royal Ascot to the parking lot at Backsberg, averaging around 160kph. Awesome.

Jeremy’s Bachelors:
Jeremy is getting married next week so I was invited to his Bachelors yesterday (Sat 7th Feb). Jeremy is Jackie’s friend Monya’s fiance. Jackie worked with Monya at Ogilvy. The Bachelors was going to be on the Peroni Catamaran sailing from Waterfront to Clifton 4th and back. We met at Pauliner in the 37 degree heat. A few beers later we were on the yacht heading to clifton. There was a hen party on the same boat, also with a pirate theme – quite a co-incidence! There were about 50+ on the cat and 40 of those were sitting up by the nose (bow), so the boat would pitch ‘a bit more than usual’ which was quite funny at times! The beer was flowing and what bachelors is complete without a 14″ rubber ****. It made an appearance and the girls were screaming with laughter, some shocked, some intrigued – classic stuff! When we got to clifton some of the guys swam in the freezing water, there were offers of a bottle of wine to the girl who swam naked but no takers. It was awesome on the catamaran. From there we met up with the Hen Party (our girls) at La Med. Ran into Darrell and Colin who were having Colins bachelors. He was dressed like a pimp with his trademark M&R helmet. Had a beer at both bachelor groups and eventually we combined into one big party. There were collections going around for a bottle of tequila, La Med charges R500 for a bottle!!! Jackie and I left around 10ish and went for a bite to eat. Their wedding is next week in Tulbagh, should be great.

Earlier this year, I took ownership of a Golf 5 GTi. (my other girlfriend). The handling in the GTi is phenomenal, it sticks to the road and goes through corners like it’s on rails. It’s a lot of fun, pretty much every other Golf 5 Gti, Subaru, ST, S3 you see on the road is immediately up for a dice. (Not something I was used to before)

In August, Jackie’s friend Nicholas Slabbert (who used to race at Killarney) forwarded me this flyer:

I knew about these courses but last time I checked they were based in Gauteng. They were coming to Cape Town

I signed up for the GTi course. The R32 was tempting but I wanted to get to know the GTi. The cost of the course was R1881 incl VAT. I was booked for Wednesday 8 October 1pm – 5:30pm.

The drive through there was nervous excitement, I had been to Killarney many times before but always as a spectator. I had absolutely no idea how fast we were going to go or what it would be like. When I drove through the subway I saw the VW Driving Academy banners and the 9 white GTi’s and 1 R32 parked neatly on the lawn with “Driving” written down the sides.  This was exciting!

Everyone had to meet in the clubhouse on the top floor. The VW Academy were down for the week and had morning and afternoon slots each day of the week. I arrived around 12:30pm as the morning shift was ending so there were still a couple of cars lapping and screeching – it looked awesome. I avoided the buffet lunch and hit the water instead.

At 1:30pm we had our “briefing”. The instructor had his projector going and he went through the GTi in a lot of detail. How the car is made up, safety features, brakes, handling, etc. He also covered the fact that they are sponsored by Good Year and use the Eagle F1 Asymetric tyres which are R3500 a piece. There was definitely marketing hype mixed into the “briefing”, I now know what tyre I want and can’t afford :S He then went onto high speed driving theory and how to approach corners. The slide had a line showing the quickest route through the corner (racing line) but then he showed us the effects of using a racing line on public roads – not good for kids playing in the road. We would be learning to corner a bit wider so we had more vision through the corners. We would come in on the outside brake and then turn in first, then accelerate out – slightly wider than the racing line. I’ve made some alterations to the image below (blue line) to show the difference between the 2 lines.

After about 40 mins we were organised into groups of 3 and then assigned to an instructor, ours being KT (I forget his full name) – callsign Delta Bravo. KT had competed in Formula Ford and Formula Gti for 5 years and had enough experience for me. We all gathered on the lawn by the clubhouse where we were given a demo of how to sit properly in a car. Importance of head rest position, seat belt, bent knee, etc. After that we headed for our GTi, ours was #2 – a DSG. I was very bummed that we got the DSG and immediately asked if we could get a manual rather. Apparently there were only 4 manuals so getting those other 3 students out those cars would have been difficult! If you want to drive a manual, specify it up front!

I was sitting in the front as we drove onto the track for the first time (shotgun!), KT took it slow the first few corners, showing us the cones where we should brake etc. We cruised along the back straight then as we came round Vodacom corner onto the main straight he said “Okay, now a bit faster” and he floored it. I was loving every second of it as he slid around corners and went flat out down the back straight. After that he pulled into the pits. There were 3 of us “students” in the car plus him. He sat in the front passenger seat and controlled the rear view mirror. Instructors indicated to each other so you don’t have to worry about traffic which is cool. All you have to do is drive. There were no helmets required and we did 3 laps each whilst the others sat in the back. Each session lasted 9 laps and we ended up driving 12 laps for the day. When it’s your time to drive you are like a kid at a candy store

There was a girl with us so she went first and was fairly slow. For the rest of the day, the order was her, me, other guy (I am bad with names). It was my turn now. I pulled out of the pits slow at first – you wait until KT says it’s clear, then you stomp on the accelerator The DSG for those who don’t know is kind of like an automatic in that you have 2 pedals. So it’s stomp go, stomp stop but still 147kw. I think that first lap was one of the most memorable because you have no idea what you are doing and you’re just going as fast as you know how. You keep your foot flat on the accelerator pretty much constantly. The only time you let off is to brake on the approach to a corner. Then you drift into the corner and then ease onto the accelerator until your foot is flat again. Jackie Stewart said “You only put your foot on the accelerator when you know you aren’t going to take it off again”. He’s right. Here is an overview of Killarney with corner names.

The DSG was a bit crap accelerating out of Engen Oval, all 4 of us battled because it delayed for a second or so – I want my manual. SABAT corner is by far the most fun, mainly because your foot is flat right the way through – you just slide a little which rocks. The back straight is where you want more power (like an M3), we got up to 200kph odd (as reported by KT) although I rarely looked down. Vodacom is the most challenging corner and towards the end of the day everyone was trying to wax it. The braking is all important, as is going wide around it. Coming out of it you have your foot flat and you try get as close to “the wall” (pit lane) for slipstream reasons. Hard on the brakes just past the pit exit for Conti corner and then a nice bit of sliding on your way to Engen. It was awesome to be able to push the car as hard as you could into a corner and have someone giving you constant (correct) feedback. The brakes on the GTi are awesome and down the back straight you have to come down from 200 to about 80 (roughly) and we were braking later and later. The car feels light throughout the whole run like you’re on the verge of losing it (even though we were probably far from it).

Other things we did on the course were high speed swerving (80kph) and how the ESP (Electronic Stability Program) looks after you when you swerve in the GTi. As the instructor said “When buying a VW and checking off extras, forget the mags, sound system, tinting, trims, go for the ESP – it’ll save your life”. They demo’d the swerve with ESP off and the car just slide all over the place. They also demonstrated braking distances by stomping on the brakes at 60kph, 120kph, 160kph. The stopping distances increased exponentially which made you think twice about your estimated braking distance vs reality. Right at the end, the instructors raced each other (most were racing drivers) and I managed to call shotgun again. They went sooooo much faster than us, braking so late, going wide and over the red/white edge – it was awesome!

It was an amazing day, well worth the cash and highly recommended. The ages of people ranged from about 22 to 70 – yes there was a granny there! You can find out more about the course here.

Satellite view of Killarney:

The Flowrider is an artificial standing wave and Independence had one on the back deck. The nice thing is it’s REALLY tough to stand up and you spend most of your spare time trying to! The average time for a rookie is 1.5 seconds. Even surfers, snowboarders, skateboarders hit the deck first time. The Flowrider uses the same amount of electricity in 3 hours that all the lifts onboard (16 of them) use in one weeks so it’s only swtiched on twice a day. Dean (Jackie’s brother) and I spent most days trying to master it. You start off with the bodyboard then work your way up to drop-knee and then give the stand up a go.

This is how far I got after 2 weeks…

This is how it’s meant to be done (this video is taken by someone else on our trip, that guy was our instructor)….

We had heard of Johnny Rockets – the “authentic 1950’s American diner” restaurant on the ship, which we were keen to check out. It wasn’t included in the ticket cost but we paid $1.75 and could eat anything on the menu. All we had was a cheeseburger, chips, chocolate milkshake and sundae I haven’t felt that bloated since I attempted the Saul’s 1.2kg burger in Sea Point. They bring you a (huge) plate of onion rings as a starter….nuff said! Needless to say that was our first and last visit. They do all this singing/dancing while you in there, to get you into the whole 50’s American vibe.

The second night we had the Captains Dinner. Except we had the 6 o’ clock sitting booked so we’d have the dinner but no Captain. Rumor has it that our Captain was a shy guy and quite boring (direct quote from waitress) but we got dressed up in our tuxedo’s ($80 to hire). Last time I wore a tux was high school, I felt quite smart

We woke up the next day in Gibraltar. Gibraltar was tiny, basically Cape Town’s City Bowl but half the size. There is a lot of history in Gibraltar (flashbacks of Malta) and we had a good time going up the mountain, feeding the monkeys and walking through the siege tunnel. Not quite proposalville though…

We left Gibraltar in the evening and cruised up the coast, destination Barcelona. That night we were booked for the Ice Show, “Freeze Frame”. Royal Carribean have managed to install an ice rink in the middle of the boat. You could go ice skating during the day but tonight we were watching olympic skaters putting on a display. We weren’t allowed any photos or videos but managed to find this on Google Images.

Did we go ice skating? I put on a display of ice shuffling second to none. Holding onto the bar the entire way round while the Ellse family whizzed past me. There were 5 year olds skating better than me but it was all good.

We docked in Barcelona at 7pm and decided to go explore. Barcelona is an awesome city. It’s clean, organized and manages to be very modern but still has so much history. We walked the “La Rambla” that night and were offered handbags by these african gentlemen who looked like they’d just arrived fresh from a stowaway. They had these blankets with ropes attached to them and then loads of designer brand handbags on them (100% fake no doubt). The minute the police walked around the corner, they’d grab the ropes so the blanket formed a backpack and then leg it down the street. Classic stuff.

We had the next day in Barcelona too and walked the La Rambla again. There were many street performers (mimes/freak shows/etc). Some were excellent. A far cry from the crackhead performer we had seen in Gibraltar. Jackie was in shopping heaven and we visited most shops on La Rambla. We got on one of those buses that go round the town and saw some of the sights and sounds. Around one corner we saw this huge church. It was a personal project of a priest and the whole thing was funded by donations.

Returning to the ship I realised that I had to now make time to ask John for Jackie’s hand in marraige. I had kept the proposal a secret for about 6 months now so if I had asked him to “join me for a beer” without Dean I know there would be suspicion. So when we got back to the ship, it was myself, Dean and John – Jackie was somewhere with her mom. We hit the Windjammer for lunch and when Dean went to the buffet, I said to John I had a big question to ask him. He was so relaxed and said “I was waiting for you to ask” and “of course you can”. We then chatted and I was VERY relieved that all had gone well. We told Dean and he wasn’t too surprised understandably. When Sharon and Jackie returned, we told Sharon and at one moment John almost slipped up but we managed to keep it quiet )

The next stop was Ville Franche. I made a decision in Barcelona that I would propose in Monte Carlo from the hill overlooking the bay. I didn’t have the exact spot planned so I thought I would wait for the right moment on top of the hill. We woke up the next morning in Ville Franche which is a tiny bay, straight out of a postcard. French villa’s on the hills, our ship was anchored right across it. We took the tenders to shore then walked along the promenade to the train. The train dropped us off at Monte Carlo station and we walked out the station and straight onto the starting straight for the F1 track. Amazing.

Monte Carlo is surreal. You walk around and there is this definite money vibe in the air. Serious serious serious wealth. Some new money, but mostly old money. The smallest cruise boat in the harbour was bigger than the biggest one I’ve seen elsewhere. There was a couple of ships (probably some Sheik’s/Royalty). These ships had doors that opened up in the side to reveal smaller cruise ships, jet ski’s, rubber ducks and any other toy you can imagine. I couldn’t stop smiling because I was walking around the Formula 1 track with a diamond in the camera pouch. I had already seen 6 Ferrari’s in about 20 minutes. We walked up some side streets and then decided to go up to the palace. I knew I wanted to propose on a hill overlooking Monte Carlo so this was it! We took the bus up and arrived as the changing of the guards was happening.

Now the panic started. I think you can see it in some of the photos. There was this huge open yard where the changing of the guards was taking place. The place was full of people too. Jackie and I walked to the other side of the hill by the trees and I thought, this is perfect. So I spot a walkway overlooking the bay and I say “Come let’s go for a walk”. By now my palms are SWEATY and she can feel it. I am pretty sure she knows my plan now. Then I hit a dead end coz the only way to get to the walkway is around the shop. So she says let’s go check out this shop quick. We buy this fridge magnet then we take a walk out the shop towards the walkway. I get to the ledge overlooking the bay and I open the camera bag and I can see she thinks this is it. Then I filmed the bay quickly (quick fake) then I put the camera back and got out the ring. She was just grinning and I was nervous. I got down on one knee hoping my pants wouldn’t rip (we’d been eating a lot on the boat). She said yes and that was it! We hugged and kissed then some people took this photo of us:

This was sent to me today – it’s a classic

I like making food that I can spend 15 minutes on and then leave for 1 or 2 hours while I get other things done. The Lamb Shank recipe and this one are exactly that. This chicken curry recipe will serve 3-4 people and is good for the next few days if refrigerated. Jackie is obsessed with this curry She makes top quality Basmati rice to go with this but I haven’t included that recipe as you can have it over any rice or even mash or toast.

What you’ll need:

• Frying pan
• Chopping Board
• Chopping Knife
• Handheld Grater
• Large Plates
• Large Spoon
• Side plate

Ingredients:

• 3 tablespoons Olive Oil
• 1 tablespoon Butter
• 250ml Cream
• 100ml of Plain Bulgarian Yoghurt
• 4 Chicken Thighs
• 2 level tablespoons flour
• 1 tall teaspoon Chicken Spice
• 250ml Chicken Stock
• 1.5 Yellow Onions
• 3 Garlic pieces
• Small piece of whole Ginger
• 4 (tinned) whole peeled tomatoes
• 1 tablespoon tomatoe puree
• 1 level teaspoon Coriander
• 1 level teaspoon Cumin
• 1 normal teaspoon Tumeric
• 1 shake of Cinnamon
• 1 tall teaspoon Rajah Curry Powder (Mild or Hot)
• 1 small Bay Leaf
• 6 whole Cloves
• Salt
• Pepper

Method:

We’ll prep the stuff to save time. Chop the 1.5 white onions finely on the board. Grate the 3 cloves of garlic and the piece of ginger (about the size of a small garlic clove) on the board. Chop the 4 peeled tinned tomatoes also on the board. Next you create your spice plate. Measure out all your spices (Coriander, Cumin, Tumeric, Cinnamon, Curry Powder) onto a small side plate.

Take the chicken thighs out. Grind some salt and pepper over them on each side. Add the flour and the chicken spice to a plate. Rub the chicken thighs in this flour/spice mixture on the plate and make sure it’s all covered (KFC style). Boil some water in the kettle and get your Chicken Stock ready (I use a coffee mug for it). The stock seems to control the intensity so make it stronger/weaker to suit your taste.

Put the frying pan on the stove and set to full power. Add 2 tablespoons olive oil and the pieces of butter (I’ve heard by mixing butter and oil it prevents the butter from burning and you get better flavour and browning). Place the 4 pieces of chicken into the pan and turn every now and then until all sides are brown. The flour and spice mixture should help the skin to crisp up, it’ll also leave lots of bits/flavour in the pan once finished. Once the chicken is done take the pieces off an put on a plate. Move the pan off the heat. Turn the stove down to 4 (my full was 6).

It’ll take the stove a while to cool down so at this point I throw in the onions, grated garlic/ginger into the still hot oil/butter/chicken grits mixture – add the remaining oil to this mix. Fry them for a few minutes and eventually move back onto the stove set to 4. Make sure the spice plate is handy at this point. Now throw in the chopped tomatoes and puree. Mix it with the onions and then throw the spice mixture in, keep stiring. Throw in the yoghurt and keep stiring. After 30 seconds throw the chicken pieces back in, mix them into the paste. Within 30 seconds throw in the chicken stock and turn the heat down to 3 (just above a simmer). As it heads down to 3, stir in the stock and add your cloves and bay leaf. Add a few grindings of salt and pepper now (I sometimes throw in about 8 green peppercorns if I have them handy but not required). Finally throw in the 250ml cream into the pan and mix everything up.

By now the chicken thighs should be half covered in liquid. So now set your timer to 1 hour (if the thighs are large then add 20 mins or so). Make sure the temperature is just above a simmer (for me it’s level 3) and now you leave the thighs to cook in this liquid. Turn the chicken pieces over every 20 minutes or so. I don’t like putting a lid on because I like the sauce to reduce a bit and thicken but each to their own. Serve the chicken on a bed of rice and spoon the sauce over.

The new site needed to allow engaged couples to register and create an online Bridal Registry by adding products from the website. Each couple would have their own unique url (eg. www.thegiftcompany.co.za/amanda-and-dave) for their registry, friends and family could then visit this page and purchase items off their bridal list. Visitors to the site would need to be able to purchase products seperately too.

I built the site using Zend Framework. I chose ZF because of it’s flexibility, power, speed and potential to scale if need be. For the ecommerce part of the site, I recommended PayGate. I have worked with PayGate about 4 times now but this was the first time I’ve worked with their new SecureCode option. Their documentation is really good and it’s not much different other than the extra verifcation step. I went through some of the code I had written on previous PayGate solutions and then wrote one for ZF. I wrote a PaymentGateway ‘factory’ to use as a loader and then wrote the PayGatePayXML class. The cart system uses AJAX and I wrote a ‘mini-api’ in the CartController to allow for more secure ajax requests and to plug into flash (if need be). I built an indexed search for Products and Bridal lists but had a lot of issues with this during launch thanks to a certain automated script. The ZF search class has to create an index lock for each search. It turns out Hetzner (hosting company) have a script which runs at 10pm each night altering ownership of files (including index.lock). So each morning we’d be getting errors thrown on search. Solution was a cron job at Hetzner resetting ownership back but debugging that wasn’t fun!

I am very happy with The Gift Company website from every angle. ZF ensures that the code you write is reusable and I hope to publish the PayGate v4 class once I’ve refined it a bit more.

Snow is something we don’t see often in Cape Town so when Jackie and I spotted snow on the mountains by Franschoek, we decided to take a road trip. We arranged for Wes and Zelna to meet us on Sunday morning at our place. I had planned the trip – Ceres via Worcester – but had no idea where to drive to get close to the snow. Saturday night I was googling frantically for sites and directions/info on where to go. Here is the Ceres Tourism site (90’s flashback of a site) and the weather site wasn’t very detailed. As for finding a map with directions, I wasn’t holding my breath.

My parents had taken me to see the snow (and build the ’snowman on the bonnet’) when I was 12 years old but that was some time ago. I called Ceres Tourism and got a recording saying that there was not much snow left and that there were 2 places open for 4×4’s only. I thought we may as well head for Worcestor first, try find some snow and if not head for Ceres. I have put together a map of the route we took. If you know of other spots for snow please leave some comments so I can build on this:

The drive to Worcestor went quickly and all the snow Jackie and I had seen on Saturday had disappeared. After the tunnel we saw snow but only on the moutaintops. We turned by Worcestor and started to head towards plan B – Ceres. The traffic was mild at this stage. As we reached the top of Ceres pass there was bumper to bumper traffic which continued for about 25 minutes into the town. Driving down into the Ceres valley you could see snow on all the peaks (I think it’s the Matroosberg reserve). We were hungry and had given up on snow, so we hit the best restaurant in Ceres – Spur. After that I asked a local at the KAFEE where I could find snow. He told us go for 15km north out of Ceres and then turn right, so we did.

Here is the turnoff you are looking for – it’s about 12km’s north of Ceres:

By now we started seeing snowmen on the bonnet’s of cars. Some where so huge they covered the entire passenger side windscreen – and most of them weren’t 4×4’s Looking around you see just how unbelievably awesome the landscape is. White snow on the peaks and green/brown fields.

We started seeing patches of snow and loads of people parked on the side of the road. The traffic wasn’t bad at all and we kept going up the mountain pass until we reached the Klondyke Cherry Farm. We were still on tar roads, no 4×4’s required. Ceres Tourism – back of the net. We found a cool spot and did what every other human does when they find snow. Throw it at other humans. At this point I would like to give you a tip: TAKE GLOVES. Our hands were all numb but the person who remembers gloves will have the edge in the snow fights Jackie took this classic photo of Zel launching a snowball at her:

And after that we took what I thought was the faster route (check the map) but which turned out to be MUCH slower. Drive there was about 2 hours. Drive back was in the region of 3.5 hours! Granted the traffic on the way back was quite crap. It was backed up on Ceres pass because drivers were slowing down to look at the waterfall?!

We need a website similar to the Redbull Big Wave website which gives you snow levels etc and realtime weather! I will help build it if others handle the infrastructure (webcams, weather station, etc).

The driver was Jim Mero and he was driving the 2008 Cheverolet Corvette ZR1 which looks like this:

The Nurburgring is located in Bonn, Germany:

We booked to go on the Independence of the Seas in May 2007 so we had been waiting for our departure date of 25 May 2008 for a loooong time. I had also decided around December 2007 that it was time I took the next step (engagement) with Jackie and my relationship. Because we were going on the trip, I thought I may as well wait and make it a little more special by asking her overseas. I wanted to surprise her so everything was top secret, not even her family knew at this stage.

The Independence of the Seas is one of 3 identical cruise ships which form the ‘Freedom Class’ of ships – the largest in the world! The other ships in the class being Freedom of the Seas (has been in documentaries on Discovery channel, based in Bahamas) and Liberty of the Seas (based in Bahamas). Royal Carribean owns and operates a fleet of 22+ luxury cruise ships, with these 3 being the latest addition to their fleet. Each ship cost around $900,000,000 to build.

Putting things in perspective:

• Independence of the Seas is larger than the Nimitz-Class (largest) of Aircraft Carriers.
• At 160,000 GRT, the Independence of the Seas is more than 3 times heavier than the Titanic.
• Standing upright on its bow, Independence of the Seas would trump New York’s famed Chrysler building (1,046 feet) and Paris’ Eiffel Tower (986 feet).
• Boasting a width of 185 feet, Independence of the Seas is actually wider than the White House is long (168 feet).
• When measured from the waterline to the top of the funnel, Independence of the Seas towers 208 feet tall, which is approximately the same height as two of the Statue of Liberty, placed head to toe.
• Independence of the Seas has enough staterooms to host all, and we mean all, NFL, MLB and NBA players and coaches in one single sailing.
• The Arcadia Theatre seats 1,292 guests, approximately the same amount of passengers housed on three 747 airplanes.
• Although the ShipShape Fitness Center only has one regulation size boxing ring, it is large enough to fit 62 of them.
• The Royal Promenade stretches longer than a football field, running 368 feet down the center of the ship.
• Independence of the Seas cruises at 21.5 knots and can come to a stop from full power in 5 minutes. A tanker cruising at half that speed takes 30 minutes to come to a stop.

Some more numbers for you:

• 62,430 square feet of windows
• 530 tons of water in the swimming pools
• 1,400 tons of fresh water consumed each day
• 713,000 gallons of fresh water generated every day
• 78,000 pounds of ice cubes produced per day
• 10 restaurants
• 16 bars and lounges
• 4,700 works of art

For the proposal I had planned to purchase the diamond and propose with the diamond only. Jackie is a designer and I am very sure anything I chose would be wrong. I managed to get a good price on the diamond and my next worry was how I was going to transport the diamond through 3 airport customs and then onto the boat. After all, transporting loose diamonds is pretty suspicious. I had the papers for the stone so everything was legal but I still had to ensure that they never saw it and had to ask me for the papers, then the 6-month surprise build up would be ruined! The answer? In a piece of paper in my jean pant – just call me a mule. My mind was on that diamond 24/7, insurance companies don’t insure loose diamonds for obvious reasons…

We flew out on Sunday, destination London via Dubai. I forgot just how much I hate flying long distances. Our first leg to Dubai was 9 hours and then another 7 hours to London after that. The takeoff is always cool but after that things start becoming quite bleek. We flew Emirates and I guess my expectations were a bit high. They’ve won airline of the year a few times so you kind of expect to be impressed. Instead they ran out of coffee and beef. Deans TV (and a few others) were broken throughout the flight. Their in-flight entertainment system is pretty impressive and I watched quite a few movies but after so long sitting in one position, you start to go a bit crazy. Loved that ‘fasten-your-seatbelt’ in arabic tho.

From the air, Dubai looks flat, lots of limestone, sand etc. We caught the connecting flight to Heathrow and my sister and her boyfriend Kevin met us at the airport. We stayed in London for a week, it was really cool. Met up with some friends, bought some clothes and finally met Mike UK after 4 years of doing business without ever meeting each other

Saturday morning (31st May) we had to be ready to go by 11am and Kevin drove us all down to Southampton where the ship departs from. The drive was beautiful and as we got closer to Southampton we started trying to see the ship. We were like kids in the back and finally after seeing the wrong cruise ship, spotted the Independence. It was HUGE. Jacqui and Kev dropped us off and after meeting up with her folks, we managed to sneak a photo.

You check in all of your bags at the dockside, all you do is put on the baggage tags and there are porters who come and collect them. You then have to go through customs – by now I had got through Cape Town, Dubai and Heathrow with the diamond – this was the home stretch. So now you’re standing in something resembling an airport and all that was left to do was ‘check in’. Instead of a boarding pass, you are issued with a ‘Sea Pass’ which is essentially a credit card of sorts. You use it to board/depart the ship, open your room, charge anything to it, get towels etc. It becomes your ID once onboard. Here is what mine looked like:

At this stage you have been couped up in this building long enough and you just want to get onto the ship and see it from the inside. We made our way through the sea of silver hair and motorized wheelchairs onto the ramp. They do one last sea pass check as you get onboard. Then we walked in…

Your mouth kind of drops when you walk in. Everyone has this dazed look on their faces as they look around. You can’t actually believe this is a ship and that you are going cruising on it. All those late nights of freelance and extra work come together at that moment. You realise that the pain is worth it My first view was of the lobby and The Royal Promenade. Seconds ago I was looking at dreary Southampton and now I am looking at something resembling canal walk. You look up and down the lift lobby and you realize things look a little bigger/better on the inside! The photo below shows one of the lift lobbies. There were 16 lifts serving 15 floors.

This photo below shows a view down the promenade from the aft of the ship looking forward.

Yes that’s a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream parlor and yes that is an old couple at top speed down the promenade (ETA 7 minutes). That coffee shop on the left was open 24 hours a day and you could get cocktail rolls, coffee, hot chocolate, tea, etc all the time, all free. Each floor has a small model of the ship so you know exactly where you are. It takes a day or two to get your bearings but then you are sorted.

Bridge near Guest Relations which changed colour in a classy way

So now we’re onboard and the first thing we do is….try find our rooms. They send your baggage direct to outside your room so we thought we’d put our bags in our rooms and then head to the top deck to wave goodbye. The rooms (or “State Rooms”) span floors 2,3,4,6,7,8. Yes thats 2 = cheapo and 8 = super loaded, but hey, I would have taken crew quarters just to be onboard! Our room was on deck 2, Jackies parents were on deck 6 with a balcony. The first thing I did when I got to the room was stash the diamond on the room safe. Ahh now I could relax

Our room was actually very nice and we thought our 15cm porthole was the norm – we were completely stoked. After a few days of walking up and down the corridors and seeing that every room on our floor other than ours had a porthole almost a meter across we got suspicious. On going ashore in Gibraltar and looking back at the ship. I noticed that every 30 portholes or so, there was a tiny one. We had managed to land that tiny one. After some complaining, this fat american lady said it was unfortunate as the boat was fully booked so we’d have to make do even though we paid the same as people with the large portholes. After about 5 days we met George, the South African in charge of Guest Relations and in charge of the fat american lady. We were offered Room 3150 (3rd floor) with a large porthole and sent a bottle of wine to apologize. Thanks George The rooms were the same in size but that large porthole makes all the difference as you can see…

Our other porthole was about 1/3 width so make sure you specify this with your Travel Agent up front. You can’t book rooms but at least you can try avoid the 1 small porthole! The rooms are roomy enough. It reminds me of an aircraft in that every inch of space is used. The bathrooms are small yet you are amazed at how much they have in there and you never feel cramped. When you flush the loo it does that whole aircraft suction thing. Your room has a nice Samsung plasma in it and they have 40 channels on the boat. You also have wireless internet in your room but you pay US$ 0.55/minute so be prepared to check your mail quickly. I spent on average 8 minutes online per day so that’s R35p/day = R490 for the trip. Room service is free. Yes you heard me right. You just browse for what you want on the room service menu (using TV remote) and in 15 minutes it’s there. We only ordered room service once. You’re hardly ever in your room and when you are, you’re usually full

I have a bit of advice here for first time cruisers like ourselves. It’s 400 pounds extra p/p for a room with a balcony – looking back now I would pay that in a second – it’s so worth it. Portholes are cool but there is something about the sound of the sea…

So we all headed up to the top deck to say goodbye to Southampton. The vibe was totally awesome, I am sure there were cruise veterans there but Jackie, Dean and I were in our element with permanent grins. We gathered on the top deck and the crew had the music going, cocktails on trays and the bars were open. It was party time. It was sensory overload as we all tried to take in just what was happening. We were on the largest cruise liner on earth and the shore was packed with people waving us off. The Captain gave a few blasts on the hooter and we were off! Soon we were going past other cruise ships in the harbour and they were also on the deck waving like mad. Then came the emergency drill notification. We had to return to our rooms to get our life jackets so that we could perform the emergency drill. We put our life jackets on and made our way to our ‘Muster station’. That’s when I first saw the scale of old people on the boat Drill over and it was time to meet for dinner at Romeo and Juliet (our dining hall).

I don’t have a photo that does it justice but it’s a 3-story dining hall which is done out like the Titanic’s. There is a grand staircase and they have people playing violins on the stairs while you eat *flashbacks to sinking of titanic*. But it’s all class. Our initial table was right up against this pillar and then John and Sharon (veteran cruisers) noticed their waiter from a previous cruise – Mario from Portugal. He had now been promoted to head waiter and our table was moved right next to the captains table (show in picture above). So for the rest of the cruise we had a top spot. Mario was an absolute legend, as was our waitor for the cruize, Murat from Turkey. There are 62 nations represented by the crew and it’s amazing watching all these nations working together under pressure and still getting it right. They serve 15000 meals a day, all 5-star. I had sirloin a few times and it was very good. You can’t believe they can mass produce such quality food. Jackie loaded some video onto Zoopy of us dining in our penguin suits:

That evening we did a lot of exploring and at around 11pm Jackie, Dean and I decided we would end our first day with a jacuzzi Except this jacuzzi is hanging 12 feet off the side of the boat and is 11 storeys up! We lay there bubbling away as we cruized out of the English Channel. I had decided already that I would be proposing either in Barcelona or in Monte Carlo so I now had to try and get John alone for a moment so I could ask for his daughters hand in marriage – it would prove to be more difficult than I had anticipated

Our cruise had begun!