New Tour, New People into New Year

I never finished the last tour (blog) for you. Sorry.

Now I have a new tour with new people. BUT the weather in UK and Europe is playing havoc here in Cape Town. Itinerary states that the tour will start with 32 people on 22nd December.

Forget it!

The flight arrives, late - 25 minutes (a big margin in aviation time), an hour after landing I have 10 wonderful (but slightly disgrunteled) guests plus one (very) worried Tour Manager - Where is the rest of the group?

Answer: They never left the UK to catch the flight out of Europe!

So, what do I do?

Nothing! Do the itinerary as printed until I am officially advised that the rest are not going to be with us.

Now the fun startS. I have tickets for 32 people(for various tourist attractions - NO, NOT THE EYE OF EXCELLANCE-) and only 10 arrive. Can I fill the rest. NO!!  So I decide to play with the guests.Seat wise.
Here we have a (fully payed for) 44 seater coach, 10 (paying) passengers - so they get 3.6 seats per person per day!!!!(My maths is right, you fogot about the Tour Leader and the Guide{me}) How do I rotate seats?  Lets make the men move 2 (two) seats Anti-clockwise and the ladies 1 (one) seat clockwise! The men may never sit next to their wife again!! (on this trip). The best fun is going to happen when we go overland to the Garden route, there I will only have 7 guests - that will give them 6.29 seat each per day!!!!!!
I'll have to be very vigelant on my head counts!!

What this realy means is that each guest will have much better personal attention than a larger group. I love it! Smaller groups, more personal attention, more enjoyment for the guests and ultimatly greater satisfaction to me for having been able to make their(the guests) experience of South Africa that much more fullfilling and enjoyable