Several sections of our winter were going to be on ocean cruises. However, NCL decided to cancel its initial sailing from Dubai. The image shows our intended way to get from Dubai to Mauritius. The original plans were cancelled because of the ongoing trouble in the Red Sea. The ship will take the long way around the tip of Africa and begin its season too late for our scheduled sailing. We have chosen to spend the two weeks, that were to be on the first ship, in a single location. Zanzibar is one of the ports we will miss. The Emirates tickets purchased today will get us there. (That does mean missing the Seychelles and other important ports, but we'll get to them some other year!) Although we've read a lot about Zanzibar, we've never been there.
The Dubai portion of our winter plans from November 11th to 22nd will remain the same. We have hotel reservations and plans in that city again. Additionally, we did not modify our Airbnb from December 8th to January 5th on the island of Mauritius. So our Port Louis stay during Christmas and New Year remains unchanged.
Following that, a bit into the new year, we'll get on our purchased cruise and sail to South Africa. That was always a planned itinerary and it's still a go. And South Africa will be our final destination until spring.
The closest we've ever been to Zanzibar is shown in this photo taken exactly thirty years ago. We spent some school vacation time in Kenya. After Nairobi, we travelled on a safari and eventually took a train to Mombasa. This picture on the beach was taken in February 1994. Zanzibar's islands are about 250 km to my back.