Since 2023 we have been spending the hot Texas summer months from June through August (winter in the southern hemisphere) in Sedgefield, a small beach town along South Africa’s Garden Route. A town which a Cape Town newspaper once sarcastically referred to as ‘slow town’. A moniker which Sedgefield has since adopted and which it associates with completely unironically. Why Sedgefield of all the places in Africa we might have selected for a winter/summer sojourn? Mostly to spend time with Bert’s mother and sister who live there and his brother and other family members and friends elsewhere in South Africa. Also to visit a mix of new and favorite safari and other properties in East and Southern Africa and Madagascar.

Getting there

This year we traveled to South Africa via Amsterdam and Nairobi with KLM. An airline which I will forever associate with race horses after having shared a flight with several thoroughbreds in a Boeing 747 Kombi from Houston to Amsterdam many years ago. We were in the back of the aircraft. The horses were in the far back. I still suspect those pampered equines had better food and definitely more legroom than we had.

This time around we had the leg up – in business class. Was it worth shelling out the additional money to sit up front? Ask me again after we’re back in Houston in September. After completing the first two legs of the journey (Houston to Amsterdam and AMS to Nairobi) I’m leaning in the yes direction but not by a huge margin. I’m going to have to go with ‘work horse’ rather than ‘race horse’ for KLM.

Inflight meals and service

While KLM has been pretty solid so far (except for losing one of my bags), it hasn’t sparked an endorphin rush. The onboard catering gets a mixed review at best. A couple of the starters, the bread and cheese selection and one or two of the main course offerings such as the jambalaya prawns, were excellent. Overall the food was much better on the Amsterdam to Nairobi leg than on the flight out of Houston. Bonus points for having Heineken Zero as an option. Even the airlines are now recognizing the rapidly growing demand for non alcoholic beverages beyond just soft drinks.

The friendly flight attendants and well above average movie collection took the sting out of the not-so-great other dinner and breakfast options.

Seating

There was very little to complain about the seating. Our 2D and 2G Boeing 787 Dreamliner seats (in a 1-2-1 configuration with direct aisle access) had lots of space, some intelligent design features, and in the lie-flat configuration I dozed off in no time. Avoid row 1 (particularly seats 1A and 1K) for their proximity to the toilets and for being right up against a curtain which separates the seating area from the galley. Seats 2D and 2G are not ideal either as they do not have directly overhead luggage storage space.

A nice touch was receiving a complimentary Delft Blue miniature ceramic house just prior to disembarking. With around 160 different ones in the series, these gin-filled  ceramic houses are unique collectibles.

There was nothing really exciting about KLM’s flagship Crown Lounge 52 in Amsterdam. The interior designer seems to have been hired away from Ikea and the food offerings were cafeteria-like and pretty bland. It was a struggle to get decaf coffee and forget about Diet Coke. There’s nothing particularly pleasing or soothing about the atmosphere and some of the seating options were cramped and uncomfortable. Not all of them, to be sure.

Poor WiFi and lost luggage

KLM earned two big demerits: poor inflight WiFi and not taking care of luggage. The advertised inflight WiFi was mostly not available or glacially slow (for the few short stints when it was on) for the duration of both flights (Houston to Amsterdam and Amsterdam to Nairobi). It was so bad I don’t think KLM should even claim to offer WiFi on those routes.

KLM has the dubious honor of being the first airline to lose (or temporarily displace if you’re feeling charitable) my luggage since South African Airways dropped that ball in 1996. 30 years and hundreds of flights ago. Irrespective of how soon they got the bag back to me (two days later), the damage had been done.

Even so, being on-time and reliable count for a lot nowadays and despite my misgivings about aspects of the overall product, we would travel with KLM again.

KLM photos courtesy Isaac Struna and Emile Molenaar. Luggage photo courtesy Erol Ahmed. All via Unsplash.