2010 Advice and Updates for Soccer Travel in South Africa.

TIPS AND ADVICE FOR SOCCER FANS

Updated: June 25, 2010. Latest News: The Group stages have seen some surprise eliminations, the world has witnessed the spectacular success of the tournament so far and the friendliness with which fans have been welcomed. You can still get hotel accommodation and tickets for the remaining games. Let us help you with your acommodation requirements. Book tickets through Fifa's website, or by phone on (South Africa): ( 083 123 2010. International: ( +41 44 583 2010.

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There is also an update in our guide on preliminary Team Squads for each competing nation, with Spain, Argentina and North Korea having listd their Final 23 Players. There is also an update on visa waivers for ticket holders who might have needed visas - good news for Mexican fans! More details on 2010 Visas here.

With only three weks till kick-off, it is still not too late for fans to plan a trip. In fact, the best deals and cheapest arrangements are really presenting themselves now.

Airlines have slashed fares on some international routes, while the domestic airlines have realised that World Cup is not going to be the big fat cash cow they were expecting. SAA has announced the release of 45 000 seats it was holding for Match.

ACCOMMODATION PRICES

Hotels and guest houses who signed up with Match (who in turn added on 30%), or upped their prices to ridiculous levels and are now left wondering why so few international soccer fans have made plans to be in South Africa. Of course, many of the top hotels and resorts are full (mostly booked by corporates etc), but Match has quietly been releasing rooms they were holding and these are now available on the open market. Fill out the form below and tell us what you want and we will do it!

Soccer City, Soweto, Johannesburg, hosts the opening and closing matches.

SOCCER FANS SAFARI ENQUIRY
FIRST NAME & SURNAME:
EMAIL:
NO. PEOPLE:
PREFERRED DATES:
BUDGET pp/day (US$)
YOUR MATCHES: (eg. List the games you will attend)
COMMENTS: (eg. Any specific destinations you prefer to visit, any activities or interests and information that will help us meet your requirements)	Please enter the above security characters into the field below. This is done to prevent automated spam.

AIRLINES & AIRFARES

A while back, major airlines were quoting ridiculous prices to get to South Africa for the World Cup.

Suddenly, South African Airways and British Airways are more realistic on prices between London and Johannesburg. There are also cheap options into SA via the Gulf states or Mauritius. We have done some price comparisions around flexible dates and this is what we found online.

LONDON to JOHANNESBURG RETURN:
Direct London - Johannesburg - London: SAA £1006; BA £1223, Virgin Atlantic £1126. Good to see the 3 airlines competing on the direct route now quoting decent prices. Non direct routes also provide some interesting options, with Air Mauritius via Mauritius at £789; Emirates via Dubai at £1397 and Etihad via Abu Dhabi at £1427.

NEW YORK to JOHANNESBURG RETURN:
Emirates via Dubai at $2130 is the best we found and SAA still way too high at $3900! Between Atlanta and Johannesburg, Delta is quoting over $4000!

DOMESTIC ROUTES:
SAA announced that they will sell 45 000 plane tickets it had reserved for the FIFA World Cup at a discount. "Match initially required 45 000 return seats for the World Cup. But the number of seats they required kept dropping until it got to 1000," said a SAA spokeswoman. That sounds a bit alarming to us! Anyway, we did a quick test and found a return Cape Town to Johannesburg flight on the same day to watch Netherlands play Denmark on June 14th, for R1800. Good Deal!!!

Earlier in March, we tested a few routes and found these prices on Johannesburg to Cape Town return. SAA appears to be alone in continuing to overcharge with quotes between R2500 and R7000, while BA quoted R1748, Kulula.com between R1400 to R2000, Mango around R2200 and 1time around R1800. ($1=R7.4; £1=R11.15; 1EUR=R10.1)

TEAM NEWS

According to the Castrol Predictor (check it out here) the team with the highest chance of winning the 2010 FIFA World Cup™ Final is Brazil (23.6%) followed by Spain (16.1%), England (10.4%), Netherlands (10.1%), Argentina (7.5%), Germany (5.8%), Italy (3.6%), Uruguay (2.7%), France (2.6%) and USA (2.4%). It is even more helpful for people planning their World Cup travels to check out their team's chances through the various stages of the Finals. .

Team news is that South Africa's Training ground will be at Sturrock Park, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Netherlands will also train at University of Witwatersrand on the East Campus grounds. England's training ground is at Royal Bafokeng near Rustenburg. Check out all the team stats and base camp locations in section 6.2 of our 2010 Guide or take a quick glance here.

Football! Soccer! Futbol! 2010 News!

TIPS AND ADVICE FOR SOCCER FANS

ACCOMMODATION PRICES

AIRLINES & AIRFARES

TEAM NEWS

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