The Waterfront is an area of stores and restaurants where you can spend an hour or a day. From there you can travel to Robben Island, take a variety of boat tours, and even tour the area in a helicopter. The Two Oceans Aquarium is just three blocks inland.
Shopping includes a 3 story modern mall that has a wide variety of stores and restaurants. There is even a large grocery. There are many stores along the waterfront, selling souvenirs, clothes, and needed supplies. You will find several banks here and ATM machines.
You can eat in the food court, dockside (I ecommend ‘Fisherman‘s Choice‘, south of the big mall), or in a cafe.
The nicest part f the waterfront is the local performers showing off their abilities. During the early evening and all day on the weekends you can listen to singers and musicians, and watch many different street performers. The better performers attract quite a crowd.
To learn more about the waterfront visit http://www.waterfront.co.za/ Here you will find everything you need to know.

My arrival in Cape Town put me in the center of a fairytale. As my ship glided into the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront we were greeted by children on a ferry hurrying off to school, sea lions floating lazily in the water, yachts racing in the distance, and Table Mountain beckoning us to come closer. I couldn’t help to think that I was in Disneyland. The waterfront has a plasticness to it a sense that things appear happier then the are.
The waterfront offers a multitude of activates everywhere you turn, and by the off chance that you get bored I suggest just opening your eyes. Everywhere I went there were performers on the street singing, dancing, and just having fun. There energy is intoxicating. Shops line the street and lead up to a huge mall where you can you can find everything from Gucci and Dolce & Gabbana to American comfort food.
Along the waterfront there is a small white bridge that leads in the direction of a smaller mall where the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront Information Centre can be found (Clock Tower Centre, South Arm Rd. tele. 021/405-4500, open 9-9 everyday). Here information on anything that you could ever dream of doing in Cape Town and in the surrounding areas can be found. Outside of the mall there is a large sign that points to different world cities and shows how far away they are. Just behind the sign there is a small concert area where sea lions can crawl out of the water for nap. At night it’s easy to find at least a dozen sleeping there.
Among the restaurants that line the waterfront St. Elmo’s stood out as one of my favorite. South African has a way of taking everyday classics and turning them into a fabulous dish that even Emril couldn’t turn down. St. Elmo’s is no exception. Their outside dining room offers a view over looking the waterfront. When the waiter comes he brings a round menu that you rotate a dial on to place your order. There menu consists of a variety of pizza.
Two Oceans Aquarium on the Marina’s North Wharf on Dock Road offers a variety of aquatic life from both the Atlantic and Indian Ocean. Admission is R55 for adults and R25 for children. The exhibits included the largest crabs that I ever saw in my life, jellyfish, a tank that sea lions could swim into, and a tank full of predators of the ocean. My favorite area was a small puppet show hosted by poop (yes, poop) that showed everyone the importance of recycling. It is hilarious.

Cape Town is a large and bustling city that has the feel of San Francisco. The waterfront area is an attraction all in itself with museums, shopping galore, and restaurant choices for every taste and pocketbook. The mall has major retailers, as well as specialty shops with South African treasures and merchandise. You can view Table Mountain from the outside walks of the V&A Mall or watch boats bustling in and out of the harbor. We noted that many of the major retailers are different than what you most often see in the US and Europe. We are not generally mall rats, but we managed to walk the long indoor corridors for hours. It is a well-lighted mall with wide walks. There are squares around the mall where there is often entertainment in the form of bands. The V&A Mall can be a destination for more than 1 day when visiting.

Heading down to the Victoria and Alfred waterfront from our hotel was a quick 5-minute taxi ride. When pulling up, it looks like a regular shopping mall you would find anywhere in the US. The inside of the mall is also very similar, just different brands and stores, but once outside, it's a different story.

As you walk outside, you are greeted by the Cape Town harbor, with spectacular views of Table Mountain and the Atlantic Ocean. There are also a lot of stores outside, though most are all different types of restaurants. On the deck, there is always some kind of entertainment going on, from magic shows to the ever-popular Zulu gumboot dancers. Hearing them sing and dance brought tears to my eyes. Coming from south Africa, it just reminded me the wonderful culture from which I come. They put on an amazing show, and I would highly recommend bringing your camcorder for the authentic African adventure.

In the early 1970s, the Capetonians wanted more extensive use of the city's historic harbour area, laid in the 1860s when Prince Alfred (Victoria's second son) symbolically tipped the first load of stone into the sea to start off construction on the port which was to bear his name -- it wasn't long before the expansion of trade routes to the East had transformed the city and discovery of gold and diamonds meant that the first section of harbour, the Alfred Basin, needed to be extended, and the Victoria Basin was added on by 1920.

The area is still notable for its outstanding heritage buildings, retaining some of the charm of its Victorian industrial architecture and giving you a feel for the scale of a harbour built for sail and the early days of steam travel.

By the 1970s, though, cargo handling and transportation alongside the re-opening of the Suez Canal and South Africa's apartheid pariah status caused a sharp downturn in the V&A's fortunes, and instead, its owners turned it into a leisure site with dozens of restaurants (some have bars for sipping outside on deck), bars, a world-class aquarium, three cinemas (including an IMAX), conferences facilities, hotels, shops; a playground of shining chrome and smiling, busy visitors. However, look carefully and you'll see there remain a few of the older signs of yesteryear...

Near to the site of the original Bertie's Landing restaurant is the Victorian Port Captain's Office (1882) with its Gothic-style Clock Tower; always an icon of the old docks, they were reworked around it so it remains a focal point in the redesigned waterfront. Look out for the second-floor mirror room, which allowed the Captain a view of all harbourside goings-on, and the ground-floor "tide-gauge." Captain Robert Wauchope's Time Ball Tower (1894), next to the Dock House where the Harbour Engineer lived, was a signalling device in which a ball dropped at a set time so that ships' masters could verify the accuracy of on-board chronometers. Next to it is the century-old, bedraggled Dragon Tree (dracaeno draco), believed to result from a seed dropped by a visitor from the Canary Islands -- it suffered badly in 2001 storms but seems to be recovering slowly.

Also next door to the red-roofed Clock Tower is the Robben Island Exhibition and Information Centre, where you buy tickets for embarkation on the catamaran for Robben Island guided tours (3.5 hrs; 150Rpp -- see entry above). (At present (Dec. 2003), there's an exhibition of Nelson Mandela's art from his Robben Island days).

Cape fur seals play In the dock waters. "Robben" means "seals" in Dutch - the island was named after them, as they often hung, and still hang, around the area, as a source of food lives there - jackass penguins! They idle around, often in pairs, performing for their own amusement -- occasionally, boatloads of oarsmen pass round the harbour and the seals tag along...