IanE714London, England
4.0Eat here, stay somewhere else
Liked mostThis was one of four hotels we stayed in during a holiday in South Africa and Zambia. Unfortunately it was the worst of the four by quite a big margin. On the positive side the hotel is located right in the centre of Franschhoek so it provides a good base to explore the town. We would also recommend Protégé restaurant where we had breakfast and also a very good quality dinner. The service there was always excellent. Our room, was also comfortable, clean and well equipped albeit we had persistent problems with the light switches which work strangely and have instruction stickers on them which is unusual but necessary as they don’t appear to work intuitively. The main problems are that, first and foremost, we found the service in the hotel lacked the warmth and consistency you get in other quality hotels in South Africa. Management are not very visible despite the fact this is a small property which presents plenty of opportunity for staff to get to know their guests if they wished to. Our arrival created an awful first impression. First of all you arrive to the rear of the property. We had to search for a doorman to help with our bags. We were then taken to a “holding lounge” opposite reception where we waited quite a while despite the hotel seeming to be quite quiet. The lady who checked us in wasn’t welcoming at all and, as she walked us to our room, she did nothing but list the rules of the property and point out other rooms which would have apparently been nicer than ours! By the time we reached our room we wanted to leave and asked to speak to a manager. The two people who came to see us assured us the service would improve however, honestly, we should have left and stayed somewhere else as the first impressions of the service proved to be accurate. We would also say that the design of this property doesn’t make it a pleasant place to stay. The rear entrance and lack of any common lobby area make it feel very impersonal and more like staying in a rental property. It also lacks a gym or fitness centre necessitating a trip to a sister hotel to use such facilities which isn’t ideal.