Olive Hill Country Lodge — Hotel in Free State

I have never left a negative review in my traveling life about a small business and I do realize that this is not a 5 starred boutique hotel but dear me, I also think that you can expect some sort of standard when you get here, Unfortunately, the standard in Olive Hill Country Lodge was very poor. Where do I start? Having arrived here we had to wait for good 15 minutes to be check-in when finally the owner arrived from whatever to come and meet us in a very unproffesional flirty manner. He took us to our so called room without any check-ins procedures, the room was very small with two single beds things, with not much space for anything, bathroom without Amenities...No Wi-fi in a room...After such check-in we asked him to organize our dinner earlier as we have been driving the whole day and all tired, asked for extra lunch for our entire stay and what we got from him was a response like we are asking for something from mars as he told us that they don't do lunch and he will scramble something for us by moving our dinner to lunch and will make plans for dinner...We are here with business and all the cost it's on our company as a full bill back to the company...After 30 minutes in this room he comes back to move us to another room as he made a mistake of checking us in a single bed room...No help with our bags to the next room that was still bad as the previous one, No Amenities in the bathroom...Only hands soap, hand-wash and shampoo...So we called the booking agent to make an alternative stay for us but not knowing the agent told the owner and he came busting in our room with two more Hand-wash and told us that it's the only Amenities he provides to his guests and we can use it as bath-shower soap...fast forwarding to the dinner we gets 2 burgers patties cooked in rice and half a squash as our dinner with OROS mixed juice...And that's when we told ourselves that we are not going to treated like we are an inconveniences to this establishment, so we cancelled our entire stay of 4 days in this unprofessional establishment...very ABSOLUTELY disgusting about this behavior from Olive Hill Country Lodge...I never complains about small business but if you decide to get yourself in a Hospitality Industry you have to work hard to uphold the standards and oaths the industry and especially your customer deserves...I have been in the industry for more than 15 years and severed as Barman, Bar manager, Hotel manager, Wine sales person, Deejay, and presently a vintner and business owner...I believe if you charge customers for a service try and make sure deliver the best service ever...I will never stay or referring someone to this establishment...Olive Hill...

No thanks, 2 stars at best. The pictures are completely misleading. If you look in the opposite direction from where the cover photo was taken, you look directly onto the neighbour's yard - the one with the old caravan and broken trailer at the entrance.||||A few things the other reviewers failed to mention. Olive Hill sits in the outskirts of a tired part of town, past a truck depot, cement quarry, and railway line, you turn at the local worker's "cash shop" and booze shop (with its patrons hanging around). Less than 1km from there you turn into Olive Hill's gate - the name derived from a rather optimistically named neighbourhood - not the trees or landscape. A sign (next to the security company's sign) informs you you are staying "at your own risk". ||||We parked and Linda welcomed us by deactivating the alarm system in the room, and telling us the code for the alarm panel, should it go off during the night (but they are fully occupied for the night so they don't expect any problems). Burglar bars on the windows, but not the doors?||||The room is okay for the money, but we could not clean the dried pool of milk the previous occupants left in the microwave (or the dirty wineglasses), because the dish cloths were stinking. Four slices of plain bread, 2 white, 2 brown in a Tupperware container in the fridge for the "continental breakfast". No condiments, but a bit of milk in a jug - unsealed obviously. Linda helped to sort out the issues.||||No curtains in the bathroom, ladies, and although the sheets were clean, the duvet over it was not. Toilet seat loose; mould in the shower.||||Made a run for take-aways as Linda's kitchen was closed, to a mall which did not really survive the recession. Would not want to drive the road at night to go out for dinner.||||Bedtime was interesting when the air-conditioning gave in, and we discovered it was hiding the noise of our next door guests arguing and swearing - charming. From around 3h30 a.m. a choir of cockerels started crowing with increasing urgency, until we could finally get up and get out! ||||Even if you are on a budget it is not...

We needed a place to take photos for my sons matric farewell he and his friends wanted to take photos in the field, they wanted a farm feeling. I contacted a lot of places in Bloemfontein but I could not find the right place, some of the places I contacted charged a huge amount of money just to take photos. I went onto Google Maps and search for a place near Monte Bello because the Matricfarewell was held there, then I saw Olive Hill Country Lodge, I contacted them and from the moment they answered the phone they where very helpful and said that I can come and and have a look if it will work for us to take photos there, upon arrival at Olive Hill Country Lodge Derik was very friendly and helpful. The place was perfect, just what we had in mind the large verandah in front of the Lodge is beautiful, as well as the garden, and the farm feeling what the children wanted was there, with sheep in the background as well. On the day the parents could also join the children and we had a special gathering with our children, before the children had to go to Monte Bello Estate that is just a 5 minute drive away from Olive Hill, that was also very convenient for us. Derik opened one of the rooms for us to use the bathroom facilities, the room is beautiful and very clean I can highly recommend this place for a brake away weekend, or an overnight stay as it is not far out of the city. Thank you Derik for your friendliness and help we had a wonderful time at Olive Hill...