Thaba Eco Hotel — Hotel in Gauteng

Recently booked for a night’s stay at the Thaba Eco Hotel for a birthday party. Although the venue itself was stunning and the room that I had personally booked had a stunning view; the other family members in attendance did not have the most pleasant room – with broken doors, no hot water in 3 out of 5 rooms booked.

If the above was not bad enough, we had booked for a dinner for 12 – we arrived at 18h00 with all orders being placed before 19h00; most of the meals had arrived at 22h00. When placing the orders, the waiter had given the couples who were on the date night special their menu options and so forth. However, when the bill came the date night specials were still inclusive – this was raised with the waiter and the manager. We were then advised to manually subtract the date night special meals from our bill as they were unable/not willing to do so. After going through the lengthy exercise of manually calculating our own bill – to our surprise, we were charged for drinks that were not ordered by anyone at our table. I do understand that this was a “big table”; however, they capture your drinks and meal choice rather than a manual process- which leaves lesser room for errors.

After a whole 45mins of attempting to resolve the issue with the bill; we wrote this off as a bad day for the restaurant. The next morning, I arrived at breakfast just before 9am with one of the other couples and placed our orders for drinks and breakfast. An hour late, the food did not arrive however, we waited it out. A few off the other family members had now arrived and placed their orders and almost two hours (of us being there)- the food arrived. However, the meals that were placed at 08:47 still did not arrive and we had to attempt to find our waiter to assist us with this. The toast for the meals arrived at 09h30 and had been standing there until the food came at 10h35 – to which we had to ask for butter and even cutlery. We had requested the bill, we took at least 20 minutes to arrive, only to see that we had been charged for all meals despite 8 meals being inclusive in our booking. This took an additional 45 mins to resolve; with no one being able to resolve the issue at hand.

A manager finally came to the table to apologize and blamed it on a system error amongst other things. We were asked our room numbers on arrival and a manual process of them noting it down at the entrance was done – not sure if this was the system? To further add to this, the restaurant was not COVID compliant with only one sanitizer being available at ONE entrance. They did not wipe down the tables when new patrons arrived (we were there long enough to see people come & go), no sanitizer at the bathrooms or at demarcated areas within the restaurant.

The attitude of the management and staff was horrible, the service was even worse. As much as the venue itself was beautiful, if you’re looking for a stress free break and to relax – you’ll definitely not be getting that...

Thaba Eco Hotel

My hubby and I booked and reserved Lobola hall in Jan 2019. This is where we had the pleasure of meeting the amazing and incredibly helpful Mbhavi. We planned everything from floor plans to food times, walk in songs and decor colors.

Little did we know, a disaster called COVID 19 would foil our dream wedding. Everything crashed and we were left with our unfulfilled dreams...Mbhavi understood the stress we went through not only as a couple but as a country and as a frontline worker.

He understood that my work times clashed with wedding planning, he understood that we had high risk family members that concerned us, he understood that we were getting drained emotionally and physically and of all things he understood that I am a princess and wanted a pretty wedding!

We would call him at odd hours, on public holidays, weekends and during his family time. He always answered our calls with pleasure, replied to messages and emails, he assisted us in every way possible till the day of the wedding. He has honestly been a blessing to my husband and I, especially due to the fact that our 200 guest wedding was reduced to 5 guests, he stood with us through the entire ceremony and made sure that everything went as planned and as well as it could have gone. It was a one man show with us being behind scenes and the on the floor.

The day after the wedding, he met us for breakfast checked on how the evening was, were there any hiccups in the rooms etc, he went as far as to check up on us in the first and second week of marriage.

He has not only been a phenomenal wedding coordinator but he’s been a great human being and has become a dear friend. The relation we’ve built over the last 2 years is a special one. We are thankful to Mbhavi and the entire team at Thaba Eco Hotel.

Over the 2 years we had the honour of engaging with the entire team, including Kirsty and Cindi. I met them on the 4th Jan, in between working hours, in the middle of the covid 2nd wave...I totally broke down. It was exhausting to keep on cancelling and making plans in such uncertain times, making sure that family and friends were safe, making sure that work was covered, it just all became too much for us as a couple. Kirsty reassured us that we would have to ‘Attend’ our wedding and do nothing else. Thaba would take care of everything!!

And that’s exactly what happened!! Thaba made our wedding so magical and memorable with a total of 7 guests...it was unbelievable!!

I honestly thank them and commend them for their hard work and good spirits during such uncertain times. With all that’s been happening they still are the best group of people to work...

It saddens me that a year ago I was here at TEH and I rated this place 5/5 because of the service, rooms and food.

To provide context my family(12 People) and I decided that this would be the best place to have a 40th Birthday party each family, booked a room, so in total we had 5 rooms. Rooms aren't cheap so to receive the service we did was appalling

Let me begin with check in. Once we received our keys, we made our way to the room, to find that the veranda door was was broken off the hinge the mini bar was not stocked and none of the room phones worked. When we get to reception the gentleman assisting us just said " I'll sort it out". Unapologetic service, with no indication to the customer what exactly will be done. Props to their team for resolving this before dinner( at 6pm). But the bad service continues.

4 out of the 5 rooms booked a package that included dinner and breakfast. At dinner we were served our food at 8:30, we reached dinner at 6:30. We were told that we are a big table so we understood. When the youngest at the table received her chicken strips it was totally burnt and inedible. When raised to the waiters attention the attitude and statement from the waiter was "and?" once again no apologies were made he even went on to say that he is not in charge of what the kitchen does.

When the bill arrives everything was added to the bill including the date night package stuff, this took 40 minutes to rectify, not to mention the things that were added to the bill that weren't ours.

Breakfast the next morning, 4 family members decided to have breakfast early before checkout. Upon arrival their room numbers were taken and they were seated at 8:47 and they ordered their food, the rest of the family members joined at 9:45, food was only served at 10:35. 4 family members waited over 2 hours for breakfast. Once again unapologetic service.

The last point was the bill, just like the previous night, everything was added to the bill. To rectify this, this took 45 minutes and we even spoke to the manager on duty.

Why is your room number taken if stuff still gets added to the bill, is this hotel billing unaware customers. Please be careful and confirm your packages. this is...