Estuary Villas — Hotel in Hibiscus Coast Local Municipality

Stayed 23rd Dec 22 - 30 Dec 22 in Villa 16. All Villa's are owner managed not estate managed. This means, very inconsistent experiences when staying here. Previously stayed at Villa 21 (David's Place on Airbnb), which was great. We also stayed in Villa 26, see review by a different family member below.

This Villa(16) is not listed on Air BnB, First red flag, as Air Bnb has insurance when it comes to places and situations like this. Villa 16 is a 12 sleeper, and is for sale by the owner -2nd Red Flag that you will only see on arrival. We feel extremely cheated staying in this unit particularly. Cost R 4250 per night!

On arrival this house smelt extremely musty and gross. We assumed it hadn't been open or aired out in a long time. Only to find out it was occupied at least twice in December by 2 different people. One of them, leaving a review that said hygiene issue below. This smell remained the entire stay. The cleaning service we paid R 200 per day for, only comes in to wash dishes, replace towels, dress beds, sweep and mop. It is the Owners responsibility to deep clean in between stays.

We took it upon our self to clean and even bought dehumidifiers and air fresheners. Even then the smell remained. The tiling and carpeting in the house are all dark colors. This hides the dirt and source of the smells really well. One room downstairs had white curtains, and when you look at it closer you can see why the house smells. Just our luck it rained everyday from day 2 and the smell just intensified!

The house itself and everything in it is very old, almost antique. While some of the décor is somewhat charming the furniture itself is worn down to almost nothing. You will literally feel the metal springs in the bed. The pillows and Duvet inners are so thin and flat they are basically just 3 sheets. The backrests on the couches in the lounge don't even stand upright anymore. You will feel hard wood poking into you. The only place this "12 sleeper" was comfortable was around the dining room table. The couches outside are literally broken and sagging, they look like they belonged inside decades ago. They are covered by old dirty duvets. Picture: duvet covers on a fabric couch in the wind, rain and sun - Never washed never cleaned, constantly damp. Needless to say it is infested by bugs, and actually made us Itchy on the first day. Never used it again. The upstairs patio has 2 antique looking dusty chairs and nothing else. 12 people in 1 house for 5 days and we mostly sat on the hard dining room benches.

The kitchen is pretty, however the things in the kitchen need to be replaced! We lost so much food as ants infest everything. Covered, sealed or not. The fridge and freezer are large but falling apart. We were terrified we would be held responsible for all the broken and cracked components. But you can see its yellowed with age and been there for ages. The cutlery drawers have ants living in it. So everything that is used has to be washed first. And while we were there the microwave started catching on fire one day, while we warmed our child's milk. Fortunately this is one thing the estate can fix. A repair man was called out later that day.

I asked the Estate Manager to come look at all our concerns on out 4th day there (late because of Christmas and boxing day.) Actually complained about the ants when we walked in on the first day already. He acknowledged all the issues and asked us to send an email. We did on departure, but there has been no response from the owner.

So why hasn't many people complained before? For a few reasons, if you want to review this place on google, you can only post a review once. Which means, if like us you've been here before to a different Villa, you cant review a new Villa unless you change your old one. This Particular Villa is also not available on any other platform for booking. Please don't waste your hard earned money on a miserable holiday experience. It is a lot of money that many people spend the whole year saving for its been a month and our sentiments...

Booked this holiday in 2021 to stay in the self catering Villas, however had to reschedule due to Covid etc. Estuary(Brandon) was really accommodating, only reason I haven't given this just 1 star.

The issue here is mainly that each Villa is owner managed. We are returning customers, who have previously stayed in Villa 21, Called Davids Place on Air bnb. We had such a fantastic experience there previously. This time (Check in 23rd Dec 22- Check out 30th Dec 22) we book the 12 sleeper (Villa 16) and the 8 sleeper (Villa 26). I will review villa 16 separately.

You are able to book this Villa on Air Bnb. Which I recommend. On arrival, the Villa manager, had spoken to my dad (the gentleman staying in the downstairs unit) left her number and assured us we could call her for anything we needed.

The Villa was clean, and smelled of detergent (a good thing). It looked as in the pictures, however it is quite dated. Especially the bathrooms, and the kitchen downstairs. The beds are super old and uncomfortable, so keep that in mind.

Issues: we had 2 different families staying here, as the downstairs and upstairs units are completely separate. The industry standard in terms of linen: is a change of sheets every 3 days. We had additional guests arriving 3 days later and requested the sheets to be changed, on only 3 beds not all beds. I called the manager, who was extremely annoyed at this request. I then explained who the guest in this scenario was and she grudgingly agreed to do a linen change for R 350 in addition to the R 200 cleaning fee daily already paid. Villa 26 Cost us R 2650 per night. About the same price for the competition down the road, who does change the sheets every 3 days.

In addition to this, on booking, we were told, the cleaning service will come at 8ish, if we are not ready for her she will come again at 11ish. On this particular morning, the cleaning lady did not return (every other morning she cleaned at 8am). We called the villa manager at 11:30. Again extremely annoyed she argued that the lady had already been past and we were not ready so tough luck. I advised her that I have the cleaning service agreement on email and I feel let down as the guest. She advise that this was not communicated to her and she will speak to the estate manager. Cleaner returned as per original agreement.

Industry standard- check in at 14:00pm, check out at 11:00am. Estuary: check in at 15:00pm, check out at 10:00am. The cleaners and manager at V26, definitely enforced this. They came in before 10am and by 10am when one member of our family was not ready the rest of the family actually waited in the car as they felt like they were chased out. Please keep this in mind, when renting Villa 26.

Finally, this section of the estate has a boom gate with controlled access, so we requested 2 remotes for access as we had 2 cars. We were issued with the 2nd remote on the 4th day. The extra remote was personally given to the person in the downstairs unit (My Dad) by the villa manager. On the day of checkout, He was in the shower, and at 10:20 when the last person upstairs (Different Family) was exiting the manager asked for the 2nd remote. The person explained they do not have it it must be with the gentleman in the downstairs unit who is still inside. The manager was extremely upset and insisted she gave the remote to this gentleman. She literally stopped their car and said you can not leave until you give me my keys. At this point she was screaming at the gentleman. The family staying here was invited, and had not dealings with the bookings or admin. They were left extremely stressed out, uncomfortable and saddened at the end of their stay. Needless to say, when the gentleman from the downstairs unit walked out 15 mins later, he handed the manager the key. Why did we pay a key and breakage deposit of R 1000 extra + a R200 cleaning fee per day for such stress?

My advice, protect your hard earned money and book an air bnb, as they take these issues seriously and will refund if unhappy for...

UP UNTIL TODAY 16/04/2018 I AM STILL WAITING FOR FEEDBACK FROM ESTUARY VILLAS

PLEASE BE AWARE AND BE WARNED OF :

1 - Breakage fee of R 1000 is not handle properly, (you have to give it to the security) No payment document issued.

2 - They do not conduct they business as per they T.C ref. to breakage amount and maid service.

3 - Breakage fee was not fully paid back to me as stated on the agreement.

4 - When reporting the money i had received back for the breakage fee was not R 1000 as required for cash key & breakage deposit. No proper investigation was carried out by the employees.

5 - When doing a follow up (after 2/3 weeks of not being updated or contacted about the investigation) with the employee about the issue reported, i was then sent an e-mail that states, 'Hi, Apologies, I have followed up and R 1000.00 was received. I think the cash was incorrectly counted when paying breakage and cleaning, which happens to all of us sometime or another. And without a receipt I am unable to assist further. I know you guys have been a couple of times and I would love to resolve but am unable to without any proof of payment.' The confusing part about this all of this and the e-mail from the Estuary villa employee is, arrangements were made in before arrival with the employee that a R 1000 FOR CASH KEY & BREAKAGE WOULD BE PAID AND A ADDITIONAL R 100 for MAID SERVICE WOULD BE PAIN TOTALING UP TO R 1100 (as per the T& C), but now this employee & the security have no idea what happened to the additional R 100 for MAID SERVICE. AND MY QUESTION WAS, WHY SEND A MAID IF YOU HAVE NOT RECEIVED THE PAYMENT FOR THE SERVICE???? So let me say between the security who accepted the breakage fee & maid service fee and the Estuary villas employee who arranged for the money to given to him, someone between them took an amount from my breakage fee and used it for his/her...