Illovo Beach Club — Hotel in KwaZulu-Natal

Illovo Beach Club offers affordable Self Catering accomodation which is very clean and well-appointed with Sea views for the most part. It has nice facilities, including an Outdoor play area for children, Adult and Baby Swimming pool, games room and Mini Golf(Putt-putt) for the kids. All amenities have steep stair access due to the property being set on the side of a hill with steep slopes.

Our stay was pleasant, although access to the units presents a challenge if you're a large family with alot of baggage, since the parking is set away from the units and it has no direct access by car to offload directly into the ammodation (Especially when it's raining). This is further complicated by the lack of baggage trolleys or porters to help carry your luggage quickly. So be sure that you will be doing a number of return trips to your car to fetch all your luggage. And if you have a trailer this will also be stored a distance away from your vehicle and will not have a roof covering.

Vervet monkeys also present a daily challenge around the premises, with frequent food raids occuring - when unsuspecting residents leave their doors and windows to their accomodation open. Their are no staff appointed to manage this ongoing barage of unwelcome visits from our persistent friends, and some monkeys display defiance and even aggression towards humans when chased away. This may present a problem for very young children if not supervised and I believe it is an accident waiting to happen if they don't attend to the problem anytime soon!

For those needing access to WIFI or basic cellphone reception, I found it to be quite a challenge with little or no reception at all inside the unit we stayed. So all communication had to be done outside then unit with no real benefit of a WIFI Connection offered by the Resort.

The accomodation is set well off the actual beach and access requires a fair walk down a very steep public road and then along a bush path that takes you over an active Railway line - via an pedestrian bridge that crosses high over the Railway and then through along a path down to quite a remote beach area without an official swimming area or lifegaurds. In it's favour, the beaches are beautiful and vast though..and it makes you feel like you're the only one on the beach for kilometers.

If you're looking for self-catering accommodation that is quiet and has some family amenities to offer for not more than a 3 to 5 day stay, then I would recommend Illovo beach Club. But you may do well to look around for something else if your needs are more focused around daily activities and easy access...

Very friendly staff. The maintenance guy who also served as assistant manager over the weekend we were there is also very very professional.

I do however have a few comments:

When we arrived at 13:30 the Friday afternoon, there was no staff on site to help us with our bags and we proceeded to pay the security guard something so we could get our bags up the stairs.

There are quite allot of stairs from the bottom parking to the rooms and no other way of getting to the rooms. Only the units in the upper section of the resort have easy room access. The tiles on the stairs are also very slippery. I dont recommend that any eldery people or people with a disability stay here. Again, the upper part of the resort is easier, but the bottom part is a no.

We had no real cellphone signal inside or outside the units. Eventhough there is sufficient Wifi available, when we had loadshedding i had to stand outside the gate to get a signal. I do recommend that some form of cell reception booster be installed which will solve this issue.

I STRONGLY recommend that some form of ramp be installed with trolleys or atleast an elevator that will make the carrying of groceries to the rooms allot easier. Its not an easy task walking up and down the stairs 3 times with heavy bags. Again, this is for the lower part of the resort.

The gate motor at the lower end of the resort needs to be replaced asap. Its not ideal to wait for someone to put the gate on manual and then have the gate stand open while there is loadshedding. Its not safe guys.

There were quite a few things broken or not working in our unit. Whether its a kettle that cant open or a towel railing that falls off. Luckily the Maintenance man is extremely professional and immediately sorted it out, but these things should not happen and everything should be checked weekly.

I hope the above helps in overall improvements to your resort. Overall we had a good stay. Thank you again to the...

The place is ideally located. However a warning: the ocean at this location is very wild and unpredictable. Also no lifeguards. The path to the beach front from Illovo Beach Club is somewhat scary, especially if you alone or just a couple. Be cautious. There are people with pets and they are not cleaning up after their pets, so there is dog feces on the path, road, etc... Recommendation, coordinate with the surrounding venues, setup a committee and invest in a upgrade for the path, a potential entertainment deck, lifeguards, and security for the beachfront you all share and your patrons utilize and try and enjoy. The club amenities are average and old, does need updating and should be free, rather all games, etc carry a fee. A great recommendation is they should install telephones in the rooms to access services and management more easily and effectively. Heat your swimming pools for the late winter, and spring guests to enjoy. The hot water heaters/ or geysers as its called per room or unit are entirely inadequate, especially considering the rooms accommodations are for up to 6 patrons,meaning only 2 people have a hot shower or bath and then the water is cold. Update or install larger safes to lock up personal items. Another recommendation, sell/supply ice, fire wood, and even sodas on-site, its high demand items and will be a major convenience for the Club patrons. Offer a shuttle to local and surrounding entertainment, that will also serve your Club patrons very well as a great convenience. I hope this will be considered, because it's an awesome location, that requires innovative bold venues to be more competitive. Beds are super comfy, spacious units and are kept well clean by the...