La Dolce Vita Guesthouse Hartbeespoortdam — Hotel in Madibeng Local Municipality

Summary: Disappointing stay, no water during stay, great view though.

Detail: I don't normally leave reviews but if I can help someone out, I hope this is it. Make sure to CALL BEFORE you book online and confirm if there is water. It is a basic human need but yeah, no water in the area during our 3 days there. It ruined the weekend but the staff could not do much. Fault should be placed on the owners to make sufficient back up plans for their Paying staff.

Room: We stayed in their honeymoon suite and i can vouch for the view, its amazing, the property sits on a hillside overlooking the dam, so pleasant view and decent manicured lawn, but that along with the friendly staff is where the positives end.

Facilities: The property does need a lot of maintenance, could be mistaken for an intentional raustic look, but no, its just old. The walk to the room is through a musty dusty attic type setup and can get very stuffy as air does not circulate. The room has old furniture and the suite has two single beds combined as opposed to a Queen or King (not very romantic). Dstv worked, could watch the EPL and aircon was ok (would suggest closing windows early before insects get in).

Cleanliness: The pool was also dirty, given the lack of water, clean pool water could have helped but nope, thats not properly maintained either (it looks better at night as they have a blue light that kinda makes it look better). During our stay the room was cleaned and I assume towels changed.

Food: Breakfast was free for our booking, really nothing special.. toast, eggs, rashers, beans, tea, tomato.. would get you going (again friendly staff, in particular Jeanet was the highlight). We tried the local Kosmos Cafe and can vouch for their cheese burger and their Creamy Pepper pasta with beef strips (I should drop them a review too, would recommend no doubt). The guesthouse did not serve lunch or dinner during our stay

Safety: Within the Kosmos estate, it does appear safe (you get put off by the shacks being erected along street leading to estate) but nothing suggested otherwise. Car was parked outside, similar to other nearby guesthouses.

But again, call to make sure there is water or any other basic amenity. Don't think its worth almost 2k a night, but yea...

Upon arrival we were told that we were upgraded to the best room. We booked the honeymoon two day getaway of luxury for over R3000 a night. Nothing about it was luxury. The room was cosmetically made up and appealing on arrival. After 2 hours of being there, we start seeing the cracks. The place needs maintenance. The bathroom/toilet was tiny, dilapidated with no air ventilation and the toilet door which basically opens up to the bed, did not close. Our room was on the garden patio, next to the staff toilets, so we had a lot of traffic pass our room. A tiny tv with no channels and cords hanging. The view which is the selling point for this venue could not be enjoyed. As the sunsets, our bedroom is clearly visible to all who passes by, so the blinds and curtains must be drawn. So no jacuzzi with a view and no romantic sunset or sunrise over the dam. Our deck chairs were stained and looked dirty so we could not sit outside. We were sold a 3 course fine dining dinner followed by Belgian chocolates and Italian coffee. It was a 2 course dinner. The main was chicken schnitzel with rice, broccoli and carrots and a sauce that fell apart. The chocolates were one Ferrero Rocher and no Italian coffee as the machine is broken. Once enclosed in the room, you feel claustrophobic and the the smell clogged us up, so we could not sleep. The bedding also felt cheap and not luxurious. Unable to sleep, we spent the night looking for alternate accommodation. After one night stay we checked out early the next morning losing our money as we could stay another night. This was our first getaway without the kids in a long while. And we wanted luxury, pampering romance and privacy, we received none. The one great thing about the place is excellent staff (Irene, Zelna, Phineas). Unfortunately that does not make up for the bad experience. Keep searching ladies and gentlemen, you can find luxury, romance and privacy for the same price, elsewhere. We check into Chateaux Le Mer and received what we were looking and more at...

The worst. We booked for a conference and honestly that place is not for conferences. The conference was for 22 people and because of that we had some people stay in the another guesthouse which I understood except to get the guesthouse you have to drive. Also lunch was 195 per person awhich you would think means a big buffet but no... The food even ran out before everyone could eat. Drinks wer not included in this amount by the way which we only found out when we got there.Drinks were not not included in any of those meals so we're had to incur an extraa cost while there, having already paid a hefty amount for what I thought included everything that would be needed. There was only one blanket for every room and the air cons for some rooms weren't working. When I went to go ask about it at reception I was told that they had taken all the blankets to be washed and they had taken all the aircon remotes for winter so they could save energy only to find out that other rooms had their remotes.-mind you it, it was a really cold night. The tablecloths in the conference room were dirty. The conference room was quite small and all the tables were too packed and also there was one plug point meaning when weantwd to charge our laptops it was quit a struggle. The conference room looked like a store room that they somewhat turned to make a little room for conferences as there were couches and things stored in that same room. There was only one public toilet for EVERYONE and it was downstairs while the "conference room was upstairs and apparently the one that can be used during conferences is in another room which was occupied luckily by one of our people so we could use it. While we knewould be sharing we didn't know that most will be on king beds so if you go for work be ready to get really comfortable with your colleagues. Yeah this was stressful time. I would not recommend this place at all. The staff were nice but that's about it. They need to train their...