La - Picasso Guesthouse — Hotel in Msukaligwa

Terrible terrible terrible

Roy is the rudest person that I have met.

Our soccer team booked 21 Rooms at La Picaso to accomodate the complete team.

Quotation was given for R15 500 for the complete lodge. We requested to pay the full amount but Precious insisted that only R8000 should be paid as a deposit and the balance on check out.

On check in the team was split into three different location (la picaso, pablo and orchids).The entire lodge was supposedly booked out for us,but there were 2 rooms occupied by other guests. This was not the arrangement we had and we were still short of two rooms. Precious was very accomodating and said she will speak to the owners (Roy) for a reduced rate. On the day of check out the reduced rate was still not arranged and we had to go to the grounds as our soccer matches were about to start, We arranged with precious to sort out the bill in the mean time and we will pay before we leave, please note we stored some of our belongings at the lodge.

I cant understand why Mr Roy has the impression that we were trying to leave without paying when we wanted to pay the full amount before check inn while La Picaso insisted on only paying a deposit.

While on the grounds Roy arrived and accused us of not paying the bill, after explaining he refused to listen and stormed away threatening us with the words "ill show you" very unproffesional.

After about an hour Roy arrived with the Police which did not help much as this was a civil matter. So this wasted the SAPS ermelos time as they were not even bothered once they heard the full story.

We went back to the lodge, sorted out the reduced rate. We ended up paying less than the R15 500 originally qouted.

So saying we tried to run away without paying the bill is utter nonsense. I will try and get

On the other hand, La Picaso, Pablos and Orchids are in a bad state with serious maintenance needed.

The whole football club roughly another 50 people booked at different lodges without a single complaint.

So becareful when you book for a large number of people at La picaso as the only have 11 rooms.

Precious did her level best to help us.

I explained our whole ordeal to friends and family in ermelo about La Picaso, they were not surprised one bit and said that if they had known we were staying there, they wouldve strongly advised against it.

Other lodge owners where the rest of our soccer club stayed laughed at me when i told them where we stayed.

So please let me know which lodge owners you will report us to, so that we can actually stay at decent place where they accept payment before check in.

So Mr. Roy, seems like your lodge reputation is in the red, so instead of being combative, try doing some maintenance and upgrades to the lodge.

Please leave your contact details so we can try and raise some funds to help with the upkeep of your lodge.

As a small business owner myself, i would be ashamed about the reviews on your page.

Thanks Precious for...

I stayed in room 9 this past weekend and I have to say the high reviews of this place seem like a con/cat fish by the owner.The entire building features shoddy construction by what I can only assume were 3rd grade builders,walls had cracks for example and you can clearly see the plasterwork not overlapping smoothly where they extended rooms also. Wall mounted toilet pans incorrectly mounted close to the floor shows poor workmanship,but that is just the tip of the iceberg and a relatively small issue compared to others which in total make this a terrible place to stay.Unfortunately I can't list all or remember all but here are some:

-Basin tap was loose -Shower doesn't work because the head is completely clogged up you are expected to shower under 3 thin stinging streams of water instead of the 30 on the shower head. -Toilet door doesn't lock or even close since the lock mechanism is jammed! -Room door had no handles. -Beds are old and extremely uncomfortable with no support at all. -Lumpy thin pillows,we were 4 people in the room and paid the full price for 4 people yet only 3 of these pillows were supplied one person slept without a pillow! -TV in the one room faces the wall instead of the beds,not sure if they expect you to stand against the wall to watch television?

There are so many other issues like worn out couches etc that it's probably not worth even mentioning them all,to sum it up there is virtually no maintenance in this poorly run and poorly thought out guest house which may seem OK in the pictures and from owners fake reviews but in reality it's in extremely poor condition and disappointing.

You have been warned,stay at this place at your own peril,I literally woke up earlier than normal and vacated this place as soon as I could to escape what was a terrible excuse for a guest house.

EDIT:In his response below the owner tries to deflect from the clear stated issues I have mentioned above because they are irrefutable,.Go see for yourself,there's no maintenance in this place and the TV is really is in the wrong place facing the wall instead of the beds,I regret not taking pictures of the issues as proof but none the less there is so much to fix.Instead he tried to call his police friends in Ermelo to resolve a civil matter at the sports field where he knew we were since we told him we were there(that's not running away btw) i.e withholding payment for his charging for 21 rooms instead of 19 that was given(that however was clearly not related at all to my complaints).

Please spend time and money fixing and maintaining your premises instead of wasting your time attacking people unhappy with the poor standards and service at your business.

Go and have look at Room 9 and the issues I pointed out as a start if you want to improve your business.

Either way I will never stay at your guest...

The entire impression of La Picasso is that of a proprietor doing everything to save money. Parking is insufficient and despite a storm, I had to park my car behind the house in a muddy patch after passing through a narrow driveway and then walk through the mud to get to my room. The room and bathroom are both well-designed, but one bed lamp was not working and the other one’s lampshade was broken. Finding an electricity outlet was a challenge and could in the end only be done if I moved a chair away from the wall. In the bathroom, there was no soap at all at the basin and no extras were supplied (such as soap, shampoo, etc). Also, my room had no opening windows and no air conditioning. The bed was comfortable enough, but if my wife had accompanied me on this trip, as she usually does, it would have been a problem, as the guesthouse only has double beds and not queen-size beds as is more common nowadays. The linen seems to be the absolute cheapest quality money can buy and is long past its use-by date. Sheets are no longer white and should have been discarded long ago. To add to this, I was called at around 11 pm by the front desk, as someone had parked their car in the driveway, making it impossible for anyone to move in or out. This person wanted to know whether it was my car, but obviously, he could have checked on my registration form and seen that it was not my car. To further add to my frustration, I was awoken at around 05:15 with the sound of a big machine running. It might have been a washing machine or it might have come from the surrounding premises, as the guesthouse is located in a business area. Regardless, I then couldn’t fall asleep again. The bathroom is nice, although the steel window frames are desperately in need of some paint. The shower cubicle is large and well-designed. However, as the temperature of the water changed from steaming hot to lukewarm and then to ice cold, before becoming steaming hot again, a large part of my time in the shower was used in an attempt to regulate the heat of the water. Breakfast was below standard: Bacon (which was good), Viennas (who still serves this?), a burger made from processed meat which I only had one bite of and scrambled eggs (no choice of what eggs I preferred). Coffee (instant) was also the cheapest brand on the market. When I asked whether sweetener was available, rather than sugar, I was told that they did not have this available. Try as I might, considering the above, I can't give La Picasso a higher rating...