Blaauwberg Beach Hotel — Hotel in Table View

We stayed here for two weeks while I was on business travel from the USA. I am a frequent business traveler and my expectations are in-line with where I am visiting and what I am paying. Overall this hotel is below average. The rooms are old and in need of refurbishing, with many room features broken or not operable. In my room the air conditioning did not function, the phone did not work, the bed was hard and uncomfortable, the toilet seat was broken, and some electrical outlets did not work. On the plus side the views of the beach and table mountain are fantastic and shower is very nice with great water flow. The restaurant is nice, the food and drink are good, and the folks working in the restaurant and maintaining the facility and parking are all very kind and helpful. On the other hand, the front desk personnel are not responsive to customer basic needs and are rude and condescending. After arriving in our room we noticed it was very warm. We tried to adjust the thermostat and it was not functioning. We contacted the front desk (in-person since our room phone was broken as well) and requested maintenance support or moving to another room since we hadn't unpacked. They told us "they would see what they could do and get back to us". The next morning I went out to a store to purchase a fan and opened the room windows for some airflow. After two days of getting the run around from the front desk i happened to run into the maintenance man while he was on our floor for another issue. He inspected our thermostat and told us "this room is one of the ones with the broken thermostats so the ventilation won't work." He graciously provided us an in room cooler to use, which made a slight difference but the room was still too warm for us. After demanding a room change the front desk personnel gave us a very condescending response, made us wait over 10 hours and finally provided us with a new room on the fourth evening of our stay. During our time in country there were scheduled load shedding rolling power outages occurring. There wasn't any communication from the hotel to patrons that load shedding would impact our area or room. While sleeping one evenings the power was shut off. I use a medical device in order to sleep safely and power was lost to the device. The hotel does have a generator. I went down to the front desk and asked it there was anything to they could do to address my medical concern and they said there was nothing they could do. The next day when power went out I did some investigating and found out the outlet behind the TV maintained power from the generator while all others did not. After another trip to the store for some power adapters I was able to power my medical device. Each day my wife and I had to do this ridiculous exercise of moving plugs and extension cords around just to power my device and charge our electronic devices. I understand the hotel cannot control ESKOM load shedding but their utter disregard and refusal to even consider making a reasonable accommodation for my health condition is simply unacceptable. Finally, after our two week stay we had a later flight out of Cape Town. We asked the front desk if we could have a later check out so we could spend time in our room instead of sitting at the airport. They told us it would be $1000 R per hour if we stayed after 11:00 AM., which is almost the cost of the room for each evening. We left and spent 6 hours sitting around the airport. This is the first time I have ever had a hotel not allow a complimentary late checkout, especially after spending two weeks in their hotel and spending a lot of money in their restaurants. They could really learn a lot about customer care. Overall we did not feel welcome at this hotel and would never consider staying here again, which is unfortunate and very different from our experience in the rest of...

DISASTER!

It has now been 1 month since I contacted the hotel regarding my stay and thus far, the only feedback that I got was that my grievances has been passed along to the relevant department.

What a complete disaster!

The stay was intended to be a relaxing one for my birthday. Arrangement has been made that I would be checking in between 12:00 and 14:00 on 10 February 2024 and that something special needs to be done and left in my room because it was a special occasion.

I arrived at the hotel at 13:00, walked up to the checkout counter, indicated that I'm about to check in and was then told that there's no booking for me (please note that the booking was made a confirmed on 10 January 2024).

After "looking into it", I was told that my booking is on 14 February 2024, and I advised that I will definitely not be booking myself into the hotel in the middle of the week, and that then also being Valentines day....I don't think so!

Then I was informed that my booking was only in March, then I then kindly indicated to them that it's entirely impossible, because my birthday is not in March, but in February, why would I book myself in during March?

After all of that, I was informed that they called me the previous day to confirm the booking. I told them that they definitely did NOT call me and queried the number which they called....and would you believe it, surprise, surprise....not my number!!!! So they surely did not speak to me.

They then advised that they will be checking to fix up a room for me, did a half-hearted apology and had me sit and wait at reception for over an hour. Not even a complementary bottle of water was offered during my waiting period, in order for them to fix up a room, which was intended to be ready from the get go.

To top it all off, once I got to my room on the 1st floor, it was like walking into a sauna. Checked the air-conditioning, not working, called reception and was informed that it's loadshedding. Please note that all the plugs, lights and lifts are working, but not the air-conditioning. Once again, not even an offer to bring me a fan for my room.

The birthday surprise was 3 layers with canned spray cream and sprinkles, you could see it was just placed there as a afterthought.

I unpacked and went for a short walk on the beach and returned to the hotel around 3:45 to make it in time for the massage I booked at the Ohana Beauty & Wellness Spa situated in the hotel (but note, this is privately run and not part of the hotel, so will write a separate review on this).

Later on, I wanted to swap around the kettle and the coffee maker which was standing on the coffee station, to make a life a bit more organised for myself. What I found under the coffee maker was absolutely disgusting. It was layers and layers of old coffee which was spilled, mixed with layers of dust, which was never cleaned.

By then, I was so fed-up with the whole situation that I just decided to go for a pizza at Doodles (again, separate review will be delivered), went back to the hotel, couldn't get my phone to cast to the smart TV in the room for a movie that I wanted to watch and decided to just go to bed.

I can't complain about the breakfast at all, that was amazing. The only thing I can say about that is, when they clear the bowls and plates, they don't bring you any new utensils, which is kind of annoying, because then you have to run around looking for new ones.

I also cannot complain about room service. They were...

My wife and I went for a weekend breakaway. Our anniversary being the day we checked in. The checking in experience was pleasant and the gentleman helping us very friendly. We had a minor hiccup since we were almost an hour late for check in but the room wasn't ready. He explained they were short staffed and we went for drinks before checking in. Upon receiving our room card keys we were told that breakfast were included and the breakfast times. The room was neat and tidy and the view from the room over the beach was beautiful. We were also pleasantly surprised by the cake and a card wishing us a happy anniversary signed by the hotel manager which was a lovely touch.

The next morning we arrived for breakfast only to be told that our room does not include breakfast. We told the guy at the restaurant door that we were told by the gentleman at check in that it included breakfast so he went to go check at front desk. The guy who help us was on a different shift so he spoke to a different person. He came back and told us that we were more than welcome to enjoy breakfast but we will have to pay. We told him that we find the situation quite embarrassing since we were confronted at the restaurant door. The guy working at reception desk approached and instead of apologizing he made excuses for his colleague who gave us the wrong information. I told him that he has to place himself in our shoes and just imagine how embarrassing the situation is to us being told at the restaurant front door, not in private and not being offered an apology after which he apologized which did not come across as sincere. I could understand an error made by a staff member and that it was in no means made on purpose but the way the situation was handled was extremely insensitive. We surely did not expect to have our morning start in this manner and it made my wife and I feel a bit unwelcome. Blaauwberg beach hotel changed from our main attraction to simply the place we slept for the weekend.

We were assisted by the same gentleman who confronted us when we checked out the next day I handed the room card keys over and were just told everything in order. The interaction lacking any friendliness...