APPALLING SERVICE

My extended family & I made a dinner reservation at Buonvino Restaurant situated at the Protea Marriott Hotel Durbanville, in celebration of my mother's 70th birthday on 2 March 2020. What was meant to be a joyous & momentous occasion, turned out to be THE most awful dining experience EVER! Our reservation was for 18h00, although we arrived at 18h15. Upon arrival, there was no waiter to escort us to a table & nor was there a table set for us. We went ahead & sat at a table outside at the pool area. After being seated for 40 minutes, a waiter (Akhona) eventually attended to us. We purchased meal vouchers via Hyperli. The voucher states that it could either be scanned or printed in order to redeem. However, the waiter advised that they could not scan it from our devices & sent us to the hotel reception, where they printed it for us. Upon scanning the vouchers, we were informed that one of the vouchers had already been redeemed. I searched for a contact number for Hyperli on the mobile app to query the issue, to no avail, however, I submitted an online query. Eventually one of the staff (Denzil) reported it to the manager, who called Hyperli, after which Denzil advised us that there was an error (without any apology) & that they could proceed with our order, i.e. around 19h10. By that time it started getting cold outside. My husband requested the waiter to turn on the heater only to be told there is no gas in the heaters! By 20h00 we had still not been served our drinks, nor our starters. I decided to lodge a complaint but was just told (by Denzil) that the kitchen was extremely busy as they had to prepare meals for 'room service' for their in-house guests & still no apology was offered. I noticed that there was not even that many guests in the restaurant. I then requested to have a word with the manager & was told that he was on his way upstairs to the restaurant. After 5 minutes when the manager was still not there, I decided to go to the hotel reception & requested to speak to the manager, who was sitting in his office behind the reception desk. I explained our situation & requested that our orders be cancelled as it was unacceptable having to wait for 2 hours to be served our starters. He apologised & undertook to convey it to the relevant person(s) & assured me that he/she would be in contact with me the next day, which I accepted. When we got back to our table (20h10), our starters were ready to be served & we then decided to stay. Then, almost another hour later (21h00), our main meals were served, followed by our desserts at 22h00! With regard to the food, the majority of us ordered sticky barbeque chicken wings for starters, which was not quite fresh. Some of us ordered sirloin steak for mains, which was nice, however, some of the steaks were not well done as we requested, which was a let down. After we had eaten, my husband requested take away containers, which had holes & open cracks! This restaurant does not even deserve a 1 star rating as the service is just appalling & I would certainly not recommend them to anyone! Needless to say almost 24 hours later, no one from the hotel or restaurant, nor Hyperli has made contact with me to address my complaint! Utterly disgusted!