Bad communication and hosting

Tshukudu lodge is modern and clean, the lodge is beautiful and quiet. Unfortunately, despite wanting to relax at this beautiful lodge, our experience was terrible. It started when we arrived at the lodge during the evening when my husband enquired from Doubt, which we presume is the barman, how the restaurant works, when will it be open the following morning and evening so we can spoil ourselves with a lovely breakfast or dinner, only to be informed that since we are the only guests on the premises and have a self catering chalet, the chef was not booked. This information was not conveyed to us prior to our arrival. The lodge states on their profile on Booking.com that breakfast is available on the premises at the restaurant and on their own website they state that guests residing in the Tshukudu lodge (where we were booked) are welcome to eat at the restaurant (no terms and conditions were displayed). Luckily we were able to work our rations out to stay fed during our stay. Next, we purchased two bags of ice at the restaurant when checking in and placed these in the freezer in the chalet. The following day we left the chalet for a while to enable housekeeping to clean the chalet. Upon our return and wanting to pour ourselves a cold drink with ice, I noticed that one sealed bag of ice was removed from the freezer. We are unsure why housekeeping was looking in the fridge and removed our items. We booked a quad bike outride to view game. The guide did not introduce himself and we had to ask him if he is our guide who will be taking us on the ride. We had to do our own game seeking and had to make our own stops to view game while the guide just kept on driving. He did not stop at all to show us game. We would have liked to stop longer to take more photos and video and enjoy the experience.. The quad bike ride is booked for an hour and we noticed by the speed the guide was travelling I had to slow down to get the full hour we paid for, otherwise the trip would have only been 40 minutes or less. It would have been nice if the guide drove at a good pace, looked for game, stop, and gave us some information on the animals. The price per person (R 520 p.p.) should be reduced for this experience to make it reasonable. We also booked a picnic on one afternoon. We were greeted by 2 ladies who welcomed us and said they will be right there if we needed them. They retreated to the game drive vehicle where we heard their conversations and had no privacy which was a bit awkward. The picnic provided had an entire coolbox of drinks, alcoholic and cooldrinks, and 2 bottles of wine. We wanted to pour ourselves some wine but noticed there were no glasses. My husband walked over to Doubt and asked him if they have glasses to which Doubt responded he forgot them. My husband then asked if we can then just drink the wine from the bottle and Doubt said it’s not necessary, he will bring the wine to the room. We then thought, well they provided other canned drinks, so it’s not a problem. The food was below the standard on the price per person (R 500 p.p.), again. The chicken and chicken kebabs were dry. When we returned to our chalet we noticed that housekeeping did not clean the chalet and when I asked Gyno, the manager, he indicated that the housekeeper was at the picnic. Why was this not communicated earlier to us to confirm an earlier time for them to clean the chalet? We asked the manager where the picnic wine is that was promised to be delivered to our room and he arranged with Doubt to bring it later on. Later the evening I received a photo from the manager to confirm the bill from the bar to finalize our invoice, only to my surprise to see they billed us for the canned drinks and the bottle of wine. I enquired from the manager why was this billed and are drinks not included in the picnic to which he indicated no, only a bottle of wine is free, but they charged it to the bill, and not only that, the information that drinks are not included in the picnic price was NOT DISCLOSED when I made the booking for the picnic. What were we supposed to drink if there were no glasses for the “free wine” and an entire coolerbox just displayed without the ladies telling us that the drinks are additional costs? The drinks and wine were eventually removed from the bill. But it is not nice to end a holiday like this. We haven’t been away in years and we saved a long time to spoil ourselves and support local destinations only to be ******. We were the only guests at the lodge. When we left I burst out in tears because I wanted to make it special for us as a couple. The lodge could have informed us not to come if we were the only guests if it was such a problem.