Not what one expects from this prestigious group

<p><br />The purpose of my communication is to expose some of the experiences my wife and I encountered during our recent stay in the Stellenbosch Protea Hotel.</p> <p>Being disabled I sourced the hotel through bookings.com as they have a filter for finding facilities with the ability to assist us with being able to travel and enjoy accommodation that makes life a bit more easier for the disabled person. One must commend the group on its policies of providing for our sector of the market, however the following comments I feel may ensure that the service given could be that much better.</p> <p>At Stellenbosch the disabled rooms (Block L) are the furthest from the main hotel and its facilities, this seems a strange policy for a hotel to have bearing in mind the difficulty in pushing one's wheelchair all the way down and back each time one wants to use the main hotels facilities. I find that architects who are the designers of hotels don't get it when it comes to trying to make wheelchair bound people's lives that much easier. I believe every budding architect should be forced to spend a month in a wheelchair before graduating to give them a real taste of disabled life.</p> <p>The room we were allocated involved having to climb steep paving to reach the door which thankfully the staff put a small ramp on so I could get my wheels over the sill and into the room.</p> <p>We found the room well laid out and looked forward to some rest and then preparing for the evening.</p> <p>It was at this stage that we discovered that only 3 of the 4 downlighters in the bedroom were working and when I entered the on suite bathroom to shower I discovered that the diverter valve that directs water either to the hand shower or overhead shower was missing parts and not operating properly. Water gushed out of the valve itself and only the hand shower would run. There was also a large hole in the hose attaching it to the wall.</p> <p>The lounge TV was also very snowy in picture quality.</p> <p>We made due for the evening and reported the matters to reception the next morning for attention.</p> <p>On the way back to our room after breakfast we encountered the maintenance manager coming back from the room and he informed us that the repairs required an outside plumber who would be contacted so that things could be sorted by evening. He informed me that the downlighter saga is a fight the group is having with Phillips about the lamps overheating and going off. Question, why not go somewhere else surely the groups size should be able to raise a better response from someone else on this matter. </p> <p>On returning from the day out we were once again looking forward to having a decent shower and clean up prior to dinner but this was not to be. The plumber didn't have any parts for the valve so we were left with a pair of pliers to operate it. A new hose had been attached so this was better.</p> <p>Globes had been changed but we still only had 2 once the other 2 had overheated.</p> <p> We noticed that a large SUV (without any disability stickers in the window) was parked in the disabled bay next to ours and were able to find out via the staff that another room is also available in L block which is much better than the one we had but was being used by a perfectly abled bodied person.</p> <p> The status quo regarding our stay remained like this till we left on the 26th Feb.</p> <p> May I as an engineer and retired manager from a large customer focused organisation make the following simple suggestions which I'm sure are easily achievable within the groups operating parameters.</p> <p>1) Operate a proactive inspection program making someone go round acting as a potential customer arriving and inspect all aspects of a rooms interior including lights, taps, bathrooms (our sink had no plug so we had to phone and request one), door operation, Tv's, plus all the other items installed in a room which are necessary to ensure an acceptable standard of accommodation for you money.</p> <p> 2) If it is not possible to rectify a specific rooms problems make an effort to relocate a person to another disabled room even at the cost of upsetting an abled bodied person staying in it.</p> <p>Otherwise we enjoyed our stay very much, we found your staff very accommodating and helpful where they could be with relevance to my wheelchair situation. We enjoyed the breakfasts immensely whilst enjoying the excellent views from the dining area.</p> <p> We will be back if Stellenbosch calls and just hope the above experience can be regarded as a thing of the past.</p>