Regal Inn Umhlanga Hotel Gateway

Grateful to be alive.....

I arrived at the Regal Inn Umhlanga Hotel on Saturday night around 22:30 in the pitch black. No electricity. No emergency lighting, unfriendly staff due to the power outage. Had to park my vehicle in the road, get out of my car and walk the streets in order to find the hotel.

I found it by accident. The impressing I got when I found the building was that the building was still under construction and I was in the wrong place because there were no lights, not even emergency lighting. No signage to say I was even at the Regal Inn Umhlanga Hotel

Once I checked in, I couldn't get into my room for over 15 minutes because staff didn't come and assist. The electronic room key doesn't work without electricity. I had to walk up and down 6 flights of stairs 3 times in the dark in order to go find staff to let me into the room.

No form of lighting was offered.

I got into my room at 22:55

The bed felt like it had been slept in by 50,000 people. I didn't dare sleep on my side in fear of rolling onto my stomach and suffocating due to the size of the indentation of the mattress. That mattress must be at least 20 years old.

I couldn't shower due to the fact I couldn't see in the dark to find the shower.

And when I got up in the morning, the power was off again, so I had to experience the whole thing all over again.

It turns out, according to staff, the emergency generator burnt out in December.

If a building has no emergency lights, it means it has no smoke alarm, no fire alarm, so if there is a fire, no one would know and we would only find out when it's possibly to late to escape the building. (At least there would be some light from the fire to see where you going if the smake isn't to thick.)

Living in Deepest Darkest Africa has a whole new meaning to it if you stay at the Regal Ill Hotel in Umhlanga.