The Not-So-Grand

I would just like to relay our stay at the Grand Africa Plett - or as my husband called it - The Not So Grand.

We stayed at the hotel for our honeymoon (2- 9 July 2022) and were looking so forward to the luxury of being at the hotel. Little did we know that it wasn’t going to be anything like we thought.

Our room had many faults, none of which go hand in hand with a four star hotel:

1. There was mold on the walls behind the curtains.

2. There were blind strings that were broken in the bathroom.

3. The bathroom door swung open and had to be latched from the inside and the outside, which seems like a simple fix.

4. Our shower has zero pressure and almost no hot water. The water was hot, but never reached higher then one temp, and the bath didn’t need cold water added to it because of this.

5. There were clearly old fittings on the walls that hadn’t been taken off properly, so we had bits of plastic and *****s holding nothing onto the wall.

6. The email quote we received from Sybil had breakfast included - this was wonderful, but as per my email communication we were supposed to get ”yes breakfast is included, muesli fruit and yoghurt and you choose a hot breakfast of our ala carte menu with a glass of orange juice and coffee” This was not the case. We were told it was only one hot breakfast, and a coffee or a juice, not both. While, this is not the end of the world, we were quite surprised. We also had Sweetness our waitress try charge us extras on her third day serving us. When I questioned her and said that she hadn’t mentioned paying extra the day before, she just looked at me and muttered about speaking to the manager about taking off the extras from the bill.

Having said this, Mimi, who served us for the beginning half of the week, was OUTSTANDING and wonderful and we loved her.

7. The towels were sometimes not replaced in our room, even though we had hung them and not placed them in the bath. They would be taken out and we would be left without towels. The same for the candles when it was loadshedding.

8. The fact that there is no secure parking. Off street parking is not the end of the world, being harassed by homeless people every time we come into and leave the hotel is a problem.

9. The staircase up to our room was rickety, narrow and did not feel safe.

10. The BIGGEST problem of them all, is that there was no generator at the hotel. We spent the majority of our honeymoon in pure darkness with no access to WiFi or amentities which is absolutely unacceptable for a hotel in the times we live in. Loadshedding is a very present thing in our society and we have to manage expectations around this. Not once was it ever mentioned that we would have no generator during this time.

I have never been to a hotel and had to write a complaint email, let alone one that has ten huge and very important points.

There were a few lovely things, such as the bath salts next to the bath, the lovely Waitress Mimi, the view from our room and the outstanding level of comfort of our bed, which was possibly the main highlight.

I will not be coming back to your hotel, nor will I ever recommend people staying there. It was abysmal at best and things need to seriously change in order to reach the 4 star standard that has been set.

The worst part about our stay was the abysmal response from the hotel as per our complaint email. They couldn’t have cared less. We don’t want freebies, we wanted a decent stay. Shame one them.