Life in Hotels – Twenty Third Floor

Life in Hotels: 10 2nd Avenue Houghton Estate

David Kirk — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 06:30:50 +0000

I’m struggling a little with all the time in hotels, with painful check-in and check-out procedures and too many staff members in my face. I’ve been looking for a smaller, quieter alternative in the right sort of location. 10 2nd Avenue in Houghton Estate probably isn’t the answer because they are quite pricey, but aside from that very real world problem there is little wrong with their boutique hotel. If the price is right for you, you should check them out.

Two nights in 10 2nd Avenue Houghton Estate in September 2012

Price per night	Special Rate, full price for the cheapest room with single occupancy is R2,400 pppn (!)
Convenience / location	Fantastic for me, quiet suburb with good access to the M1 and close to my office
Overall comfort and condition of room	Would have liked an extra plug point or two, but otherwise really great. Mini bar with complementary soft drinks. Tea making facilities, big bathroom with shower and bath, comfortable chairs. A full DSTV selection with onscreen TV guide is also a nice touch. I saw some old Top Gear episodes while I finished up some late-night work.
Internet	Good news – free wifi with pretty comprehensive coverage. Bad news, seemed also to be a 1mbps connection. That’s really a little sluggish for me, but at least no extra charge and a pretty uncomplicated setup process.
Parking arrangements	Plenty of secure parking.
Check-in	Sign one form (after a friendly welcome an offer of a free welcome drink) and I was taken to my room. 10/10
Room service	Exceptional. The menu is somewhat limited, but the food was very, very good. I had dinner with a colleague the second night on the terrace and the same great food was paired with top-notch service
Breakfast	Couldn’t ask for a better setting. Quiet table with a view of the gardens and a really good eggs benedict to top it off. I think champagne is offered, which I find a little bizarre and surely not frequently taken up by guests!
Time to settle bill	Pretty quick and painless. Can’t ask for more.
Other comments	Hard not to recommend. I would have liked a plug point closer to the bed so I could watch TV while working on my laptop charging. Literally, that’s about all I can so bad. Ok, it doesn’t have the views of the Westcliff, but for my purposes I’m happy to swap that for less intrusive service.

Life in Hotels: Pebble Fountain Guest House (Pretoria)

David Kirk — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 06:40:36 +0000

I stayed close to the University of Pretoria recently while doing graduate recruitment at the university. A single night at the Pebble Fountain Guest House was required given the proximity to the university and the early start for the presentation.

One night at Pebble Fountain in August 2012

Price per night	R600
Convenience / location	Great for the university, not great for much else
Overall comfort and condition of room	Not great. Peeling paint on walls, floorboards in need of a sand and seal, no milk for tea (only creamer) and a bath, toilet and basin in the same room as the bed. Clean though.
Internet	Slow 1mbps connection for the entire guesthouse, with a 48 character key to log in… and the internet stopped working after an hour or so. At least it wasn’t charged for separately.
Parking arrangements	Secure parking, but thanks to other guests parking “style” there was hardly space for me to park.
Check-in	One quick form and I was given the keys. Full marks for limited paperwork and admin.
Room service	None, but it’s a guest house so fair enough.
Breakfast	Didn’t try it, but the smell of a Full English Breakfast cooking was around most of the morning. Probably would have been good.
Time to settle bill	Pretty quick once hte process got moving, but I had to hunt round for someone to take my payment and there was some confusion as to how many nights I would be staying. Difficult to know who’s fault that was and no particular reason to expect it to be a regular thing.
Other comments	Was a little disappointed with the overall condition of the room, but I suppose it did the job for the night. Would probably look somewhere else next time though.

Life in Hotels: The Westcliff

David Kirk — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 06:30:04 +0000

Finally getting around to updating these line of blogging.

Several multi-day stays in The Westcliff in July 2012

Price per night	R1450
Convenience / location	Convenient for me, close to our offices in Parktown North, but a little further from Sandton and most clients
Overall comfort and condition of room	Even the more basic rooms I stayed in were very well appointed. The huge bathroom with large bath, shower and his-and-hers basins is particularly good.
Internet	Huge extra points here for free wi-fi and automatic login. No annoying vouchers or codes. Truly an absolute pleasure.
Parking arrangements	Undercover parking and eager valets. The valets may be a plus for some but I soon ignored them and parked my own car.
Check-in	Slick and efficient with friendly staff. Almost a little too keen to please at times and tried to insist on sending someone to show me my room and take my bags. If you like that, fantastic. Overall hard to fault though.
Room service	Arrives pretty promptly, phone answered with my name and the food itself was pretty good. Not a huge choice.
Breakfast	Unremarkable but certainly good.
Time to settle bill	Generally quick and friendly.
Other comments	The Westcliff ticks a number of boxes and is clearer a few grades above other hotels I’ve stayed in. I still didn’t enjoy the overly attentive staff – I just like to be left alone! One or two hassles with TVs that didn’t work and earth leakage tripping suggests some ageing electrical issues.

Life in Hotels: Sandton City Garden Court (June 2012) updated

David Kirk — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 21:36:44 +0000

Now that I’m back spending time in hotels more weeks than not, I thought it might be useful to track and record my experiences.

If you travel to Johannesburg primarily for business, appreciate hassle-free check-in, painless-to-setup and cheap wifi, decent room-service and convenient locations without exorbitant prices, these records may prove useful to you. The prices are as I paid, possibly incorporating some corporate discounts, but I’m sure these are available to other groups.

Two days in the Sandton City Garden Court in June 2012

Price per night	Â R1044
Convenience / location	Right in the middle of Sandton – very convenient
Overall comfort and condition of room	Pretty basic with a slightly tired bathroom with a shower over the bath. No major complaints though.
Internet	Supplied by WirelessG. Can probably pay online with a credit card, but via the hotel requires a paper voucher to be printed out at the front desk. Painful and a decade out of date. R80 for a day with a 200MB limit. I may have forgotten how expensive internet is in hotels, but this really is disgracefully expensive. This is at least R400 per GB, compared to the < R20 per GB available via home ADSL. The internet itself was pretty flaky, up and down all the time.
Parking arrangements	Underground parking, with a charge added to the room of, I think, R40 per night using the room card, which is at least fairly straightforward.
Check-in	No queue at the time I arrived, the usual painful forms to fill in, but friendly and courteous staff at the check-in desk.
Room service	Haven’t tried it yet, but it only operates till 22:30, which is good for not eating late but really bad if one is hungry late after a late flight.I did eventually try the room service, which was acceptable.
Breakfast	Interviewed a potential team member over breakfast. Not the most impressive environment, but I was brought tea and the food was hot and the service pretty good.
Time to settle bill	Â Pretty quick, but still seemingly needless amounts of signing of paper and printing and so on. It did take the staff several long moments to stop chatting to each other and acknowledge I was actually there in front of them.
Other comments	My room was still being prepped when I arrived (10:30 at night…)Â -not ideal.Random calls in the evening to tell me about their Frequent Guest card were definitely not appreciated.Â Leave a note, slip something under the door, but don’t call me.