We stayed at Khaya Ndlovu Manor House for 2 nights with two children and four adults. Since the accommodation reviewed here falls into the four-star category, my rating is based on this and in comparison to other accommodations in the same category.
The location of Khaya Ndlovu Manor House is in the middle of a private reserve, wherein some animals live. Formerly a hunting area, the current owner has tried to merge the area with other also private areas and is, according to self-disclosure, still trying to give back the needed freedom of movement to nature. One must know that the animals, which can be seen from the terrace, are not free in the same sense, as for example the animals in the Kruger NP. Therefore, the employees speak of "our animals".
The accommodation itself is nicely equipped, the location is impressive and the view from the terrace is without a doubt simply beautiful. At the man-made waterhole herds of zebras, impalas, warthogs and also giraffes gather throughout the day. Even a leopard is said to have been spotted there occasionally and we ourselves were able to observe a pride of lions with four animals. For this reason, we exchanged one day of our program for a day on the terrace.
The kitchen has a nice selection of dishes for dinner and breakfast that are carefully prepared with balanced flavors and proper craftsmanship.
However, the reason for the tendentially poor rating is the service. At this point I would like to emphasize that in the criticism expressed here, I do not wish to attack the individual service staff but rather see the cause in my experience as a failure of the management of the Khaya Ndlovu.
Upon arrival, I had the feeling that the employee assigned to greet us was almost obsessively trying to talk us into additional tours. This is economically understandable from the point of view of the accommodation, but that even after repeated reference to a program already prepared by ourselves is "offered", you can book the same program in the accommodation, seems almost ignorant. In my opinion, the employee was too young and inexperienced to master the necessary sensitivity with guests and should receive better training from the management instead of - so my impression - a sales job. I already had the feeling since this first impression that all offers made to me by the staff during my stay were made with only the economic ulterior motive in mind, because I already lost my trust upon arrival, so that I only felt uncomfortable in the presence of the staff. One idea might be to discreetly display the tour offers in the rooms. By the way, the prices with the equivalent of about 40€ per person for a game drive are, from my own experience, exaggerated and not usual in the market. If I take into account that these drives may also only be undertaken in the small reserve, this comes uncomfortably close to a guided tour through a zoo. However, this is just speculation on my part.
These experiences ran through our entire stay and all experiences are, in my view, the result of poor management. Here are more examples.
- The rooms were cleaned daily, but the trash was not emptied
- At the bar I ordered a coffee, whereupon the service employee somewhat helplessly put a pot of coffee on the counter for me, but neither a cup nor milk, etc. - he had obviously not received sufficient training
- water was always delivered without ice cubes, although explicitly requested
- instead of two eggs for breakfast (because the avocado had run out) only one was delivered
- the cup for the butter was forgotten to be filled
- breakfast was supposed to start at 7 a.m., but it never did, because the tables were not set until 7:15 a.m.
- it was not possible to leave the breakfast area before 9 o'clock because everything took so long
- in the morning only one service person was present in the dining area (tasks not manageable even for a well-trained service person alone)
- the suitcases were supposed to be carried to the car by the housekeeping staff upon departure, instead of by the male staff.
About the room concept: it is of no use to have a kitchen with a microwave in the room, but apart from two glasses and two cups, no cutlery or crockery at all. The kitchen cupboards are empty. In the bathroom, I missed a place to hang my wet towels outside the shower stall because I might not want to go back over the wet area to hang my towel after showering. Here, too, the assumption is obvious to me: if the management would question the concept itself once or perhaps test it out themselves, such flaws would be noticed.
We were also in other accommodations of the category "four stars" on our trip and in comparison I must state that the poor service experienced here pulled the entire experience into the unsatisfactory range.
In summary, I would like to suggest to the management: please train your employees better. You know best about the challenges of the job market in South Africa and you can take care to give your employees a good education. This requires effort, but it is worth it - as we have experienced in some other accommodations. For an accommodation of this category, in my view you have some catching up to do in order to keep up with others, and perhaps you are coming to the realization that the best way to do this is to invest in your staff. You have a wonderful location, your kitchen does a good job and you have a lot of potential, but at least to me you unfortunately gave a very bad experience.
450
59
9
4
2
