Black Swan Guest House

We paid R1200 for a room, but the room we’d booked separately from the main house wasn’t available when we arrived, so we were given a different one. It was awful: there were poop stains on the bathroom wall, the sink leaked, the spare blankets looked like dogs had got hold of them, and the fridge was so loud we had to switch it off to sleep. After we told the person in charge, she moved us to another room for our second night. It was much smaller and didn’t feel like a R1200 room. The fridge was quiet and the bathroom was in better shape, though it was still old and poorly maintained. The whole place feels run down and was a real disappointment. I wouldn’t recommend it at all, and it wasn’t worth the money.

We were in Rustenburg for a wedding, and family booked us into Black swan. The owner shouted at us and was very rude when we asked for a refund, so we booked into Pula Nala instead and didn’t regret it. The rooms were filthy and untidy. There were thick spiderwebs in both the bathroom and the rooms, and the bedding, bed, walls, and even the light switches were dirty. A very bad experience.

The constant noise was the main problem for us. Some kind of pump in the infrastructure kept switching on through the night and seriously disrupted our sleep. The shower door also wasn’t fitted properly, so water flooded the bathroom floor. We stayed the night before a cycling race at the Lost City. The location worked well, just 20 minutes from Sun City, and our room was clean and neat. The staff were friendly and helpful. There’s potential here, but some things need improving.

The garden was beautiful, but our room was a letdown. It looked as if it had been put together from salvage materials, and the curtains were untidy. The cupboard was especially unpleasant to look at: its doors were loose at the hinges, and the side panel was unpainted with the shop’s writing still on it. The rooms and outdoor buildings look like they’ve had little proper maintenance for years. Our doors were cracked enough to see through, and all of them scraped badly on the floors. In the bathroom, the taps had come out of the wall, and the basin tap was completely loose.