33 South Backpackers

I spent a few months here over winter. The dorms were comfortable and spacious, and the staff were friendly, though they could be noisy at times, mostly from the staff themselves. Toward the end of my stay, many staff members left. The complimentary breakfast also declined in quality, and the DSTV hadn't worked for a month. The Wi-Fi was constantly giving us trouble.

The bathroom setup needs attention. In the main unisex bathroom, there's no proper shower, just a shower head on the wall, and the drain in the corner means the room becomes unusable after someone showers. There are two more unisex showers outside the main living area, but one is missing part of its door. Fixing these problems would make this a much better place to stay.

We were promised four rooms for our school camp with 21 learners, two sleeping six and two sleeping eight. Instead, we arrived to find two six-person rooms and one eight-person room, with an extra bed in the middle making it sleep nine. The rooms themselves were fine, but got very warm overnight because there was no airflow. Right outside my room was the staff lounge, where videos were played very loudly over speakers. The bathroom situation was especially poor for the roughly 30 people sharing three bathrooms. In the first, shower water ran across the bathroom floor, with no curtain to contain it. The second had a similar setup, though glass panels kept the water in place. The third had two showers and two toilets: one shower was just okay, while the other had only part of a door, leaving people walking to the toilets able to see inside. One toilet was okay; the other had no door and wouldn't flush. At the gate there's a prominent sign claiming a four-star rating from the tourism board of South Africa, but don't let it fool you. Breakfast was described as included, but what we actually got was a piece of bread and a muffin.

The rooms are clean and the staff are friendly, but the floor in the Khayelitsha room needs renovating. The bathrooms smell bad and aren't clean. Breakfast is the same each day, just muffins, bread, jam, peanut butter, and margarine, and it runs out before everyone gets any. Offering some variety would make a difference. Qqqq