Maya Manor

Donna was meant to put us up for one night before we spent the rest of the week elsewhere in Hoedspruit. When she learned our other stay hadn’t been paid for yet, she persuaded us to stay at no.8 Maya Manor, the main house shown on the website, and offered a better price. We accepted, and it was the worst mistake. The Wi-Fi was out when we arrived and only came back the next day. We wanted to braai that evening, so we checked the gas bottle on the only braai and found it empty. Imagine trying to braai at 7pm with no gas. That was eventually sorted. The toilets and showers open straight onto the bedrooms, so there’s no privacy from the beds. Other guests rented the top floor and were clearly moving furniture at 4am. The front door was stuck and took two people to open: one to lift it and another to turn the key. We were told it would be fixed the next day, but it wasn’t, and we had to deal with it for a week. The kitchen wasn’t fully functional. The fridge’s temperature control didn’t work and froze all our food. The shower leaked badly, and a lot of water was mopped up from the bathroom floor, something the staff could have told Donna about. Whenever we raised an issue, Donna said she’d bring a bottle of wine, but that never happened. When I finally lost patience after expensive salad ingredients froze solid, she said she didn’t appreciate guests like me and told me I could buy tomatoes at any grocery shop. I’d brought the food all the way from PTA Woolworths because Hoedspruit doesn’t have a Woolies. I travel a lot and have never had service this bad. Donna sounds like she’s under the influence in every voice note she sends and clearly doesn’t care, relying on guests to report problems. We were apparently expected to check everything ourselves, from an empty gas bottle and poor Wi-Fi to leaks, a broken door, and a missing bread knife. Then I was told not to complain because we got such a good price and wouldn’t find that elsewhere in Hoedspruit. It’s not about the money. What was advertised and what we got were two completely different things. Utterly disgusted.