Protea Hotel by Marriott Nelspruit

The rooms are quite basic compared with other Protea hotels, but this was my best hotel experience. The team made it feel like a home away from home, with warmth and outstanding service from check-in through dining. Thulie at Reception was all smiles and very accommodating. Thanks to Moeti Nozipho and Philile for the laughs and chats, Chef Tracy for handling my son's special dietary requests, and Sibusiso for the great service. This place is quaint and lovely.

We ended up leaving and finding another place in Nelspruit because the rooms were so small and dirty. We checked three rooms, and each was just as bad; the manager said they were all about the same. The shower was filthy, the rooms smelled awful, and the property reeked of marijuana. It was a stressful, deeply disappointing stay, and the hotel didn't live up to the Marriot brand.

The property itself is beautiful, the linen was clean and crisp, and the pool area could use a few loungers. But the rooms have been deteriorating for years. I stayed here two years ago and nothing seems to have improved, and it doesn't look like management cares. The cheap laminate floor is worn out, the shower is disgusting, and the TV is ancient. I don't personally travel from Joburg to Nelspruit just to watch TV, but with my kids along this time, a smart TV with Netflix or YouTube would have been appreciated. The bathroom extractor didn't work, making toilet use unpleasant for all of us. Breakfast was average at best. The bacon was tough and tasteless, as if cooked from frozen. We ate there once, skipped it the next day, and went out for breakfast.

That whole night was one big inconvenience, and the service from a 4 star hotel was shocking. After I arrived, I was assigned a room, then the receptionist called as I reached it and told me to come back because it was the wrong one. The replacement was in a block full of soccer players, who came back after 11pm yelling at one another, so sleep was out of the question. Then at 11.15pm I was called to move my car because security said so, even though I wasn't parked in a prohibited spot and had been there for five hours. I went downstairs in the freezing cold, only to be told they didn't need me to move it after all. Sorry for the inconvenience, they said.