Browsing Tag

hotels

Quickie Restaurant (and Hotel) Review: Clico Boutique Hotel

Last month Ray and I were invited to enjoy dinner, bed, and breakfast at the Clico Boutique Hotel in Rosebank. I jumped at the chance. People are always asking me for Joburg hotel recommendations, but I rarely have much to offer because who spends the night at hotels in their own city? I was also eager to try Clico’s restaurant as I’d heard good things. My birthday was in July so I decided to schedule our visit on that day, and Clico turned out to be a great place for a sumptuous birthday feast. Dinner at Clico. The garden and pool area at Clico Boutique Hotel. What I liked about Clico: 1) The location. Clico is in Rosebank, just a couple of blocks from the Gautrain station and across the street from the Keyes Art Mile. 2) The service. The reception staff, wait staff, and everyone working at Clico were particularly outgoing and friendly. I offered some feedback after my stay via email, and the Clico management responded immediately in a positive and proactive manner. 3) The wifi. Clico has free, unlimited wifi with a simple password and no silly vouchers or megabyte limits. WHY DOESN’T EVERY HOTEL DO THIS? 4) The […]

August 1, 2017 by 2summers

Listen Up, Hotels: My 5 Most Annoying Hotel Room Quirks

This post has been bouncing around in my head for a while but I’ve been hesitant to write it. I generally try to highlight positive travel experiences in my blog, and nitpicking about hotel rooms doesn’t fit that theme. Also no one likes a whiner, and whining about little issues in hotel rooms seems so #FirstWorldProblems. I’ve been fortunate to stay in many lovely hotels: Who am I to complain? However. There are a few hotel room quirks that I’ve observed over and over and some of them seem to be increasing in frequency, to my great bewilderment. I have decided it is my responsibility as a frequent traveler and blogger to point out these annoying quirks, in hopes that they might be rectified or averted in the future. If I can convince just one hotel room designer to decide against placing the toilet in full view of the bed, then writing this post will be worth it. Here are my top five most annoying hotel room quirks. Note that I don’t have photos to illustrate all of these quirks, as it doesn’t usually occur to me to take photos of things that I hate. Annoying Hotel Quirk #5: Poor lighting Low light can be […]

August 17, 2016 by 2summers

A Tale of Three Durban Hotels

A bit of background: Ray and I planned a trip to the Wild Coast, which you can read about in this dramatic series of posts. The Wild Coast is too far from Joburg to drive to in one day so we stopped in Durban along the way, and then again on the way back. (In fact, we realized that some parts of the Wild Coast are also too far from Durban to drive to in one day. Refer to the dramatic series above.) As we were on a tight budget for our Wild Coast trip, I used my travel blogger status to negotiate free stays at two different Tsogo Sun hotels one on either side of the journey. (We paid for the rest of the trip on our own. Someday soon I’m going to write a whole post about the politics of blogger freebies.) As I mentioned in a previous post, I used to shun big-chain hotels but I’ve recently come to realize that they have their advantages. On our first night of the trip we rolled into “the Golden Mile” (the local name for Durban’s beachfront) and checked in to the Garden Court Marine Parade, a mid-range hotel with rooms starting at R1250 ($100). Our newly renovated […]

July 4, 2015 by 2summers

Joburg’s Coolest Luxury Hotel (and it’s not in Sandton)

Last week, in another stroke of blogging magic, I spent a night at the Four Seasons Westcliff. (The hotel’s official name is Four Seasons Hotel the Westcliff Johannesburg. That name is a bit verbose, in my opinion, so I’ll call it the Four Seasons Westcliff. No offense, Four Seasons peeps — I just like to be concise.) The Four Seasons Westcliff, formerly called the Westcliff Hotel, is less than two miles from my house in Melville. The old Westcliff Hotel was known for its afternoon tea, and I’d always meant to go but somehow never did — I was always short of cash or couldn’t get a reservation. Then the hotel was purchased by Four Seasons in 2013, and closed for a yearlong-plus revamp. I had missed my chance, or so I thought. The new Four Seasons Westcliff. You might remember that the old hotel was pink. The new hotel has been repainted a dignified beige. Two years later I got my chance after all, in the form of an invite to a blogger evening at the Four Seasons Westcliff — drinks, dinner, a spa treatment, and a night at the hotel. (In case you’re wondering: Four Seasons Westcliff has not yet resumed the tradition of afternoon tea. […]

June 9, 2015 by 2summers