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Tags: South Africa Hotels / Hotel Renovations / Hotel Reopenings / → All Tags
Durban's Oyster Box Hotel Opens Again, Better Than Ever
We've been waiting for the big renovation of Durban's iconic Oyster Box Hotel to get finished up in South Africa – and now the wait is over. Last week the new Oyster Box was unveiled with an 800-guest party including all the local celebrities, with at least one prince and one king along for the fun.
The Oyster Box is often described as an "architectural treasure" of Durban, so the new owners (the Red Carnation group) have been careful to leave all the good historic bits of the place intact. That includes murals, paintings and antique furnishings, and to complement all that they use natural timber and stone features in a lot of the décor – and the result looks pretty impressive.
Tags: Hotel Openings / Radisson SAS Hotels / Radisson Blu Hotels / South Africa Hotels / Johannesburg Hotels / → All Tags
Johannesburg Not Blue About Getting a Radisson Blu
Complete with the sassy new Radisson Blu branding, the former Radisson SAS chain has a new hotel in South Africa. The Radisson Blu Hotel Sandton has just opened in Johannesburg and it sounds cool enough to go with the "Blu" title.
Big flat-screen LCD TVs for all, complimentary WiFi for all, and a big wine bar and lounge, this hotel sounds great except for one not-so-cool (well, to us) feature. As part of its ONEwellness Spa and fitness center, it's got this:
an indoor/outdoor jogging course that snakes in and out of the hotel’s public areas.
So they want us to jog, sweaty and puffy, through public areas of the hotel? The hotel designers obviously have a lot more self-confidence in their jogging styles than we do.
Right now rooms are going for 1600 Rand ($180) for a standard room and from 2450 Rand ($270) for a one-room suite including breakfast. Public exposure to your jogging is included for free.
Tags: Hotel Design / Inclusive Design / Wheelchair Accessible Hotels / South Africa Hotels / → All Tags
Inclusive Design: Makaranga Lodge Leads the Way
There’s a new wave trend in the hotel world. It’s quite a small wave currently – more of a ripple in the distance – but it’s set to become a veritable tsunami.
It’s called Inclusive Design, and its pioneers are those who believe hotels should welcome all guests equally, regardless of any disability they might have.
Inclusive Design – or Universal Design – is an ocean apart from the wave of "design hotels" that appear on the scene of any tourist mecca. Their "design" stops short at pretty colours and shiny gadgets. How many of you have shelled out a lot of cash to stay in a design hotel, then found that you can’t reach the plug sockets, that you can’t find the switches for the funny luminescent lights, that the shiny bathroom gets a soaking from the shower’s hydromassage jets or that you can’t attract the staff’s attention away from the mirror for long enough to book a taxi?
No, Inclusive Design aims to please everybody.
Tags: Reader Reviews / Safari Hotels / South Africa Hotels / → All Tags
Inside the Marataba Hotel in South Africa
Every so often we feature a hotel review from one of our readers that we feel should be shared with the rest of you dear hotel guests. These reviews are highlighted because they are timely, about cool hotels in cool places and are relatively level-headed. Think you can submit one just like this? Send it in. Today we have a totally awesome review from a Friend of HotelChatter about one of those exotic safari hotels in South Africa. We also love our friend and her review because she gave us so many pretty pictures to look at. Enjoy.
We went on safari at the Marataba Hotel which I definitely recommend over the Krueger National Park hotels since it is a private game reserve and there are NO other groups or tours allowed on the property.
We could see elephants and giraffes from our room and warthogs hung out by the pool. At night, we had to be escorted to our tents so lions didn't attack us as the place is not fenced in.
The food is amazing, everything is scheduled perfectly and the staff is awesome.
Tags: South Africa Hotels / Hotel Renovations / → All Tags
Raw or Rockefeller, Durban's Oyster Box Will Pair Well with Champagne
South Africa is soon to have a new address for luxe, lust and haute cuisine curry when the Oyster Box reopens in mid 2009.
The 87-room Durban digs with the aphrodisiac-inspired name was recently snapped up by U.K.-based Red Carnation Hotels, which has closed the hotel to update its colonial look. The makeover is set to include a mode facelift that will meld technological must-haves like high-speed WiFi, flat-screen, satellite TVs and CD and DVD players in guest rooms with a mélange of the Oyster Box's original artwork and new, more contemporary pieces the continued tradition of fresh oysters at the hotel's Lighthouse Bar (the hotel has its own lighthouse, of which it's the official warden).
Tags: South Africa Hotels / Johannesburg Hotels / Facebook Hotels / Twitter / Skype Hotels / → All Tags
Facebooking & Twittering :: The Peech Hotel in Jo'Burg
The Peech Hotel in Johannesburg seems to be going for all the angles. It's a boutique hotel, it's proudly eco-friendly, and it's a loud, proud member of all the biggest social networking sites. How much cooler could you get?
For a start, they've got their own Facebook page and for once, it doesn't look like the only fans are staff, because they've got (a few) fans from across the world. It's early days but they're doing all the normal Facebook stuff like adding photos and events; someone's started a discussion but we're hoping to see more.
The Peech also started Twittering a few weeks ago, giving a few updates on events and advertising links to special rates. And on top of all that, they offer a link on their website to call them by Skype rather than use actual money, so we like that too.
Of course, one day every hotel under the sun will be on Facebook and Twitter, but The Peech is one of the pioneers out there. Now we have to ask: Does this make you want to book a room there?
[Photo: The Peech Hotel on Facebook]
Tags: Stellenbosch Hotels / Cape Town Hotels / South Africa Hotels / Hotel Restaurants / Monica Guy / → All Tags
The Cape Town Hotel Scene :: Wining and Dining at d'Ouwe Werf, Stellenbosch
Our roving correspondent Monica Guy has recently blessed the rains down in Africa--South Africa--and is giving us the scoop this week on the Cape Town hotel scene. Have a question or a suggestion? Let us know and we'll do our best to answer it. Enjoy.
Anyone visiting Cape Town would be mad to stay just in the city itself, cool as it is. Most travellers find at least a couple of days to explore the Winelands - the areas where South Africa's excellent, light-drinking wine is produced.
The closest areas to Cape Town are Stellenbosch and Constantia, and you can hire a car to drive round the various wine farms tasting different wines and eating until you can eat no more.
We're not sure of the rules on drink-driving in South Africa, but either way, if you want to do this properly you're best off staying in Stellenbosch itself. And for that, we recommend the 4-star d'Ouwe Werf, which claims to be South Africa's oldest hotel.
True or not, it feels like it is - a beautiful white colonial-style house with antique chairs and tables, old-style décor, and shady terraces and gardens where you can eat and drink to your heart's content with the mountains in the background.
Tags: Cape Town Hotels / South Africa Hotels / Hotel Restaurants / Orient-Express Hotels / Monica Guy / → All Tags
The Cape Town Hotel Scene: Dine in Style at the Mount Nelson Hotel
Our roving correspondent Monica Guy has recently blessed the rains down in Africa--South Africa--and is giving us the scoop this week on the Cape Town hotel scene. Have a question or a suggestion? Let us know and we'll do our best to answer it. Enjoy.
How the other half live. Or rather, not half, but the small minority of wealthy (almost all white) travellers who stay in the Mount Nelson Hotel, Cape Town's Grande Dame.
The drive up to the hotel entrance (a guard salutes you on the way in) is via a tree-lined road through their vast, landscaped grounds - smoother than most of Cape Town's main roads. A huge, white columned building, and inside, a marble-floored entrance hall complete with antique décor, oil paintings, stuffed animal heads and suited butlers.
We didn't stay overnight so we can't tell you more about the rooms. But we did try out the restaurant, however, which is allegedly the best in Cape Town for Cape Malay-style fine dining.
Tags: Cape Town Hotels / South Africa Hotels / Monica Guy / → All Tags
An Introduction to the Cape Town Hotel Scene
Our roving correspondent Monica Guy has recently blessed the rains down in Africa--South Africa--and is giving us the scoop this week on the Cape Town hotel scene. Have a question or a suggestion? Let us know and we'll do our best to answer it. Enjoy.
Cape Town's having a bad time in the press these days because of violence spread from Johannesburg, but don't let that put you off visiting. It's a superb city - hot and thumping and full of surprises, with a whole gamut of safaris, whale-watching trips, wine tours, hiking, and loads more.
The Cape Town hotel scene is changing fast - the FIFA World Cup is coming to the city in 2010 and new hotels and apartments are shooting up all over the place. Prices will be shooting up too, so if you're not a football fan, head there now before the fever takes over.
Tags: South Africa Hotels / Johannesburg Hotels / Luxury Hotels / Boutique Hotels / Hotel Spas / → All Tags
The Saxon Hotel in Johannesburg :: Opulence in a High-Security Prison
The Saxon Hotel in Johannesburg takes the meaning of 'surreal' to a new level. It's an over-the-top opulent boutique hotel inside what looks and feels like a high-security prison.
Johannesburg, the largest city in South Africa, has a reputation for being dangerous--or at least, it's dangerous to be rich. And the Saxon Hotel is where the Really Rich stay. It's a 24-room boutique extravaganza of a hotel, but for security reasons it's set behind a 10-ft. stone wall topped with barbed wire and lined with armed guards.
The entrance roads are a kind of maze, with various gates opening at various unpredictable times to throw would-be robbers off the scent--you have to wait for a hotel car to guide your taxi through the maze. The grounds are large so you can't see all this from the hotel itself, but it's an unsettling experience.
Tags: Holiday Inns / InterContinental Hotels / South Africa Hotels / → All Tags
Holiday Inn Coming to Johannesburg
Holiday Inn has just opened a new 48-room property in the Johannesburg suburb of Soweto. An important historical neighborhood, and a one-time home to both Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, Soweto hosts thousands of tourists each year hoping to learn more about apartheid and one of the places that brought it to worldwide attention.
The Holiday Inn Soweto Freedom Square is located on Walter Sisulu Square, close to what the hotel claims are Soweto's growing number of nightlife spots. The property will also bring its own restaurant to the neighborhood.
InterContinental Hotels, which owns the brand, is planning more South Africa hotels, including an Express by Holiday Inn in Cape Town that should open by the end of this year.
Related Stories:
· Holiday Inns coverage [HotelChatter]
· South Africa Hotels [HotelChatter]
Tags: South Africa Hotels / Hotel Cuisine / Cape Town Hotels / → All Tags
Making Bread in the Vineyard in South Africa
While you're spending some dough at a nice hotel, how about making some as well? Le Quartier Français in South Africa lets you make your own wine accompaniment with a day of baking and vino at a working vineyard.
Le Quartier Français, in the beautiful wine region near Cape Town, has the kind of restaurant people drive two hours to get to just for dinner. Chef Margot Janse has a full wall of award plaques and the 8-course gourmand tasting menu is legendary. The Relais and Chateaux hotel is also one of the best in the region.
But if you want to do some cooking along with your eating, they'll put you on a bread making field trip to a vineyard restaurant affiliated with the hotel. An excursion heads out to the winery restaurant at Môreson, simply called Bread & Wine. Here is a condensed version of your day:
- On arrival you will receive your very own apron, recipe book and ingredients
- Hands-on, with a bit of guidance you will make 4 different types of dough
- We will quench your thirst with water and wine
- While your breads are baking we send you off to taste the wines
- Lunch will be served with some of your very own baked breads
- More wine to be had
Did we mention there will be plenty of wine? You may want to pencil in a nap for when you return to your room. The monthly program--available only to guests of the hotel--should be booked in advance and we suggest April 21 or May 12 to coincide with the harvest season in the southern hemisphere. Note that you'll need to bring a good bit of bread with you as well--the kind that goes in your bank account. Doubles at Le Quartier Français start at $207 (1,450 rand) and suites start at $379.
Few leave disappointed though after staying at this gem of an inn, and a day of bread and wine would be a nice reason to leave the grounds.
Photo: travelingmcmahans]
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