Having come towards the end of our Garden route tour of the western cape, the final three nights were to be spent in Cape Town, in a hotel that was quite different from the others we had stayed in during the trip. This was a bigger, busier, more impersonal hotel than we had been used to, because it was in the city rather than in the rural settings of the others we had experienced.
It’s the kind of hotel we’ve stayed in during trips to London, for example, and we encountered similar problems – long waits at the reception desk, waiters in the bar who were in no hurry to serve us, and an exceptionally busy restaurant (especially at breakfast time) with some dishes not labelled or unavailable, and generally a bit of a bun-fight for what WAS available. It seemed to us that the restaurant was unable to cope efficiently when a large number of guests wished to eat at the same time, which should not have been the case. Our room, however, was as comfortable as you might expect but a proper sea view would have been better than the partial side view from our window.
The hotel is situated just back off the promenade in Bantry Bay, the western suburb of the town – not in the centre but only short bus or taxi ride away. It’s handy for nice walks along the sea front but there’s not a lot else nearby so a short journey is nearly always necessary. We used the Hop-On Hop-Off bus service which conveniently stops outside the hotel. It’s a good base for visiting the city and we were able to take a tour of the Cape Peninsula, a boat trip out to Robben Island, and memorably a cable car ride to the top of Table Mountain.
We thoroughly enjoyed Cape Town and would certainly go there again should we have the chance, but we found it a pity that this hotel, the last of our tour, was something of a disappointment, but maybe that was because we had been spoiled in our five previous ones!
