Hi Zanele,

While we are always dismayed when we are faced with a guest who feels that they did not get to fully enjoy our establishment; we do feel that this review, and your recounting of the events, is slightly marred. We would like to set the record straight, for any other potential guests who might be reviewing our establishment.

Firstly, it is very clearly stated, from when you make the initial booking, that our reception closes at 8pm. We are not a Hotel, and do not have a 24hr reception. As a small, owner run BnB, WE are the people who will be providing breakfast the following morning and so, we do rise and shine around 05:00 am every morning. For this reason, we do not feel that our operating hours are unreasonable, at all. Yes, there can definitely be extenuating circumstances, and we generally try to accommodate as far as possible in this regard.

Your recount of the timeline of events is a little skewed:-
• When you made the initial booking, you advised us of a 2pm check-in
• At 4pm, you requested a late check-in of 10pm, with no reason given for the late check-in request
• At 5pm, we confirmed (once again) that our reception closes at 8pm
• At 5.30pm, you ignored our message regarding reception closure times and informed us that you would phone when you
were 20 minutes away
• At 8pm, an automatic message goes out stating that our reception is now closed
• At 10pm, you messaged to say that you were passing Butterworth (a town which is a good distance away from ourselves)
• Your actual check-in time was at 11:30pm, a very long time after your anticipated and advised “late check-in” time of 10pm

And, it is for this exact reason that we do have a closing time for our reception. We have been trading for 10 years and have had very many instances of guests assuring us of a reasonable late check-in time and then arriving at ungodly hours. Always, in any business, if there are rules in place, there is usually a very good reason for those rules to be in place!

With regard to the telephone call, nobody hung up on you – you were travelling through the Transkei, where signal is sketchy at the best of times – the call dropped due to signal issues. And, at no point during our interactions with yourself, were we rude towards you. In fact, if we were so intolerably rude to you, surely you should not have been happy to stay over for the second night of your booking?

With regard to your request for a cancellation and refund, we are sure that you will be very hard-pressed to find any accommodation establishment (hotel or guesthouse) that would agree to a refund at 9pm on the day of check-in!

We certainly do not agree with your remarks regarding our professionalism and for us to be more accommodating towards our guests, we do try our very best to go out of our way to be as accommodating as possible. This is quite evident when looking at the other reviews for our establishment, as well as our rating of No.1 out of 222 establishments. Also, on a side note, as per information clearly provided in our rooms, our breakfast times are from 7am to 9am. We did very willing, and without comment, serve you breakfast at 10:30am. So yes, we do go out of our way to accommodate our guests.

Once again, we are extremely saddened to hear that you did not enjoy your stay. We strive for high quality and comfortable accommodation for our very many returning and regular guests – we are very sorry to hear that you will not be one of them.