We stayed here one night for my husband's birthday and arrived by train from Johannesburg. The service was great from the beginning. We hadn't prearranged a car from the train station to the hotel but after one quick call to the concierge's desk a car was sent for us in a timely manner. Upon arrival, the service was impeccable. I wanted to do something special for my husband's birthday. The venue that I tried to book online was sold out for the night. After explaining the situation to the concierge manager, he arranged for us to attend an after party at the Le Vue Floating Restaurant. We had a great time and the night was definitely one of the highlights of our two week trip to South Africa.

While getting ready for the evening, my husband wanted his shoes shinned and the housekeeping staff took care of it expeditiously. I purchased a few nice items from the gift shop and the ladies in shop were pleasant. One of the ladies even noticed my tanzanite engagement ring and inquired if I had a December birthday as she did. Despite our pretty nice experience, there were three minor issues that are worth mentioning: (1) The pool is in an odd place. My husband wanted to go for a night swim but it's situated next to one of the restaurants. There was a banquet style event going on so it would have been a bit awkward to go for a dip while folks were waltzing around in evening attire.....which brings me to number (2) my husband is from Louisiana so we were very excited to try the lobby restaurant "The Big Easy" but we were denied service because of a private event. We ordered room service and the food was great so that kind of made up for the inconvenience. Lastly (3) the spa staff were probably the least friendly of the all the staff that we encountered and it made me not want to spend my money there. Overall we have fond memories and would stay here again when we return to Durban.