Hotel Review: Umhlanga Sands, Southern Sun Lifestyle Resort, Durban

I visited the Umhlanga Sands Lifestyle Resort in last week September, 2010 which is located in the Umhlanga Rocks Area which is about 20 minutes from the Durban City Centre in South Africa. I exchanged one of my RCI Weeks for a week at this resort and I was very impressed by what I saw. It is to be noted that this is a Gold Crown Resort and it definitely lives up to its expectation.

Let me state up front that this is a resort for couples with kids as most of the entertainment and activities at this resort have kids as the main target group. If you are a honeymooning couple or are in for a romantic getaway then avoid this resort and go for the Cabana Beach Resort which is located next door which will be more suited to your taste. You may find the Umhlanga Sands Southern Sun Lifestyle Resort a bit too noisy with too much stuff happening all around.

The Umhlanga Sands Southern Sun Lifestyle Resort is situated 20 minutes from the King Shaka International Airport and 15 minutes from the Durban City Centre. It is located exactly at the mid point of the Airport and the City Centre in the Umhlanga Rocks Area. The Umhlanga Rocks area is the best place to stay when you are in Durban and the most economical as well as compared to the hotels on the Golden Mile Sea Coast in Durban which are definitely not worth the amount which they charge. A taxi from the airport to the Umhlanga Sands Southern Sun Lifestyle Resort will cost you ZAR 200 one way and the resort can arrange for a pick up (you can alternatively book from one of the cab companies of which Umhlanga Cabs in the most efficient, offers the best rates and is the most preferred).

The check in is from Saturday to Saturday and the check-in process can be very time consuming as everyone checks in at the same time and you may have to wait a wile which may spoil the first impression you get of the resort, but do not let that bother you. I would rate the resort rooms as absolutely awesome due to the following reasons.

(1) 4 beds across 2 rooms. 2 single beds for the kids and a double bed in the main room. No extra bedding required and no one needs to sleep on the floor
(2) Partial Kitchenette equipped with a toaster, microwave and fridge and lots of crockery and cutlery. There is no cooking range which disappointed me a bit
(3) Huge bathroom with rooms being cleaned and linens changed on a daily basis
(4) Main bedroom is awesome with a sit out balcony overlooking the beautiful Indian Ocean – all rooms are sea facing and the view especially in the evening is awesome
(5) Adequate cupboard space for a family of 4 for a week

In addition to the awesome room the following activities organized by the resort staff make the resort even more exciting for kids

(1) Brai (Barbeque) is organized twice a week usually on Sunday’s and Tuesday’s
(2) Live Entretainment and quizzes and game shows on a daily basis
(3) A lot of Games are sporting events for kids
(4) 2 Restaurants and a Bar, 3 pool including one which is adults only
(5) Beachwear Shop, Massage parlour, hair dresser, hand ball field, gym and many other amenities

Other local attractions when you are staying in this resort are as follows. The resort staff will be able to guide you on the bookings which need to be made.

(1) 1 day trip to Durban city preferable in the Rickshaw Bus which takes you around 23 important spots in the city
(2) Gateway Mall which is an awesome place to shop, catch a movie and relax
(3) Kashmir Restaurant which is a 15 minute walk away and other good restaurants in the Umhlanga Rocks Area

I would highly recommend this resort for a week’s stay especially if you have kids travelling with you.

Hotel Review: Southern Sun Waterfront Hotel, Cape Town

Strengths: Located centrally very close to the V&A Waterfront
Weakness: Expensive if you do not get discounted pricing which is available from time to time

I visited this hotel in mid September 2010. I did my booking via RCI Rentals via the Bangalore Call Centre (available only to RCI Members) and got a Hot Deal which offered me a rate of INR 7000 per night as opposed to regular rate of INR 13000 per night. If you get any process below INR 9000 per night – please go ahead as opting for this hotel saves you a lot of money travelling within the city.

The Southern Sun Waterfront Hotel, Cape Town is located bang in central Cape Town very close to the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront (V&A Waterfront). If you choose to walk down to the hotel it is a 15 minute walk but the hotel runs a complimentary shuttle for all customers which operates every 15 minutes to the waterfront.

The rooms at the Southern Sun Waterfront Hotel, Cape Town are well equipped with all the regular amenities of a 4 Star Hotel, only a mini bar / fridge was missing from the room. The rooms are a bit small but very comfortable. Wi-Fi Internet as well as the Internet Vouchers at the Business Centre are very expensive and charge ZAR 100 for 1 hour slots – so internet surfing is avoidable.

I found the hotel staff exceptionally friendly and helpful. The reception guys offered good tips of travelling around the city and the concierge desk bent backwards to find me a laptop adaptor as well as an ice bucket (to protect the expensive cheese we had bought) given that there was no mini – bar / fridge in the room. None of the rooms at the Southern Sun Waterfront Hotel, Cape Town offer any spectacular views of the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront so do not bother asking for one.

The breakfast at the Southern Sun Waterfront Hotel, Cape Town is included in the room tariff for most packages. The breakfast spread has a lot of variety and no matter which part of the world you are from you will not face an issue in finding something to suit your palette. Room Service Menu is limited but very affordable and the service is pretty prompt as well. I enjoyed the mini meals such as chicken curry and rice that they had on offer.

This hotel is centrally located and the following attractions are very accessible from this hotel.

(1)City Sight Seeing Bus Tour (Stop No.3)
(2)Clock Tower
(3)Nelson Mandela Gateway to Robben Island
(4)Victoria & Alfred Waterfront

You can find further details on the above attractions in my other blogs or from the hotel staff or on the Internet. Do note that there are 3 Southern Sun Group Hotels in the Cape Town area. The hotel which I am referring to is the Southern Sun Waterfront Hotel, Cape Town.

Hotel Review: Southern Sun O.R. Tambo Airport Hotel, Johannesburg

Strengths: Located 500 meters from the O.R. Tambo International Airport
Weakness: Not much to do around the hotel, only good if you are staying here as a stopover before taking an onward flight

The Southern Sun O.R. Tambo Airport Hotel, Johannesburg is located barely 500 meters from the O.R. Tambo Airport and is very convenient as a stopover when you are taking a connecting flight the next day. The rates start from ZAR 1000 per night non-inclusive of breakfast and are more economical as compared to other hotels in the vicinity such as the Intercontinental or the Protea Hotel O. R. Tambo.

The best part of staying at the Southern Sun O.R. Tambo Airport Hotel, Johannesburg is that they run a complimentary Airport Shuttle to and from the Airport for 24 hours every 15 minutes. The pick-up point for the Shuttle is outside the International Arrivals area immediately behind the Intercontinental Hotel. If you have any difficulty finding this pickup point, then walk over to the Intercontinental Hotel and ask the guard there and he will be able to direct you. This shuttle bus service will save you ZAR 100 which a Taxi will charge to get you to the hotel even though it is located only 500 meters away from O.R. Tambo Airport.

The staff at the hotel is very friendly and the check in process is very quick and easy. The room is good and well equipped, the only missing thing is a mini bar / fridge. However the décor of the room at the Southern Sun O.R. Tambo Airport Hotel, Johannesburg is very dull as compared to the other Southern Sun Group Hotels which I have stayed in. The internet rates on offer at this hotel are much cheaper than most hotels in South Africa and they charge ZAR 50 per hour as opposed to ZAR 100 per hour charged by most hotels.

If you have time to kill, I would recommend the spa. The time, at which I went the therapists were very good, however some of the treatments are expensive however highly recommended as I found them much more relaxing and effective as compared to some others that I have experienced. The room service menu is limited and a bit of the expensive side as well.

Do note that this is a very formal business hotel with no recreational activities what so ever, very different from the airport hotels we have in Mumbai. So I would recommend the Southern Sun O.R. Tambo Airport Hotel, Johannesburg as it is very economical compared to the other hotels in the area and very convenient for a stop-over before you catch your next flight.

Hotel Review: Protea Hotel - Kruger Gate, Kruger

Strengths: Proximity to Paul Kruger Gate of Kruger National Park
Weakness: Expensive

I visited the Protea Hotel Kruger Gate in mid September 2010. This hotel is located about 90 miles from the Mpumalanga Nelspruit Airport (pronounced as MUM-ALANGA) and it takes about an hour and forty five minutes to cover that distance. It is advisable to rent a car and not take a cab as it is 5 times more economical and saved you ZAR 800 one way.

When you drive through, remember you will pass through Whiteriver and Hazyview and then you will come to Paul Kruger Gate of the Kruger National Park. The Protea Hotel Kruger Gate is about 100 metres before the Paul Kruger Gate of Kruger National Park. There are Protea Hotels in Hazyview and Nelspruit as well, but I strongly suggest that you stay in Protea Hotel Kruger Gate due to the proximity to the Paul Kruger Gate of Kruger National Park.

This hotel is best suited for a 2 night stay if you are going for a safari into the Kruger National Park (obviously you need to be a die-hard wildlife enthusiast, else there is no point coming to Kruger in the first place). There is no other reason for staying here, other than visiting Kruger. The Protea Hotel Kruger Gate (or almost all hotels in and around Kruger) is very expensive priced at approximately INR 13000 per night. This rate is inclusive of breakfast and dinner. The room facilities are as good as any other 4 Star hotels. I would not rate it is as a 5 Star as my experience was a bit below the best as there were some leakages in the bathroom and the Air Conditioning was a problem – and they took a lot of time to fix it. But I am guessing that this was a one off occurrence.

The breakfast is awesome and could be rated as one of the best I have ever had, however the dinner was a bit weird for my traditional Indian Palette. There is a variety of meat which is served (and very little chicken or mutton which significantly reduced my options). It is really great if you eat all types of meat including Pork, Beef, Deer, Kudu and several other varieties which I was scared to even touch. So I did not rate the dinner option very highly, however I realize that this is specific to my taste only and others may find it pretty good, and I think the other tourists who were present found it awesome. The good part during dinner was that they have a tribal group of teenagers performing some traditional African songs and this was quite an experience as I think it was the first time I was listening to traditional tribal African music.

The Protea Hotel Kruger Gate has a Travel & Tours desk which organize day trips to the Kruger National Park. You have several tour companies to select from and I would rate Echo Safaris as one of the best. They have a full day tour from 6:00 AM to 5:00 PM for ZAR 750 per person where they take you out in an open air jeep and it is very cool. Their guides are also very good and know exactly the places where you will be able to spot the wildlife.

The Protea Hotel Kruger Gate has 2 very nice restaurants, one of them with a sit out area overlooking the Kruger National Park and if you are equipped with Binoculars you will be definitely be able to spot some wildlife from the restaurant deck itself. It is an awesome place to unwind with Pizza or wine or whatever it is you like. The swimming pool at the Protea Hotel Kruger Gate is very small and is more of the kiddies pool and the water was freezing cold in mid September – so I did not enter it at all. The Internet is very expensive at ZAR 100 for 1 hour which means you are shelling out INR 700 for 1 hour of Internet. The Protea Hotel Kruger Gate has a store on premises where you can but stuff like souvenirs and batteries for your camera and Kruger National Park memorabilia.

I strongly recommend that when you visit South Africa you need to spend a maximum of 2 nights in the Protea Hotel Kruger Gate. The first day can be a full day Kruger National Park Safari and the second day will be chilling out at the hotel, going for a massage etc. Any more days spent in the Kruger National park area and I am sure you will get bored, unless you are a die-hard wildlife enthusiast.

Attraction Review: Kruger National Park

Let me state right at the outset, than planning a trip to Kruger National park is rather expensive (comes to approx INR 9000 per day per person) and you should do it only if you are a genuine wildlife enthusiast. If you do not care too much for wildlife, then you are better off skipping a visit to Kruger National Park as you will not get your money’s worth and may even find it a bit boring driving around the park for a full day. However if you are a Nature and Wildlife Lover and you have an hi-tech SLR camera and binoculars at hand, then you will have a gala time.

To experience Kruger National Park, it is better to fly down to Nelspruit Airport in Mpumalanga province and drive down to the Paul Kruger Gate of the Kruger National Park. As soon as you enter the Paul Kruger Gate you have the Skukuza Base camp at about 6 miles distance and it is best you make a booking here for your stay at Kruger National Park. I stayed at the Protea Hotel Kruger Gate which would be a more expensive option, but very convenient as the Protea Hotel Kruger Gate is located barely 100 metres from the Paul Kruger Gate of Kruger National Park. I also did not want to let go of the luxuries of a regular hotel.

As we had a car with us we had an option of driving into Kruger National Park or being a part of the Hotel organized Tour (organized via Echo Safaris). I would recommend an organized Open jeep tour with a driver guide due to the following reasons.

(1) The driver guides know which are the specific spots to find the animals in Kruger National Park. Our driver knew exactly in which part of the park we would see elephants and this is something I would not know if I was driving down
(2) The drivers are connected to other drivers via the car intercom / walkie talkie system, hence if one of the drivers spots a rare animal such as a lion or a leopard, he announces the same on the Intercom and other drivers immediately drive to that area. This is another useful feature of the organized safaris which the individual drivers will miss out on
(3) If you need to use the loo at short notice then the drivers know where the tourist stand alone loos are located – you may face a problem with this when you are on your own

However do note that the organized packaged tours are expensive and cost ZAR 750 per person, so you will end up shelling out quite a bit if you are in a big group – but do take it, as it is an experience in itself. You are taken in an open air jeep which is usually a 6 seater and it is very comfortable.

You must always start your drive / tour of the Kruger National Park as early as possible preferably before 6:00 AM so that you can see the sunrise which is magnificent and also it is easier to spot the rare animals such as the Lion and the leopards earlier in the morning when it is very cool. The chances of spotting a lion / leopard reduces drastically after 10:00 AM when it starts becoming very hot. Elephants, Giraffes, imphalas, kudu, deer and hippos are all easy to find while lion, leopards and rhinos are difficult to spot.

The gates of Kruger park close at 6:00 PM so please make sure you come out before that. There are several stops and restaurants at Skukuza Base Camp and you can make that your stop for lunch and tea.

Do have a nice trip.