Protea Hotel Dorpshuis Spa

Warning! Bed bugs and mosquitos!

Nice, but a bit "obsolete" hotel in Stellenbosch. Spacious rooms. Neat, but not super luxurious. Big bed. Extensive surveillance as with most homes here. This gives a certain anxiety and does not help to like it here. That is of course also because we are not used to this kind of "tension" in our daily lives.

It is a hotel with mixed heritage and is rather rambling property. There seem to be rooms in heritage building but also in newer buildings. It is a bit of a rabbit warren, rooms spread all over the place. We arrived late in the evening after a long flight into Cape Town and then driving to Stellenbosch. The main entrance is difficult to find as it is on a side street and the name of the hotel is rather difficult to find. On-site Parking is quite limited. We were verbally recognised as gold Marriott member but no benefits were offered. We were allocated a room on the 1st floor but there were no lifts and heavy suitcases had to be lugged manually, very difficult and tiring. The room itself was not what we expected so we rang reception and they said to check in the morning and an upgrade may be possible. We then had a different person at reception in the morning and as usual the standard response was, “sorry, we are fully booked”. When we explained again that we were reassured about an upgraded room did the receptionist consulted with her manager and we were given a proper loft room with a separate living area in addition to the loft bedroom. The breakfast room is quite nice with nice original plaster ceiling. Buffet breakfast is ok with egg station if you want. The hotel is close to many restaurants on the Main Street of Stellenbosch as well as the historic buildings, some dated from 18th century. I would label it as a 3 rather than 4 star hotel.