In my line of work, a hotel stay is very common, sometimes especially in the last few months I have felt more at home in hotel rooms than I do in my own home. It’s great living the hotel life, everything magically cleans itself up and food appears with a one button summon. It is a amazing.

Expect when it isn’t.

I recently stayed at the Southern Sun in Montecasino ( my first time there), a place like this with multiple stars, you would expect a certain level of service. I did and I was sorely disappointed. The ventilation in my room was shoddy, there wasn’t a wardrobe for my luggage just the thing to rest it on, come now — but I thought ‘you know what the view is amazing and it’s only for one night’.

Apparently things weren’t going to improve. I wasn’t able to have breakfast as I was leaving before it started but for some unknown reason I couldn’t get a cup of coffee to go, I mean jeez even the City Lodge can do that.

I waited around for about 10-15mins for someone to check me out, I am sorry my insanely early flight that I might miss is an inconvenience to you right now. The most annoying was the mysterious charge of around R2000 ($180) that appeared on my bill. I was there for one night and in that time I was in the room for the time I slept in it. I was nowhere near the bar but apparently I have had quite the time racking up bill like that. Interestingly the check out guy couldn’t show me the tab I signed to prove I was there and authorised this bill of awesome. I am not paying that if you can’t prove it was me which it wasn’t. So I didn’t.

It’s all quite sad because I really like the Southern Sun. I think perhaps someone was just having a bad day and a bunch of things just fell through the cracks, I am sure the service there is usually impeccable, this time just wasn’t quite it.

The hotel is actually quite beautiful and well suited. I would recommend but I am not sure I can in good conscience, perhaps someone else can tell me of their experience?

Update: The hotel called me and apologised and sorted out the wrong bill issue, so we are all happy clams now. They went all James Bond and looked at surveillance footage, yay them.