Nice décor, shame about the service and ergonomics
South Africa is full of paradoxes, and one is in Vereeniging. As you drive into this lacklustre industrial town on the border of the Free State, you might find yourself wondering how people have the resilience to live there.
Yet push on a few more driving minutes and you’ll find the Vaal River, and in particular a hotel called Bon Hotel Riviera, which has a graceful terrace, punctuated by a rectangular pool within an oval garden, overlooking this lazy old waterway. It’s much lovelier than the Nile Hilton in Cairo, which was an unambiguous disappointment. And while the floating restaurants of the Nile are uncontestable for magical lighting and elegance, the Bon’s riverboat offers a classy ride for sunset drinkies, or dinner, as you pass the Riviera-on-the-Vaal golf course.
I went to get a feel of this old dame in the wake of the Bon Hotels, a Cape Town-based company, taking ownership and management of it. The 91-room, five-floor Riviera on the Vaal hotel is a converted farmhouse from the 1800s, that had great family appeal in its heyday, but became dejected and forlorn as money and conferencing budgets got tighter.
The Bon group’s refurbishment is elegant and tasteful, displaying an unerring eye for aesthetics and colour combinations. But here’s the thing. This is a business hotel, and the wicker chairs at the desks are so low that unless you’re a giant or propped up on cushions, you’re tapping your laptop at around chin level.
Actually, it’s amazing to me that places geared to that activity tend to overlook this critical detail. The Common Room in Parkhurst, Joburg, a new hub for freelancers, has a room full of bar stools aligning tables where your laptop is at around knee level. Puts a whole new spin on backbreaking work! Don’t get me started …
I had some work to do while at the Bon, so I shimmied off to the business centre where although the desk/chair levels are all good, the lighting is not. In fact, it’s non-existent if you don’t plug in one of two desk lamps, one of which doesn’t have a lead long enough to reach the plug.
Note to staff, especially before a media launch: test that everything works, the lights, the toilet flush, the taps, the TV, the kettle, the bar fridge, the phone, the Wifi. And plug things in. You can’t call yourself “luxury” if guests are crawling about on their hands and knees in the business centre attending to the electrics!
To cut the Bon some slack, I’ve noticed that even South Africa’s swankiest hospitality establishments are bedeviled with sluggish, apathetic staff.
I remember at Hazyview’s former 4,9-star rated Cybele forest lodge, being served hot breakfast in my forest cabin but without implements to eat it, or milk. By the time it arrived a good 20 minutes later, the food and coffee were stone cold.
At the Bon Hotel Riviera, staff behave as though the hotel is a ghostly pile from the past that they just need to keep clean. You’ll sit for quite a while on the terrace, even at lunchtime, before one of them realizes the hotel has – Eureka –guests!
Feeling invisible, I went a-hunting for a staffer in the kitchen to serve me a burger that emerged lukewarm with chips covered in that awful orange powder that passes for salt. The receptionist might want to think about emerging from her hidey-hole to actually serve people loitering at the desk having their patience tested.
I hope life is breathed into the place again because it really is quite lovely with its new makeover, but I suspect that might require a few firecrackers inserted in some unmentionable places.
- BON Hotels’ CEO, Guy Stehlik says this hotel is the first project in the company’s plan to extend its footprint in Gauteng and other regions. With the financial muscle to take on properties where they can add value, BON Hotels are performing due diligence on properties in Sandton, Rosebank, and Illovo. “We’re hungry and excited about our future,” he said at the Vaal launch.
Maybe Joburg is just what Bon Hotels needs. Some hotels here have been dragged kicking and screaming to international standard, but there’s a healthy clutch of them by now to offer serious competition. And let’s face it, that’s good for everybody all round.