Saxon Hotel, Villas & Spa

We stayed here after our flight was cancelled. It was not originally part of our itinerary. Overall, this is a glorified Hilton property with a beautiful pool and lawn area. Will not stay here again. That said, we hear it is the nicest in Jo-berg. • Rooms are dated: The rooms are spacious, but incredibly dated. The complex itself is tired and the furniture felt un-clean. The couch in the room is not big enough for an average sized person to lay on, when there is space enough to have a normal sized couch in the room. The furniture looked heavily used and we were grossed out to use the decorative pillows or sit on the couch. It felt like you were in a 1990s room for a king, not in a good way. • Can’t use sink water: Not being able to use the tap water to brush your teeth is hard, after coming from a place in out in the bush in Kruger where you, even there, could safely use the tap water to brush your teeth. If this is the case, bring at least 3-4 bottles of purified tap to each sink. • Called reception and no one answered. We ended up lugging our bags downstairs ourselves. Again, spoiled comment, but it is a table stakes expectation at a five-star hotel to have reception (or anyone) answer the phones. • Room doors need peep holes: For a hotel in one of the most dangerous cities in the world, you need to be able to look out a peep hole in your room to confirm if it is really housekeeping outside your door trying to get in. This sounds like an overly-sensitive comment, but (1) it’s easy to have peep holes — most normal safe hotels have these and (2) the majority of people sitting in the restaurants were accompanied by bodyguards. A peep-hole is a small, easy safety measure. • Air conditioning: This is a personal preference. We need to sleep with it being very cold in the room. The AC’s lowest setting goes to 19 degrees C whereas every other place we stayed at in Africa could reach 17 C. We considered opening the door at one point, but didn’t want to let in bugs. Having optional screens on the doors could help. • Vibe: The vibe here may just be Jo-berg. It did not feel like home, or welcoming, or particularly safe. You drive into the hotel after passing houses upon houses upon houses with 20 ft’ walls, electric fencing on top of them and a guard shack. When we arrived at the hotel, I expected there to be a double gate where you are approved and then drive in and wait to get approved again. It was very VERY weird to feel like a sitting duck in the car on the street OUTSIDE the gate, while the gate attendant was trying to confirm if we were guests for at least 10 minutes. We booked same-day and the log was not updated with our booking… if someone books same-day, add them to the expected guests list?? Otherwise, food was great. We ate at their casual restaurant. Recommend the chicken curry. The chicken was cooked perfectly.

This will be short but sweet. It was fantastic at every turn. The ubiquity of staff left no need unmet. Turning around laundry service in 4 hours was an unbelieveable luxury, especially after coming out of a safari in the bush. A really wonderful place. The drive to and from the airport was longer than I'd wish, but not every airport has a convenient, beautiful neighborhood.