August 2024 South Africa Vacation
South Africa
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Aug 4 - Aug 15, 2024
Without a doubt, one of my most favorite vacations despite missing four days due to flight disruptions. The first part of our trip, we spent three nights in Cape Town and stayed at the La Splendida Hotel with an ocean view and minutes away from the waterfront. Bridget Wilcox was our tour guide in Cape Town to a Penguin Safari, a drive along the coast to Cape Point, Hirschenbosch Botanical Gardens and wine tasting. Bridget was friendly, informative, funny, and knowledgeable. We enjoyed having Bridget as our tour guide while in Cape Town. I appreciated, Laurel, a representative from Capi Tours, meeting my husband and I at the airport while we waited for our ride to the hotel given the chaotic start we had. From Cape Town, we flew to Kruger National park - Shalati. The 3 day safari was the highlight and best part of our adventure. Shalati did not disappoint from the staff, accommodations, food, surroundings/atmosphere and overall experience. Definitely exceeded all of my expectations. Benedict from what I observed ran the place well, professional, helpful and made it a point guests were taken care of. Shout out to Subisiso and Lurrecia, both waited on us the majority of our stay and super friendly and helpful. The game drives were quite an experience like no other. We were able to see 4 of the Big Five and in complete awe of seeing them in their nature habitat. The last leg of our vacation, we flew to Zimbabwe. We saw Victoria Falls (no dead pool swimming) but pretty neat regardless and then a Bomba dinner that evening. Our last night, we had lunch at Dusty Road and a sunset cruise. It was such a pleasant evening on the cruise and surprisingly had a great time.
My biggest complaint: La Splendida Hotel and theft. We had a few items laundered with a next day return. I picked up my clothes at the front desk from Lucille (manager) the morning of our last day in Cape Town. I took the clothes to my room and left for our all day wine tasting tour. When we returned, I noticed 4 of our laundered items were missing. I immediately notified the front desk and was told to talk to the manager in the morning, which was the morning we were flying to Kruger National Park. Lucille tried to deflect that it was a possible mix up with another guest's request, plausible but very unlikely. Someone with a key entered our room while we were away and stole our clothes!! We had laundry service at Shalati and Pioneer and had no issues or experienced theft of any kind. Apparently, others have also reported theft at La Splendida (something we found out later after the fact). With a service such as Kim Kim, it is their responsibility to vet hotels, tour guides, etc. and ensure they are reputable before recommending to their guests. I paid for and relied on Kim Kim's expertise to do that on my behalf. In this regard, they failed in my opinion. Stephanie did work with the hotel to recover the stolen clothes. It's been almost 6 weeks since we've been back and I have yet to receive them, if ever.
Hotel Reviews
Theft! Need to hire trustworthy employees. Online pics were so misleading because our room was no where near what was shown in the pics!
From the moment we arrived to departure, service was top notch. Everyone was friendly, welcoming and helpful. Wonderful experience and highly recommend!
Loved the quaintness and coziness of Pioneers!
Activity Reviews
