Mountain Manor

My third stay at the Tulbagh Mountain Manor, not my last. The view is spectatcular, the acomadation grand and the welcome real. Highly recommended. James

Tulbagh Manor is so beautiful so it’s a shame that missing light bulbs, extremely awkward water access and lack of bedside lights and curtains made the room uncomfortable. A little maintenance and a few thoughtful additions would make it perfect. Still a great place despite these elements.

Awful stay in a potentially gorgeous place. Avoid! It started on arrival. The charming staff member showed us to our room, (mentioning that the owner was away for a few days - the entirety of our stay) - we'd booked the "Honeymoon suite" a separate room, half on stilts with stunning views. Having showed it to us, I asked how to work the air conditioning, only to be told "oh, I don't know why that doesn't work!" Clearly it hadn't worked for some time. It was 32'c in the shade that day and it was sweltering hot for 2 Brit's who are not used to heat like that... exactly why we'd booked a room with A/C. I explained that we wouldn't be able to sleep without A/C and she just shrugged and said she'd try to contact the owner. A while later my wife went to find her and asked if they'd another room that did have working A/C, she did so we moved rooms, to one that was inferior to what we'd booked but it had A/C. What we didn't realise initially was it didn't have any curtains over the double doors that had glass panels in. That meant there was zero privacy in the room from when anyone, such as the gardener was walking by, plus of course at sunrise the light came flooding in. There was evidence that there had been a blind or curtains there once, presumably it had broken - some time ago - and they just couldn't be bothered to fix or replace it. There were 3 dogs on site - we LOVE dogs - but they were left out all night (presumably because the owner was away?!!) not our problem, except at 4am I was suddenly awoken to hear frantic scratching at the door! I got up to investigate and found it was one of the small dogs - thank goodness....I mentioned this at breakfast to the staff member and she said, I don't know why she does that! There are absolutely stunning views all around this property and the exterior of the property also looks stunning..... however when we thought we'd like to lay by the pool and enjoy the views, we found the pool to be filthy. The bottom of the pool needs maintaining and there was a scum on top of the water, plus after removing 3 dead frogs from it I decided it wouldn't be wise to use it...so no pool. But great views. The second morning, once again at 4am frantic scratching at the door, same culprit. Ignored it this time, finally got back to sleep but at 6.30 am, frantic scratching again so that was the end of our sleep! I once again mentioned it at breakfast and the lady said "I don't know why she does that" !! We were the only guests here during our entire stay and both the lady staff member and the gardener go home at 4pm, so we had the entire place to ourselves each evening, this wasn't our first time in South Africa so we were okay with that but I can imagine other guests might have serious security fears being left on their own in an isolated spot like this? Overall, this is a place with enormous potential but due to lack of basic care and maintenance and a complete lack of customer service I strongly suggest you don't book here,