Protea Hotel Kimberley

What a warm and friendly welcome we received at the Protea! Every single one of the staff were extremely professional, efficient and cheerful. We enjoyed an excellent meal in the restaurant. We particularly enjoyed the bobotie spring rolls. The ambience of the hotel, very comfortable bed and above all the staff made it a most enjoyable stay. Special mention for Blondie who was attentive and served us with care and good humour!

No dinner had to order KFC although it was included in my booking, no TV channels as on their hotel website with constant re-booting and frozen screens, hours to respond to calls to front desk if and when the phone was eventually answered, no-one who could make an omelette with tomato, mushroom and bacon at included breakfast, cold coffee left on breakfast table, duty manager non-responsive when staff look for them, shower head against the wall so impossible not to hit your head when showering. Room was next to some service toom and I was woken up around 4:00am with someone banging a hammer or something. Awful experience at a R1750 per night pricepoint. I think I heard about 25 “we are so sorry” in the one day stay with no-one capable or competent to fix the issues. Worst hotel stay ever in 40 years I can remember.

Somehow I was not able to contact the hotel by an email in order to get a pick up from the airport, a bit strange for a Protea hotel. I was able to get in contact with Crystalshuttle which offered a fixed rate of ZAR100, which was quite reasonable. The drive from Airport KIM is approx. 15 min. Yes I choose Protea Hotel because of its location next to The Big Hole Museum, which was my purpose of my visit to Kimberley. Protea Kimberley is a Classic hotel, true to its old heritage, which I found very charming. I was lucky to have some peace and quiet during my short stay, and it takes you 1 min. to walk to the museum. Check in was swift and welcoming. I needed to keep my medicine cool, and the staff brought a fridge to my room, now thats what I call good service :-) My room was of good size (ground floor), big comfy bed, stable wifi, telly, aircon, coffee/Tea & kettle (restocked everyday), 1 bottle of water provided everyday. Bathroom of good size, waterpressure very weak and only cold water, shampoo and moisterisor provided. There are no plugs for shawers/ toothbrush etc. in the bathroom. The premises and the rooms was clean and well maintained. I choose to have my breakfast at the hotel (ZAR195) which had a good selection of hot and cold items and great coffee. I also had two meals during my stay which were both well prepared and tasty. All served with a smile by the wonderful staff. I ordered a wake up call for my early departure next morning, the young man at the front desk did not seem to care much about the request and unfortunately I did not receive that wake up call, only woke up 15 mins. prior to my departure making my departure a bit stressfull. Morning staff didnt seem to care much and wished me a good day....A sad ending to a lovely stay. I was happy to visit Kimberley and I did enjoy my stay at the Protea until my departure.

Stayed overnight to spend the day in Kimberley and it was pleasant and next to the Big Hole (enter through parking lot). It was very clean and pleasant. A little pool for the kids to cool off. Not at all a bad choice to stay at. Breakfast was enough, not very fancy but a choice of yogurts, fruit, eggs, the usual stuff. We had a family room with two double beds overlooking the hole. There are water issues but nothing terrible, the pressure was low but the hotel has its own reservoir. Might be the best place to stay in the town.

This was an excellent choice. The pool was clean and had a windmill for decoration. The view of the big hole was amazing and you could have an easy walk to the “old city” and to the Big Hole. The dinner was ok but let me tell you the breakfast was absolutely delicious, the people cooking the omelettes and eggs definitely knew what they were doing. The bar was also good with a snooker table and a wide variety of drinks. And my last thing was the rooms were clean and well maintained.