Kilima Franschhoek

Lovely place… enjoyed every moment there ! Great location !!! Good experience overall and attention to detail. Perfect place for a friends trip or a couples weekend breakaway. Breakfast is also really enjoyable. Beds are cosy and comfortable ! Always a winner !

We spent a wonderful 2 weeks in South Africa, however, our 2 week stay was marred by the 3 nights / 2 days in Franschyhoek at the guest house Kilima from 1st - 4th December. Eugene Swanepoel, the CEO of the management company responsible for Kilima, harassed us when we raised concerns. Key points about our treatment and experiences at Kilima guest house, owned by the Schutte family: Initial concerns raised over the phone and via email which were escalted to Eugene Swanepoel which include: - no one staying at the guest house apart from us - no management or supervisor of some kind. - no accurate internet access codes for external communication (and no phones in rooms) - no management on site at all - the helpful maid was only there for breakfast and to show us our room the night we arrived. - this was supposed to be a special treat / highlight as we paid approximately €500 per night to include breakfast. - breakfast of a poor quality - pool not cleaned and so had algae and contained cumbersome and cleaning equipment in the pool and so rendering the pool unfit for use - dusty cupboards. My clean clothes were initially unpacked onto dusty shelves. - We had to perform tasks normally completed by staff, such as locating keys to close shutters at night. We felt exposed without the shutters closed.k Situation deteriorated with intervention of Eugene Swanepoel: - during my first call with him he insisted I tell him what the solution was, albeit I suggested this was really his role to find a solution. Accordingly, I suggested that the price should be reduced to €350 per night. We would never have selected to stay in a foreign place in an empty guest house with the issues we were facing. - Eugene Swanepoel was clearly very angry that we had not paid upon arrival. I confirmed to him both verbally and email, that we would pay our bill but needed to know how to make the payment. We realised when checking our Booking.come reservation it stated to pay at the property. Eugene Swanepole advised we should have paid at our arrival. How could we have paid the maid was responsible for checking us in and as it was approximately 9.00pm she needed to be with her children and made no reference to payment. This was not our responsibility or failing. We later came to understand there was a credit card machine stored in a room in the guest house. - I advised Eugene Swanepoel that we would glady pay by credit card and this would be most efficient. He was very agressive as he wanted us to transfer funds electronically, which made no sense as this would take 2 or 3 days to arrive because of the foreign currency exchange for the remittance. - Eugene Swanepole later called for a second time to advise that the Schutte family would not accept our suggested solution of a rental reduction of €350 per night. The full amount was required in spite of the poor experiences and our negative feedback and dirty pool. - It was now evident he wanted us out of the property. He appear