Protea Hotels Hotels in Pretoria

I was travelling to Namibia and used this hotel for an overnight stay. It is about a 35 minute taxi ride from Johannesburg airport at night. Almost all the distance was on a secure highway. The hotel is located in a very good location in Pretoria, next to a sports stadium. The central part of Pretoria was an easy 5 minute ride away. The hotel is in fact located in a complex with a sports stadium, restaurants, bars, shopping, grocery, and other amenities. It is very secured as it is cordoned of by fencing and security. The staff was pleasant, greeted me and smilingly gave me my room details. I had a beautiful clean room with fresh bedding, a shower, some amenities, and a good night's sleep. There was a nice sky bar with good late night food and music. It was nice sit in the bar and enjoy the Pretoria Skyline. There is a pool in the roof. Breakfast was a good spread. It was a nice experience at this hotel.

I booked my room through the Marriot bonvoy app, given that the hotel was transitioning to the Marriot brand. I booked a luxury room, city view with balcony. The first night I was kept awake by a nightclub opposite, and so the manager moved me the next night to another room, room 225, which was an internal room but no sofa, balcony or city view. But it was quiet. The room itself was spacious and clean enough, although the door looked like it had been jimmied at some point and the bed was oddly positioned next to it. Frankly it looks like it was at some point a store room that was converted, but still was clean and I was really only there to sleep. The issue came at check out when the staff wanted to charge me for the luxury room for the whole week, even when i challenged the lack of balcony and sofa. There was also no city view (it was an internal room and my view was an air duct). In fact this room does not exist on the Marriot booking app, which is not surprising because it is not a Marriot-standard room. Eventually the manager agreed a discount and kindly offered a bottle of wine. Other observations- we ordered a chicken club sandwich and fries the first day, they took 1.5 hours to arrive- we were told variations of stories like ‘chef is grilling the chicken’ or ‘toasting the bread’ or ‘building the sandwich’. I think you need to teach your chef to make a grilled chicken sandwich as I could have prepared a whole chicken dinner in that time. We had no water for a whole day, and instead of being upfront with when the water was coming back we were fobbed off, told it was filling the tank on several occasions when in fact the water had not returned. I get utilities can go a bit awry in ZA, just tell your staff to be upfront and say they don’t know. However we were offered a room to shower in, and a bucket of water to flush our toilets, so all was good in the end. Whilst I think the hotel itself is not a Marriot standard (yet) I do appreciate that between the excuses the staff was brilliant. I know I’m not an easy guest if my expectations are not met, but they remained calm and courteous and ultimately we were able to reach agreement. So I think your staff are definitely Marriot standard even if the hotel is not. A particular thank you to the student from the international hotel school, Lerato, who served us in the restaurant each night. She was great! So whilst I wouldn’t rate this hotel as a Marriot just yet, I think it has a lot of potential and so hopefully with a bit more care to the rooms it will be up to scratch.