Shame on you Babanango

March this year, my friend and I booked a yoga and wellness retreat at a Babanango Game Reserve in KZN ata the Matatane Camp. During April we receive a mail from them reading: “In light of the current challenges that KZN has experienced through the flooding and rains, we would like to advise that we have decided to rather move the event to 06-09 August 2022, to be in conjunction with Women’s Day” Understandable, and unavoidable, so of course we agree to the new dates. I move my flights, loose R 600 with the re-book but it’s worth it right? Sorted.

A few days before I have to depart, we both get an uneasy feeling because we haven’t heard from them so I send an e-mail. Reservations informs us after a to-and-fro with management that the retreat is cancelled but don’t worry, well upgrade you to a luxury room, give you meals and game drives. Well, that’s not what we signed up for but maybe if they can give us two rooms and let us do hikes it won’t be so bad because we can still do yoga in our rooms, get some exercise etc, right? Next thing we know reservations informs us that the upgrade they promised us is also now no longer available, the room has been given to someone else … what the heck!!!! … at this point I am mad, and I want to speak to management, but they refuse to speak to me. I insist that the flight and bookings are refunded. They ask for proof of my flights and then agree to refund all (this is all happening in writing). Today we get the refund … only the bookings are refunded. I am OK with that because luckily I was able to re-purpose that flight too, and I’ll write off the cost of rebooking. They’re simply incapable of honoring any agreement though and that is worrying.

At the end of the day its about so much more than the money though. The utter disrespect they have shown not only by behaving this way, but by management refusing to come out and talk to us is shameful. How ironic that what was meant to be a relaxing even and about wellness and women turned out to be the exact opposite.

And guess what … they have a 5-star rating on TripAdvisor.

Shame on you Babanango