Bad Experience

My family and I checked in at Southern Sun Elangeni & Maharani on 30/12/2025 and checked out 03/01/2026. It was unfortunately the worst hotel experience we had from the beginning to the end. I spoke to Nandi on the day of my check out and she asked me to send an email with all the issues, and she would discuss it with the relevant department managers. The feedback that I received was that they won’t be able to compensate us.

Below is the email that was sent to Nandi (I can attach the email for proof with responses). All we wanted was a fair compensation but there it’s clear that this hotel does not take any responsibility .

Check in: • We checked in on 30/12/2025 after 2pm, after the 50% balance of there payment was done, we were told that the room was not ready. I asked why and the person that checked us in, mentioned that maintenance was busy sorting out some issues in the room. • We were told, by the time we unload our luggage, our room will be ready. Unfortunately, we still waiting an additional 10 minutes. • Check in time is clearly from 2pm, why was the room not ready? • When we got into our room, we noticed that door latch was broken and the left-hand side light bulb was not working. This was resolved but once again, why did maintenance not pick this up as they are the reason why our room was not ready in the first place. See attached pictures. • After using the shower, we noticed water began to seep through towards the entrance of the room. We complained and this issue was resolved – once again a maintenance issue…. Breakfast: • I can understand the long queues during the peak season to have breakfast but some of the staff members weren’t friendly at all. • To get a coffee was a huge delay, sometimes our coffee would arrive after we had breakfast Housekeeping: • I did not have a major issue with housekeeping except for them coming at 16:00 to make up which was just one day. Check out: • Check out was a nightmare…. I called requested a porter at 10:10 expecting the porter to arrive 10 or 15 minutes later. • I called again at 10:30 and still waited for a porter. • I got to a point where I walked next door at 10:40 to ask housekeeping to please call the porter for me. Unfortunately, this also did not work. • I must mention, at 10:10 – I asked my family to go down and get breakfast, knowing that the porter will arrive in time for us to have breakfast as a family. • I still waited until 11:15 and finally went downstairs to complain and finally have a porter to help me. This is over an hour of waiting for the porter. I basically had to fetch the porter myself which is unacceptable. • A reminder that my family had to have breakfast without me and your kitchen closes at 11 and staff were packing the food away when I finally got the porter issue sorted.

I trust that the above would be helpful to anyone else that’s planning to book here and I’m sure other guests had similar experiences. I would definitely pass the bad experience on to my friends and family and hope that this complaint will better their service in the near future