Infanta House

One Review on “Infanta House”

1. 
   Theresa Wallett
   2nd February 2011

   Infanta House – Holiday from HELL!!!

   Are you looking for that holiday from hell with a huge daily price tag? Well look no further and read on as my family just found out this Christmas at Infanta House in Cape Infanta (opposite Witsand).

   The write up on SafariNow.com was more than complimentary and the pictures did the write up more than justice! We forked out R1 200.00 a day of our hard earned cash and for months looked forward to our well deserved holiday. (Please note that we do not hold SafariNow.com responsible at all for this misrepresentation as they can only represent the accommodation as portrayed by the owner)!!

   Well Infanta House brings new meaning to the words such as “pathetic”, “amateurish”, “tacky”, “ill-equipped”, and “rip-off”. If this hasn’t got you reaching for your wallet just yet to beat the rush of other potential suckers to book, please read on.

   We get informed about a week before we are due to arrive of a few “shortcomings/shortfalls” of Infanta House. Oh, and this is after full payment has been made! Apart from the fact that the electricity in the house trips if certain appliances are put on at the same time, it is now mentioned to us that the “electricity supply is not good over December due to the amount of people living in Infanta Park”. When booking, please take into account that you need to consider taking your own generator on holiday. This brings me to the next spanner in the works. The water goes through a water pump which, can you believe it, works on electricity!! So - no electricity = no water! Hmmm, is the thought of traipsing a generator with you now sounding more appealing? This small, negligible daily rate of R1 200.00 a day does not entitle you to uninterrupted power AND running water at times! We were without power some days for a period of 9/10 hours out of 24 with an average of it being off 2 hours at a time! Sorry for you if you were busy showering and the power went off. Tough luck if you still had shampoo in your hair or soap all over you! I was one of the fortunate ones that never experienced this overlookable inconvenience. However, it wasn’t all doom and gloom in the water department. We were privileged enough to have an outside tap linked to the local water supply which, after a trip to the local store with a new clean bucket in hand, we were able to fill the toilet cisterns in order to flush when the power and water were off! So don’t forget to pack a bucket!

   But this comedy of errors is far from over! Ok – look on the website and it points out to you that this marvelous place has a fully equipped kitchen. (I now really hope you have a big car with space next to the generator and bucket if this accommodation is still for you). Right – where to start here? Maybe with what your R1 200.00 a day does include for a place that caters for 10 or more people: 2 wine glasses, so please make sure you don’t have more than 2 people in your party that like to have a glass of wine at the same time. Four place mats. A toaster that was so cheap and nasty, items made in China look expensive. A bread / chopping board, but it was so elusive we failed to ever find where it was hidden during our stay. The same goes for the colander, sieve and basting brush. Don’t worry, there is an egg beater – but you will have to soak it for about 3 days in order for it to be clean. And, sheer luxury, there is a Dutch Pot. However, don’t use it for cooking. Please make sure you organize a “Stalk the Lantern” evening so that you can rub your hands on the pot and then over your face as you will definitely be camouflaged if you do this. A hot water tap in the kitchen basin that was stripped. My dad, an engineer by profession, is considering a change of career to that of a plumber as he had to do a make-shift repair. A very creative masher – why buy one when all you need to do is take a metal draining spoon and bend it 90 degrees. Works almost as well as a conventional one!!! Come to think of it, I guess the washing machine, dishwasher, iron and ironing board were also hiding out with the elusive kitchen necessities. Oh, and we were left 3 pegs to hang our washing on the line with! But that’s only if you could wash your clothes in the outside basin quick enough before the water ran out as it would be too much to expect a plug at the negligible rate of R1 200.00 a day.

   Ok – now onto our sleeping quarters. Bedroom 1. Is a bar room which has had a bed plonked in it considered a bedroom??? Yes, just a bed. No side tables, bedside lights (no bedside lights in any room actually), headboard, built in cupboards or proper usable shelves. The bar paraphernalia, including a dart-board were still on the wall. This was my husband’s and my room! Oh, and this “bedroom” was unique. Firstly, this is an inter-leading room from one of the other bedrooms. If going with a group of friends, make sure you know them well enough as you need to go through their room to get to yours. There is a sliding door which you could use from outside, but as most of the sliding doors haven’t been maintained, good luck opening it. Note: Pack a can of Q20 for sliding door maintenance. Secondly, what a great tip for aspiring designers : take four bed throws with a fringe, take curtain rod and thread through fringe. Wholla, you have curtains!! No, I am not drunk, believe me. Unfortunately, they only left their bar paraphernalia, not the alcohol. The alcohol may have numbed the pain! Thirdly, and those of you with weak stomachs, skip the next line. There was SNOT on the wall above our heads! Cured, red snot! And I have photo’s as proof. I kid you snot, I mean not!

   Ok, now for the room that inter-lead off the “bar room”! No headboard. One little round stool that doubled as a “side table”. And the best is it is one of only two bedrooms that had fitted shelves, with hanging space on either side. Oh, of course, the area for hanging space was there - yes, we paid for the SPACE, but our daily rate did not include a rod or the wire to hang anything on! Must of missed those sky hooks!

   Bedroom three – just two single beds and a table with a cloth thrown over it!

   Bedroom four – upstairs. This must be the main room. It actually had a nice sized side table! This was the other room with the built in shelves. Again, hanging space available, but no rod! Oh, and the curtains were see-through. Although fine during the day, getting dressed at night with the light on was not possible. Our neighbours surely did not want to be subjected to people dressing and undressing daily! Note: Make sure the people you put in this room are either hot or exhibitionists. If not, please bring your own curtains along with you.

   Bedroom 5 – upstairs. A few draws were the only packing space available. Lovely see-through curtains. Again, see note for Bedroom Four above! My folks were very creative – they used the curtain rails as towel hooks.

   Bathrooms: As basic as can be. Not even a cabinet to put anything in. One towel rail in each which was used for the hand towel. The only mirrors in this whole house were the ones above the basin. A list of items was given to us and each bathroom was supposed to have, in addition to other items, liquid hand soap and a toilet brush. Oh, no, this was not the case. We were expected to just borrow these two items from the upstairs bathroom as it was too much of an expense actually provide them in the bottom one!

   The website also boasts: An additional little “house” offers more space for people to sleep… We suggest you also pack some side cutters to cut off the padlock. Yes, we had no access to this “house” which we had paid for! To make matters worse, my Mom had phoned Petro Olivier and informed her that my 91 year old Grandfather was joining us but battles to walk so needs a bedroom downstairs. She confirmed that there were bedrooms downstairs but that there was this other little “house” available. The fact that he battles to walk and the outside bathroom is about 10 meters away (and dark at night) would definitely have made this an appropriate structure for him to have stayed in!!! Oh, and every time he showered we all stressed that the electricity would go off. We ended up putting a bucket of water in the bathroom for him in case he was left stranded with soap all over himself!!

   Now to further emphasize the extent of the amateurishness and tackiness of this place, a picture of a dolphin scene swimming by a waterfall in the lounge turned out to be, wait for it…… nothing more than a framed beach towel. I wish I was joking!

   Infanta House has a spider and fish moth problem. So, if anyone in your party does not like these critters, make sure you pack a Doom Fogger or two. You couldn’t surely expect the owners to do such a thing and fumigate the house prior to letting it! That definitely wouldn’t form part of the R 1 200.00 daily rate you are being charged!!

   And as for the outside braai. Well, the old Afrikaans saying “a boer maak a plan” springs to mind! We assume that the “grill” that we were expected to use was actually part of an old car grille! And you had to strategically balance this “grill” on bricks. Out of sheer desperation, we managed to find a proper grill in one of the unoccupied neighbours yards and we were forced to “borrow it without permission” during our stay. So, if you still have space in your car for a braai grill, we suggest you pack this too!

   The final straw came on New Years day when the power went out again, but failed to come back on. One of the sub-stations was out causing a black out extending to Hermanus and it was going to take up to two days to restore the power supply fully. One of the other residents came past and told us the news. Also, he asked us very politely, “please use the water sparingly now as the dam is close to drying up”. I responded with a polite smile on my face, “oh, you don’t have to worry about that. Now that the electricity is off we definitely will be using the water sparingly”!!!!!!

   A decision was taken there and then by everyone that we were packing up the next morning and heading home, cutting our “holiday” short by 3 days! The house had now become uninhabitable due to no running water.
   A sms was sent to Petro Olivier as well as the two other people she had given us numbers for informing them all of this on the morning of the 2nd January 2011. I am yet to receive a response from any of them. I wrote a very informative message of our stay in Infanta House in the Guest Book, giving them until the 12th January 2011 to email me with a financial refund offer of some sort due this misrepresentation. Absolutely nothing. Also, the fact that we had to pack up early was due to their set up at the house. If they had had a generator, or inverter at least, we would still have had running water. So why should we be out of pocket as well for the last three days???

   Petro Olivier - FYI: please be aware that the name of the road that your house is in is “Nuwe Bank” and not “Sol se Bank” as on your email to me. Really, it is not humanly possible to locate a place when you are looking in the wrong street/row! Luckily some friendly locals gave us the correct road name.

   In closing, a quote on one of Petro’s emails to me: “Thank you and I know you’re going to love your stay at Infanta House, It really has an atmosphere all of it’s own. Enjoy.”
   Yes Petro, I would have to agree, but only if I was from another planet , comatose and brain dead!!!

   PS: As per SarariNow.com the going rate for this place is now R1 400.00 a day! Hurry, hurry, hurry!!!!!!!! You don’t want to miss out!

   1/10

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