The international ‘The Power of Poison’ exhibition has opened in the Watershed in the V&A Waterfront, and is an exciting display of live and replica poisonous snakes, spiders, butterflies, scorpions, ants, and more for adults and children. Expect to see references to Harry Potter, Alice in Continue reading →
Tag Archives: Napoleon Bonaparte
Constantia Wine Route has oldest wine estates, yet young and hip!
Recently a group of bloggers was invited by its marketing team to experience a part of the 18 km Constantia Wine Route, being Constantia Glen, Groot Constantia, and Steenberg. We had a very informative and wine-derful day, experiencing parts of an excellent wine route of ten wine estates on our Cape Town doorstep! It has been synonymous with sweet wines drunk centuries ago already.
The Constantia Wine Route PR staff Carryn Wiltshire and her assistant Hayley had kindly organized for us to travel to Constantia by Uber, much appreciated for the return journey in particular. Continue reading →
Review: High Tea at 5Rooms at The Alphen bling-bling, not a high!
It was an e-mail from the Kove Collection I received about two weeks ago which attracted attention to the new High Tea at 5Rooms Restaurant at The Alphen Hotel in Constantia. On Thursday my friend Whitney and I went to try out the afternoon tea offering at the Stefan Antoni interior design hotel
Our interaction started off badly, when I first sought information about the High Tea, the Events Manager Nicola Howard not yet having details about what would be served, nor a photograph. With the intervention of Hotel GM Hannelie Wiese, I received a menu of items to be served, and a photograph, which we blogged about.
I made the booking a day ahead of our planned visit, and this was efficiently taken by the switchboard hostess. Irritating therefore was the call from Lydia McGrail, the 5Rooms Restaurant Manager, who called on the morning of our booking, to check our booking, less than 24 hours 
after it was made! She is clearly from the UK, and I struggled to understand her, due to her broad British dialect, and a bad line, which meant that she called twice. Then she made Hannelie call me, to sort out any problems ahead of our arrival, which was an irritation, as such confirmation calls are intended as ‘a courtesy‘, Hannelie explained, but I said that it makes one feel distrusted
and that one does not have manners. I promised her that I would never not arrive for a booking! Hannelie ended off her call by saying that I would really be impressed with the service from Lydia, as all their guests feed back. When I heard this ‘hotelspeak’, I wanted to laugh, being sceptical already. Continue reading →
Constantia Wine Route: Little marketing, Tasting Rooms range from rustic to refined!
Taking our intern Lorraine Bourgogne from Reunion on a recent sightseeing tour of Cape Point and Boulder’s Beach, we stopped at Groot Constantia, to ask for a map of the Constantia Wine Route. To our surprise, the best we were given was a hand-drawn map, an experience that was replicated at two other wine estates in the valley. A week later we returned to Constantia, and stopped at the wine estates we did not manage to get to last Thursday. It appears that little or no marketing, other than a few events, has been undertaken for the Constantia Wine Route, that there is confusion as to who is handling the marketing for the Route, and that there is huge disparity in the wine tasting experience across the ten wine estates on the Constantia Wine Route. Confusion exists amongst the wine estate staff between the Constantia Wine Route and the Constantia Valley Association, and between the roles of Karen Michalowsky of the Constantia Valley Association (a not-very-nice person on Twitter), and Carryn Wiltscher of the Constantia Wine Route, both first names sounding similar! Continue reading →