Tag Archives: Whale Cottage Camps Bay

The New Age Sweet Service and The Taj Sour Service Awards!

The Sweet Service Award goes to The New Age, which generously delivers a pack of its newspapers every day on weekdays, to the benefit of our Whale Cottage Camps Bay guests, at no charge.

World of First growth wine list Unknown-5-150x150The Sour Service Award goes to the Taj Cape Town, for associating itself with The White Club owner Rene Dehn, in preparing seven months ago what appeared initially to be its exclusive Taj First Growths Wine List Exceptionelle.  Dehn has just been outed as having been fraudulent in his The White Club tastings held around the world, in London, Hong Kong, and in Switzerland, as well as locally, in having served what he said were very rare wines with old vintages, but may have been younger wines thought to have been decanted into the older bottles. The exclusive Taj wine list was described as being the most sought-after in the world, many of the 36 wines having been sourced from Dehn (at high prices no doubt). It is hand-written with detailed tasting notes, and is bound in white leather.  At the time Dehn was quoted Continue reading →

Crystal Clearwater Pools Sweet Service and Vodacom Sour Service Awards!

Whale Cottage Camps Bay pool 3The Sweet Service Award goes to Crystal Clearwater Pools in Sea Point, for its excellent service in identifying the cause for the pool cleaner not working at our Whale Cottage Camps Bay.  They reset the timer and solved a blockage by cutting off a piece of pipe, to make the pool cleaner work again, at a call out fee of R380.  We were horrified that we had almost been duped by another pool company, based in Gardens, as their prognosis was that the pump was broken, and should be replaced, at a cost of R2450! Continue reading →

Cape Town overwhelmed by one of busiest Festive Seasons ever!

Cape Town Festive Season Cape Town PartnershipCape Town experienced one of its busiest Festive Seasons ever, so much so that the city can be said to have been out of control as far as access to its attractions, beaches, shopping malls, and roads was concerned.  Perfect weather and a weak Rand attracted locals to the Mother City.  Once again the Atlantic Seaboard was the most attractive location for tourists in terms of restaurants, beaches, and accommodation, with resultant chaos in this area in particular at all levels.

The Festive Season period was a very short ten day period, from 27 December – 5 January this year, and almost every accommodation establishment, especially those on the Atlantic Seaboard, was fully booked.  Guests were predominantly from Johannesburg, or living overseas with South African family connections, meeting up in the city.  At Whale Cottage Camps Bay our international visitors were Norwegian, British, and Dutch during this period.

While it felt fantastic that Cape Town was so popular, one felt that the city was doing itself a disservice in that tourists had to experience: Continue reading →

New MyCiTi Bus Camps Bay route: whale of a good value, not running smoothly yet!

My CiTi Bus Camps Bay Whale Cottage PortfolioThe MyCiTi Bus finally started operating on Saturday, about eighteen months behind schedule!  Given that we want to inform our Whale Cottage Camps Bay guests about the service, my colleague and I went for a test drive of the Camps Bay – Civic Centre – V&A Waterfront Silo route yesterday.

The first step was to obtain our MyCiTi Bus cards, which one needs to load credit on to, for swiping when stepping on the bus.  It was announced that one could obtain a free card (a saving of R25) from the Camps Bay Library, where an official from the City of Cape Town sold us R30-loaded cards, the only cards one can purchase at the library this week.  These can only be bought for cash, and only one per person can be obtained, ID details being taken.  The City representative was uncertain about the other places at which one can load more credit onto the card, saying that Kauai was to be a point to do so, but that its system was off-line yesterday.  He thought Pick ‘n Pay Camps Bay would be another point, but he wasn’t sure.  There does not appear to be any place to purchase cards once the City’s generous offer of free cards ends on Saturday. One would then have to go the Queen’s Beach station, or to the Civic Centre to buy cards there. Each card comes with a pin, which one can change at a station, and is required to load more credit.   There was only one newspaper advertorial on the table, and no leaflets, saying he was waiting for more. When I asked for more information for the guest house, he gave me a pile of the newspaper copies from under the table!

We took the bus from the Whale Rock bus stop opposite Pick ‘n Pay MyCiTi Bus Whale Rock stop Whale Cottage PortfolioCamps Bay just after 14h00, and we were delighted to see the name choice.  The bus travelled alongside Victoria Road, up Argyle Road , into Geneva Drive, onto Camps Bay Drive, down Kloofnek Road (this seems to be a very dangerous stop, as we observed a tourist family getting on the bus, which had been to Table Mountain and must have crossed the very busy road without a pedestrian crossing to get the bus stop), connecting into Kloof Street (very long Continue reading →