THIS TOURISM WEEK Number 70 - Thursday 5 July, 2007

Brought to you By De Waterkant Place, Cape Town

Service? You want SERVICE?Just who d’you think you are?

Sometimes it’s good to get in the car and become one of those strange animals you and I always talk about - A Tourist.

People usually know who I am when I travel - that’s the double-edged sword of being a tourism writer: I’m treated like royalty because everyone’s trying to impress me. And this invariably means putting me up in the honeymoon suite - although I almost always travel alone.But being pampered like this tends to leave me with a distorted view and so it’s good, as I’ve said, to sometimes become a tourist and see at things from the guest’s perspective.You learn stuff.

Take my last trip to Cape Town - at the city-side hotel where I stayed I learned that you can have an appalling experience but still come away thinking “ OK, I’ll go there again.”It was one of those nightmare visits where everything went wrong - they happen - but when I checked out the manager apologised profusely and listed for me the things he was going to do to correct the situation. He was genuine about it, and genuinely concerned that I hadn’t had a good night’s rest and we parted on very good terms - and when, a few days later, he mailed to offer me a weekend on the house, I was, “OK, I’ll be back”.

But then when I got to my guest lodge in Swellendam, that’s when I really learned the best way to treat an unhappy guest.

It began in the restaurant (where my whiskey arrived in a brandy snifter - but let’s not be petty in our praise). I went through the menu and said to the manager “I’m sorry, but I’m a vegetarian and the only vegetarian items you offer are pizzas and I’ve been eating starch all week. Is there anything else you can do for me? A plate of vegetables perhaps?”

He looked at me and sighed. “It’s a tall order,” he said, and snatched the menu away and stalked off.

I would have apologised for being so demanding if I’d seen him any time in the next twenty minutes or so, but I didn’t, and I have a poor short-term memory, so by the time he got back I’d forgotten what it was I was going to say.

“You can have a Greek salad and a plate of vegetables.”

I nodded meekly.

I read another chapter of my book and then it arrived. Three pieces of lettuce, three pieces of feta, a quartered tomato and some chopped parsley - and a side plate bearing three baby potatoes and a spoonful each of sweet potato (delicious) and chopped courgettes (overcooked and watery).

I ate my meager ration and, still hungry, called for the bill.

Sixty bucks.

But, once again, let’s not be petty in our praise.

The room was OK, I guess, once the storage boxes had been moved out (I kid you not, there were wine boxes in the room when I arrived - and they weren’t a gift for me, either) and once I’d put my earplugs in to shut out the noise of the generator right outside my window. And the shower in the morning was nice, too. The water was hot and the pressure was fine.

Got to the restaurant at 7:30 for breakfast and found it closed and still dirty from the night before - glasses and dishes and crumbs on the tables - and nobody was stirring. I hung about in the driveway for a while (there was no reception area) until someone, the owner as a matterafact, appeared.“What time do you serve breakfast?” I asked.

“Oh, eight o’clock usually, but later on the weekends.”

“Well, it’s Saturday, what time do you think you’ll be opening today?”

“I don’t know.”

And then when I told her I wanted to check out she proceeded to crap on me. Fully crap on me.

“Why didn’t you tell me this last night?” …. etc., etc., etc. I defended myself. “If you had a sign up somewhere with your business hours…”

And then it dawned on her that I was the unpleasant guest-unit who’d had the cheek to complain about the cost of my meal … and that’s when it began to really rain down on me. I was up to my neck in it and it was getting deeper! I was gasping for air and there was no one to save me!

Eventually I was ordered to go to my car and find the invoice for last night’s meal and bring it back to mine host. Then, taking an unmarked, unstamped duplicate book, she proceeded to scrawl a new receipt and took from me, with an enormous lack of graciousness, the few hundred bucks I was required to pay for my room (special rate, discounted for cash, no tax invoice).

And then turned her back on me and walked into the kitchen.

Now THAT’S the way to treat an unhappy guest, don’t you think?I can’t wait to tell everyone I know about the quaint little guest house in Swellendam that I’ll never visit again…

De Waterkant Place, Cape Town

Now here’s a Lodge where I found only wonderful, warm and friendly service.

De Waterkant Place offers B&B and self-catering accommodation in a number of houses and apartments on Dixon and Loader Street and just a block away from the trendy Cape Quarter.

I stayed in the Lodge at 20 Loader Street and enjoyed it immensely.

The building was originally a family home and as soon as I walked in I felt completely at home.  It’s an amazing and welcoming warren of rooms, lounges, patios and passageways. There’s yellowwood and stinkwood and teak wherever you look and no two windows look alike - but the effect is charming and just being there gave me a real sense of history. I spent the afternoon at my laptop in the dining room and enjoying the view over the lower part of the city and across to the harbour, then when the sun was setting I walked down the road for drinks at the Cape Quarter and then drove five minutes to Greenpoint for supper. And the next morning I lingered for three or four hours over breakfast with my fellow guests - who were some of the most interesting people I’ve met in ages. We got on incredibly well and solved all the problems of the world - and that’s why I enjoy staying in places like de Waterkant Lodge.

De Waterkant Place, Cape Town: More information from Jeremy Jonker

+27(0)21 419 2476; wkantplace@gmail.com or visit www.dewaterkantplace.com