Agulhas House and Diving
Umkomaas is a mecca for scuba divers and water sports enthusiasts alike. The main diving area is Ali...
Umkomaas is a mecca for scuba divers and water sports enthusiasts alike. The main diving area is Aliwal Shoal and is rated consistently as one of the top ten diving sites in the world. Agulhas House is centrally located in the centre of Umkomaas. Once you have arrived you park your car, kick back and relax. From Agulhas House you have a short walk to the beach, dive centres, shops, restaurants, bars and Umkomaas Golf Course. The property is set back from the road in tranquil grounds with secure parking. The guesthouse has been creatively architected from an old doctors clinic.
A wide and varied freshly prepared substantial meals are provided. Freshly baked muffins and bread are provided daily. Our dinners, breakfasts and lunches are guaranteed to satisfy even the heartiest appetite. Special dietary requirements accommodated for, just ask us and well do our best to ensure your requests are catered for.
We are able to take advantage of the sub-tropical climate by dining 'al fresco' under the cover of a large thatched gazebo that forms the centrepiece for the garden. A large C shaped 13m swimming pool, which has a deep end of 3m, which is ideal for all diving enthusiasts, hugs the gazebo. Pool loungers are provided for you to sit by the pool and soak up the Durban sunshine. The underwater pool lighting and subtle garden lights provide a truly tropical island atmosphere to the place after dark .
"Was not impressed with the place because it turned out to be below the standard advertised ie. it says they have ds tv in the rooms but that's not true,self catering but not even a micro wave in the rooms too warm food up.On Saturday night about 8pm the lights just went off so as guests we were stuck in our rooms with no electricity for the whole night yet we had paid for that service but was denied it only to get it back on Sunday morning,electricity came back but we were denied another service ie. water,there was no water on Sunday yet we had to take a bath in order to check out yet when we queried about that we were told that there's nothing they can do about of which I find highly disappointing because the onus should be on management to ensure that things like that should not happen,what's worse is we didn't even get an apology or explanation of which I think that's the very least they could hv done or let alone some kind of compensation/re-imbursement as we had paid to stay there so we expect and deserve to get quality service of which was not given to us at all,might as well stay at home if that's the kind of service that they provide,I would not recommend this place to anyone after our experience,we had planned to go back there after this weekend because of what we expected the place to be like when we initially booked for this weekend but after our experience we changed our minds.<br></br><b>Establishment's response</b><br></br><i>We do have DSTV - not all the channels- but SABC TV 1,2,3 Mnet and ETV. in all the rooms.<br></br> We have never said we are self catering. We are a guest house/B&B and specifically advise that we are not self catering if there are enquiries in this regard.<br></br> There was a power failure on Saturday night for which we apologise. I was on the property and had I been advised of the power failure in the section the guests were in - which took place during an enormous storm - I could have rectified the problem. There were other guests in residence as well who understood the problems encountered with storms and did not find it necessary to complain about circumstances beyond our control.<br></br> The entire village was without water from about 07.00 on Sunday morning until after lunch - which was the case with Telkom lines - so the entire guest house was without water which was beyond our control.<br></br> I question how we are supposed to deal with an event of nature.<br></br> I apologised to the client saying that they were unfortunately circumstances beyond our control when he came to query the lack of water at 09.45 on Sunday morning.<br></br> Furthermore, our breakfast finishes at 10.30 yet on Saturday we happily provided breakfast service at after 11.00 for them.<br></br> On Sunday the client came to me at 09.45 about having no water when I apologised and told him that the village had no water. I asked him then when they wanted breakfast to which he said he would let me know - which he never did - and we cleared the breakfast service at 11.30.<br></br> At this time, I advised check out time was 10.00. I was asked to extend the time to 11.00 which I agreed to. However, at 13.15 I found it necessary to go to the clients room and request them to vacate.<br></br> There was neither thanks for allowing them to stay for the extra 3 plus hours nor an apology for their late departure and the room was left in a shocking state.<br></br> There are always two sides to every story and as a result of their general attitude we had decided that we would not take the tentative booking made.<br></br> The client had already made us unhappy by trying to circumvent SarafiNow and book direct with us which I refused to allow him to do.<br></br> We are not in the habit of getting bad reviews but we, unfortunately, cannot cope with problems that Mother Nature presents and unreasonable expectations from difficult guests who have no concept regarding remedying problems which are out of our control.</i>"
"A nice environment in a warm atmosphere. Very competent diving centre. Great value for money."