If you are looking for a holiday destination or just a place where you can sit back and relax in the lap of luxury, then look no further than the Boardwalk Hotel in Port Elizabeth, writes TANYA VAN ZYL, who recently spent a night at the hotel with her family.
As we drive up to the hotel, our daughter, Emily, shouts, “We’re going to stay in a castle! Today I’m going to be a real princess.”
This is just the imagination of a seven-year-old talking, but after spending a night at The Boardwalk Hotel, you could easily believe you are indeed royalty.
The hotel offers 140 luxury rooms (and a presidential suite), with spectacular sea views. There is also an indoor and outdoor swimming pool, a spa, gym and of course the casino.
We recently left our home, after months of lockdown, to enjoy a well-deserved break.
And even if it was for just one day, it did our family the world of good to forget, albeit for just a while, about all the stress surrounding COVID-19.
The hotel, however, takes COVID-19 measures very seriously and has made some changes to keep their staff and guests safe.
Extensive health and safety procedures are being implemented to ensure that guests are not just comfortable, but also confident about their surroundings.
“We reopened after giving our staff extensive training on the new protocols,” said Dean Blom, The Boardwalk’s COVID-19 officer and deputy security manager.
“These are our new normal and part of the hotel experience for the foreseeable future,” Blom said.
Upon guests’ departure, the rooms are fogged by an outside company and then left until the next day, with a door hanger to say the room has been sanitised.
“All the bedding and linen is individually wrapped, sealed and sent to the laundry instead of being stored in a bulk trolley to avoid cross contamination.”
Each room is supplied with hand sanitiser and the turn-down service in the evening, as well as room service, has been put on hold
Downstairs in the hotel’s dining areas, lavish buffet spreads are a thing of the past.
“Guests must place their order with a staff member. This prevents cross contamination from guests all using the same serving spoons and crowding around food stations.”
Emily and I also enjoyed the afternoon high tea in the hotel’s lobby lounge. The delectable buffet features a selection of pastries and cakes including milk tart, lemon meringue tart, salted caramel tart, pecan nut tart, strawberry tart, chocolate brownies, cake of the day and strawberry cheese cake.
Those who prefer savoury nibbles are also catered for, with assorted finger sandwiches and mini pies, vegetable spring rolls and mini savoury scones topped with basil cream cheese. All this is served with a selection of tea, rooibos teas, earl grey or green tea, freshly filtered coffee, juice or iced tea.
We had a great time bonding over a cup of tea, but as with all little ones I suppose, teatime was soon over, as Emily wanted to go for a swim in the heated indoor pool.
Although the weather was nice during our visit, we don’t get the opportunity every day to enjoy swimming “inside” in warm water.
The pool area is only open to hotel residents and loungers are sanitised regularly.
After our swim, we went back to our luxury room to enjoy some downtime.
The girls chilled on the king-size bed watching a movie, while my husband, Fernandes, sat in the lounge area of our room, watching some sport.
We then went for a nice dinner at Col’Cacchio (in the Boardwalk Casino complex), which offers delicious wood-fired pizzas and pastas.
The rest of the night we spent on our balcony, overlooking the Hobie Pier, and taking in all the beauty the beachfront has to offer.
After a good night’s rest, we went to the Kipling’s Brasserie Restaurant in the hotel to enjoy their delicious breakfast buffet.
The hot food section is dished up by staff, to avoid cross contamination, and the pastries are all individually wrapped. Overall we had an enjoyable. . . no – memorable – stay at The Boardwalk Hotel. And we all left there, feeling like a king and queen . . . and a princess, of course!
WIN! WIN! WIN!
The PE Express, together with The Boardwalk, is offering one lucky reader and a partner the chance to experience the luxury that The Boardwalk Hotel has to offer.
We’re giving away a high tea for two people, plus a night’s stay at the hotel, including dinner at the Bayside Pantry in the casino and breakfast at Kipling’s. The prize is valued at R6 000 and is valid from January 1 to March 31, 2021.
- To enter, simply go to our Facebook page for the competition details.
