I have stayed at Mountain Manor Guest House 4 times. I have enjoyed the guest house, it is a nice comfortable guesthouse, and a good value for the price.
I have also been to Ikhusta Spa (the spa on the premises of the guest house) on 4 occasions, and the first 3 visits were mostly lovely and enjoyable. I have returned and have recommended the spa to others as well.The last time I had an appointment at the spa, I asked if Vinolea (the best therapist I've had at the spa) was working that day and asked if I could request her to be my therapist. I was told that my request would be accommodated. She was not my therapist for the treatments. I understand that schedules change, but I would have appreciated being notified that Vinolea was not going to be working that day. I would have rescheduled for a time that she was there.
When we arrived for our scheduled appointment, we were taken to the treatment room located in the guest house (as opposed to the more private and tranquil treatment rooms by the pool) . The therapists were not ready for us (we were on time) and they went about preparing the room while we sat there waiting. Throughout the treatments (a hot stone massage and pedicure) both Lebo and Dolly had to leave several times because they had forgotten to bring the necessary items into the room to do the treatments. The room is not in a private or quite location. There was a constant stream of traffic walking by the doors as well as men working loudly just outside. I had to ask two times if the therapists would put on music to try to drown out some of the outside noise. At one point during the massage, a male worker walked in on my daughter and I, which is absolutely unacceptable. He had to be convinced to come back later to get whatever it was he had come into the room to get.
Because the therapists were not ready for us, the stones were not hot at the beginning of the massage. They didn't actually even start heating them until we were already lying on the massage tables, once again waiting for something that should have been prepared before we arrived. Lebo seemed to be very distracted. She would massage me for about 3 or 4 minutes and then continually leave me to move around the room adjusting this, or messing with that, or very loudly banging the stones together, or leaving the room for unknown reasons, and so on. She even stopped the massage about 15 minutes into it to light the candles in the room. I think the hot stone warmer must have been broken because they were constantly filling and boiling water in a water kettle to pour over the stones. Lebo dropped stones on me two times. I understand that the stones must be very slippery, but I've had hot stone massages before at other locations and have never had someone actually drop the stones on me. It was all completely unprofessional and not relaxing at all. I've actually had Lebo previously and was not impressed, this is why I specifically requested Vinolea.
If this had been my first experience with Ikhutsa Spa, I would have never returned and I would have specifically told friends to not book with Ikhutsa.
This all was bad enough, but I sent these concerns to the spa when they asked for my review of the spa. I never heard back from them. I never heard back from them and curiously, I was removed from their mailing list that I had been on for over a year.