The Doubletree by Hilton Hotel Upper Eastside ticks a lot of the right boxes: it’s good value for money (especially compared with other chain hotels in Cape Town), it has great breakfasts, and it offers all the services you’d expect from a Hilton anywhere else in the world, from a gym to room service (although, annoyingly, there’s a 250MB per day free WiFi limit). Popular with business travelers, the hotel has an overall polished, corporate feel, and has excellent conference facilities.

The Hilton Doubletree forms part of an ultra-modern steel-and-glass residential and office space Upper Eastside development, which houses restaurants, a hairdresser, spa, a gym with an indoor swimming pool (entrance to which is charged for) and coffee shop. The hotel has its own bar, Estreet, and restaurant, Liberty’s, for buffet breakfasts and a la carte lunches and dinners with Mediterranean and Asian dishes, from lamb rogan josh curry to chilli-and-goat’s-cheese pasta.

Rooms, while not particularly spacious, are contemporary and sleek, featuring dark wood, cream and metallics, with touches of green and purple. The best thing about the open-plan bathroom is being able to sit in the bathtub watching the wide-screen TV in the room, while the negative side of it is that the toilet doesn’t have a door – not a problem if you’re traveling on your own, but if you’re sharing the room it isn’t ideal.

The hotel’s major downfall is its location in the industrial part of Woodstock, which is about half way between the CBD and Cape Town’s leafy suburbs. It’s close to the trendy up-and-coming area of Woodstock, the lively Neighbourgoods Saturday morning food and clothing market at the Old Biscuit Mill, and trendy artisanal boutiques and restaurants at the Woodstock Exchange, but there’s not much in terms of dining or sights near the hotel. The area around the hotel is particularly unsafe. It wouldn’t be advisable to walk around even during the day, so if you don’t have your own car you will have to rely on taxis. However, the hotel does provide a complimentary shuttle to the V&A Waterfront, Cape Town’s famous shopping mall located on the harbor near the center of the city, from where you can catch taxis to other parts of the city.