The Protea Cape Castle Waterfront isn’t exactly on the water, instead, it’s on the main road quite away from the water. The outside of the building is rather bland and doesn’t have much character, along with a somewhat tacky sign advertising their nightly rate. But I thought to myself not to judge a book by it’s cover and maybe it would be better inside.

This didn’t go over well either. The check-in lobby area was somewhat disheartening and depressing, and looked like what you might find in a retirement facility. The staff, however, were friendly and service was quick, except when they didn’t set the time on my room key right — so one night around 10:00p.m., I was locked out of my room and had to go back downstairs and wait for them to give me a new key.

Elevators were pleasantly fast, and we never had to wait more than 30 seconds before it came to our floor. It might sound like an odd compliment, but can be great in a busy hotel. The room on the 3rd floor had a nice view facing table mountain, but although the door opened up to the outside, there wasn’t any balcony to go out on, just a railing a few inches away from the window.

The room itself was nothing special, just plain white walls, plain furniture, and a black-and-white portrait of people doing cartwheels over the bed. It didn’t really match up to what was shown on the website. There was a complete en-suite kitchen with stove, microwave and fridge, which would be good if you planned to stay there for a significant amount of time and do some cooking, but given all the good restaurants in Cape Town, we didn’t use it. However, there were a couple of bags full of chocolate covered raisins that we devoured.

The hotel had a few more downsides that we experienced during our three night stay. The internet was painfully slow to be almost unusable, the hot water was only lukewarm (so forget about taking a hot bath), the TV had lines and static going through it, and the bathroom was pretty cramped. There was no complimentary breakfast either, not even fruit or muffins, which was kind of surprising given the price. We ordered room service one night as we had to get up at 6 a.m. the next day, which while it came up quick, was bland, had stale bread, yellow cheese on the pizza, and pretty poor quality. It felt like what you might get in a bad elementary school cafeteria, but paying restaurant prices for it.

Overall, the hotel is in a good location a few blocks from thriving cafes, shops and restaurants. Come for the location and the view, but don’t expect to be pampered.