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Cape Town – Cape Grace

This is part six of my travel series to South Africa. For the complete series, please see below:

Traveling to South Africa – South African Airways and Federal Air
Singita Ebony – The Lodge
Singita Ebony – Day to Night
Singita Sweni – The Lodge
Singita Sweni – Day to Night
Cape Grace
Cape Town – The Peninsula Tour and The Boat House
Cape Town – City and Winelands Tour
Cape Town – V&A Waterfront, Test Kitchen, Fork and Table Mountain
24 Hours in Istanbul

After we left Singita Sweni, we headed over to Cape Town – where we spent the next five days.While we were in Cape Town, we stayed at Cape Grace – a beautiful hotel located on the V&A Waterfront. We had a lovely time at this hotel and it was a overall a very good experience. Here are some details about our stay here, and my overall review of the hotel!

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The first thing you notice when you enter Cape Grace is it’s lobby – it’s very grand, and very uniquely South African.

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I loved this wall, the couch below – everything was perfect together.

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Beautiful floral arrangements.

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Off of the lobby was a tea room/library. Most of the larger hotels in Capetown have an afternoon tea offering and Cape Grace was no different! Unfortunately we didn’t have an opportunity to try it while there.

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From the lobby, we headed up to our room.

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Each of the floors in Cape Grace had unique decorations along its theme.

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I also loved all of the blue and white china, a very colonial feel.

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And finally – our room! We were booked in a “Table Mountain Luxury” room, which to the best of my knowledge was simply their regular room but facing Table Mountain.

View from the entrance walking into our room.

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The bathroom – there was a freestanding tub to the left as well, which I never got to use during our stay. The shower felt quite small, even for a shortie like myself. 

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Dressing/luggage storage area.

And finally, the bedroom. Very lovely and charming. I thought it could have benefited from a bit more decor but overall very happy with the bedroom.

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From the bed we had a lovely view of Table Mountain and the dock outside.

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And that was basically our room! It was a comfortable enough size for two, with multiple seating areas and we never felt cramped.

Each morning, we would head down for breakfast. Breakfast was quite good, there was a decent buffet that had a selection of pastries, fruit, cured meats, cereals and the like. My favorite was actually a little tower of quiches they had each day.

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There was also an a la carte menu each morning which you could order from to supplement the buffet. Over our stay our favorites were the blueberry ricotta pancakes.

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And also the potato rösti – very similar to latkes which a great creamy mushroom sauce you ladled over it.

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Cape Grace also had a very nice spa. After all of our traveling both Mr. Feather and I were in need of massages and booked two days worth of appointments, all with very short notice. The spa was able to fit us in every time.

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Both of my masseuses were excellent! I was very happy with the spa.

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Overall, we were happy with Cape Grace. It was a gorgeously decorated hotel with  excellent service. Though we were satisfied with our room, it was probably our least favorite aspect of the hotel (our favorites aspects being the overall decor, spa and dining). In our room, there were small issues with housekeeping and the shower felt claustrophobic at times.

However, I would hope booking a higher room category would fix those problems, and if you are a very discerning luxury traveler as I know many of you are, I would recommend doing so. That would make it a perfect stay!

Next up – out and about in Cape Town! I fell in love (hard) with this city and really can’t wait to share some of my favorite memories. Thank you as always for reading along!

23 Comments

  • Reply
    Sonya
    October 17, 2013 at 8:04 am

    Beautiful photographs. I agree that the shower looks small; my pet peeve as well. Would you consider Ellerman House or Mt Nelson?

    • Reply
      Katherine
      October 17, 2013 at 12:50 pm

      I would probably try Ellerman House next, or Kensington Place which is quite a bit cheaper but which I’ve hear amazing things about! How about you, Sonya?

      • Reply
        Fiona
        October 30, 2013 at 5:49 am

        We stayed at the Ellermanhouse and absolutly loved it!!

        • Reply
          Katherine
          October 30, 2013 at 8:26 pm

          Hi Flora, lucky you!! Ellerman House is on our list for next time for sure 🙂

  • Reply
    Adele
    October 17, 2013 at 8:25 am

    Adore the overall Colonial feel to this hotel. Have always wanted to visit Cape Town, so will bookmark this hotel!
    Happy Thursday Katherine xoxo
    http://www.intotheblonde.com/

  • Reply
    Marlene @ chocolatecookiesandcandies
    October 18, 2013 at 3:18 am

    I used to work with South Africans and some of my friends here are from Cape Town too. Funnily enough, I’ve never felt the urge to visit the place – yet. I guess some of them escaped the most horrendous attacks there and didn’t ever want to go back.

    • Reply
      Katherine
      October 18, 2013 at 11:31 am

      Oh I’m sorry to hear that – what kind of attacks, racial, other? Cape Town has had a history of tension but I think it’s part of the history and culture. You will be very safe if you visit as long as you stay in established areas.

  • Reply
    Ava
    October 18, 2013 at 7:22 am

    Hi Kat 🙂 Thank you once again, for giving me a mini-vacation! LOL! You know after reading this post of yours, which seemed while you enjoyed yourself you would have changed a few things — would you, as a fellow lover of travel and a fellow lover of beautiful objets (clothing and accessories) rather spend the money you would have spent on a trip on a trip or on more objets if your loving hubby were hypothetically, okay with your choice? 🙂 Like, let’s say that your hubby has a friend who has a nearby vacation home and he was getting all his friends together and your hubby wouldn’t have to spend a dime but it was one of those vacations where boys can be boys (within reason) and your husband was completely okay with you spending the money you two had socked away for a vacation on shopping — would you take him up on it or would you rather put that money away to a more spectacular vacation the next time?

    Me? Honestly, I am not sure. I don’t think I am as forgiving as you are about certain travel-issues which is why I tend to return to the same places bc I know that I will unquestionably receive the same level of service and quality of service (through its various iterations of hospitality, food, etc.) and that’s what I expect in a “vacation” — right? 🙂 Well, maybe I’m just too picky. It would depend if there was some item I had been wanting for so long, I just might take the shopping option. 😀 Haha!

    🙂

    How were the soaps and toiletries? 😀 By far, which hotel/resort had the best toiletries for you?
    For me it would have been the Aesop and the Hermes – lol. Predictable. 😉

    Have a great weekend and thanks for giving me a respite into SA today!

    Ava

    • Reply
      Katherine
      October 18, 2013 at 11:38 am

      Hi Ava!

      Oh dear – I forgot about the toiletries! They had a local brand which I heard is fairly established but I didn’t recognize them. Honestly my favorite toiletries have been Singita and Park Hyatt Tokyo because they had Dermalogica and Aesop. I do enjoy Hermes/Bvlgari toiletries but sometimes I find their hair items especially the shampoos/conditioners overly scented, not necessarily as moisturizing – I wonder if it’s because it’s not ordinarily something that they produce in their own shops so they probably subcontract it out. I would LOVE to find a hotel that had hair toiletries from an actual luxe haircare brand – like Fekkai, etc. That would be a treat that I would really appreciate!

      For travel, I think we may be more similar than you think as if I have service issues I won’t return again. For a hotel like Cape Grace, where we had a few small issues, I feel compelled to mention them but don’t want to dismiss the hotel in a review altogether because that just may have been for our stay and everybody has off days- but if it happened more than once on multiple stays for me, then there would be a problem.

      I might sock away the money for another vacation down the road I think 🙂 But like you if there’s a tempting item that I’ve been wanting – then it’d probably go to shopping!

      Would love to hear about your favorite hotels and toiletries as well!

  • Reply
    Trang
    October 18, 2013 at 1:37 pm

    Glad to see that you liked Cape Grace. It is certainly a lovely hotel. I hope you get the chance to visit Ellerman and a few others on your next trip, and judging from your comments about Cape Town, I’m sure there will be many more trips to follow!

    • Reply
      Katherine
      October 18, 2013 at 2:14 pm

      I LOVED Cape Town! What an amazing city! Yes this definitely won’t be our last trip 🙂

  • Reply
    sesy hasan
    October 20, 2013 at 4:27 am

    Kat,

    Those flowers on the picture were exactly that I wanted to buy at the Diplomatic Bazaar that was held a few weeks ago here in Amman. I visited South Africa’s booth when they just opened and being told to come back later. A few hours later it was sold out and I regret didnt get them the first time. The guy said they were wild flowers and lasted for about 6 months! And they will dry out beautifully. They were sold 30 bucks per bouquet and mixed with other flowers. Glad that you snapped them!

    • Reply
      Katherine
      October 20, 2013 at 8:55 am

      Thank you sesy for sharing that! I loved these flowers and thought that they were gorgeous! I can’t believe they last 6 months, I’d love to have these in our home 🙂

  • Reply
    Dez Offril
    October 20, 2013 at 6:13 pm

    photos look amazing!!!

    http://www.thestylebender.com

  • Reply
    caitlin
    October 21, 2013 at 2:59 pm

    Dear Feather: Of all the places you have traveled, where is the one place you would recommend for a relaxing, pampered, honeymoon?

    • Reply
      Katherine
      October 21, 2013 at 3:39 pm

      Bali! That’d be my pick 🙂 Or Thailand.

  • Reply
    Diva In Me
    October 22, 2013 at 9:00 am

    Such a beautiful room! The bed and spa is something which I can totally relate when it comes to vacay =D

    • Reply
      Katherine
      October 22, 2013 at 6:44 pm

      Me too! Love a good bed and spa 🙂

  • Reply
    Fiona
    October 30, 2013 at 5:48 am

    We stayed at the Ellermanhouse and absolutly loved it!!

  • Reply
    Cape Town – V&A Waterfront, Test Kitchen, Fork and Table Mountain | Feather Factor
    November 18, 2013 at 8:31 am

    […] The Lodge Singita Ebony – Day to Night Singita Sweni – The Lodge Singita Sweni – Day to Night Cape Grace Cape Town – The Peninsula Tour and The Boat House Cape Town – City and Winelands […]

  • Reply
    Cape Town – City and Winelands Tour | Feather Factor
    December 9, 2013 at 9:42 pm

    […] The Lodge Singita Ebony – Day to Night Singita Sweni – The Lodge Singita Sweni – Day to Night Cape Grace Cape Town – The Peninsula Tour and The Boat […]

  • Reply
    Annie
    May 18, 2014 at 9:47 am

    The beautiful floral arrangement consisted of protea, the national flower of South Africa.

  • Reply
    Singita Sweni – The Lodge » Feather Factor
    June 13, 2014 at 10:13 am

    […] The Lodge Singita Ebony – Day to Night Singita Sweni – The Lodge Singita Sweni – Day to Night Cape Grace Cape Town – The Peninsula Tour and The Boat House Cape Town – City and Winelands Tour Cape […]

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