Gemsuites Hotel & Apartments, Riverside

Amazing service and very aesthetic place very well maintained as well

If you are considering staying here, allow me to save you some time, money and considerable frustration: DON’T!! My family and I were supposed to stay here for an entire month. Instead, we left as quickly as we possibly could. That should probably tell you everything you need to know. Well not as quickly, we gave them the benefit of the doubt for a week, which literally equalled to a week of no sleep for us. The first issue is the noise. There is apparently a fascinating belief here that a bar and restaurant should operate as though they are hosting a nightclub directly underneath every guest room. The terrible selection of what is considered to them as ‘good Jazz Music’ continues throughout the night and travels all the way to the top floors. When other guests decide that 2am is the perfect time to demonstrate their questionable taste in music at full volume, reception is equally impressive. We called and asked them to investigate. Their solution? Send someone to our floor, rather than, you know, actually finding the source of the noise, which was coming from the floor above. A truly innovative approach to noise management: look everywhere except where the noise is coming from. The penthouse also usually hosts questionable people. Ladies of the night paid the guests a visit after blasting music at 11pm, heading out and coming back at 4am with their companions. The hospitality was no less memorable. When we needed help with our luggage, security staff refused to assist. So there I was, managing the luggage trolley myself while carrying toddler. Apparently, guests are expected to provide their own porter service here. Perhaps this is an additional amenity that simply wasn’t listed. There is also a rather obvious hierarchy when it comes to guest treatment. Some people are clearly considered more “important” than others, and the level of attention you receive seems to depend heavily on where you sit on that invisible social ladder. Unfortunately, we apparently failed the relevance test. I may as well add the furniture is dated, the carpets are absolutely filthy and reek of feet, and look as though they may have never been cleaned from the time they were placed there and subsequently forgotten about. And then there is the water. The bath water came out murky. Not “slightly discoloured.” Not “perhaps it’s the lighting.” Brown. You can literally watch the colour of the water change as you fill the bath. A wonderful opportunity to experience a complimentary chemistry experiment during your stay. And if that isn’t enough ambience, there is construction directly next to the property, so guests can look forward to the soothing sounds of drilling, banging and general demolition for the foreseeable future. At this point, I could continue listing everything that went wrong, but frankly, this review is already longer than the amount of time we wanted to spend there. The best part of the experience was discovering that Riverside has plenty of other places to stay. We left, found somewhere else, and immediately wondered why we hadn’t done it sooner. A hotel doesn’t need to be perfect. But clean rooms, clean water, reasonable noise control, basic assistance and treating guests with some degree of professionalism seem like remarkably modest expectations. If you’re looking for somewhere peaceful, clean and well-managed, keep looking. If you’re looking for loud music all night, brown bath water, filthy carpets, construction noise and the opportunity to become your own porter, then by all means, you’ve found your place. One star, and frankly, the star is doing most of the work.

A perfect place for company meetings and retreat, we'll trained staff. The food is great. It's my new place of choice for company meetings.

I stayed at Gem Suites for a business trip for over a week recently. From the moment of check in to checking out it was perfect. The staff were all lovely and courteous, the breakfast team, especially Nelson, Stanley, Eveline and Joy looked after me even when they were rushed off their feet. It was only a short walk to my office and it wasn’t far from shops and restaurants in Westlands. The swimming pool and gym were all used during my stay and were excellent.