Riverside Guest Lodge

We ( with our 2 boys) stayed a night here at this utterly charming guest lodge. We received a very warm welcome. The decking area has amazing views and we enjoyed a drink from the honesty bar. Elza and Albert are charming and engaging hosts and have thought of many small details to make your stay really comfortable and enjoyable. The lodge was a standalone wooden cabin but had everything including a stocked fire ready for you to light. Plenty of bedding, hot water bottles, electric blankets etc to keep you cosy at night. Not 5* in the glitzy sense but everything you would want in a guest lodge stay with kids. Amazing value too.

Whilst doing a road trip we needed a place to stay on short notice and Riverside Guest Lodge accommodated us immediately. We were warmly welcomed at the gate and loved the cottage with the most beautiful view of the river. Whilst it was a cold night in Oudshoorn, the heated blankets, warm water bottle and fireplace helped to make the unit enjoyable amidst the bad weather. The farm breakfast, prepared by the owner self also comes highly recommended. We will surely love to come back one day.

Stay 02/28/24 - 03/01/24 With the Riverside Guest Lodge, Elza and Albert have created a great place to stay where you feel completely comfortable. Very nice, friendly hosts who have managed to create an oasis of well-being with a special taste for the interior, but also for the beautiful outdoor area with terrace, whirlpool and meadow up to the river bank. Even our rental car was washed free of charge by one of their employees. One of the most beautiful guesthouses on our trip of several weeks in SA. We have felt very comfortable here. We will definitely book with Elza and Albert again on a future stop in Oudtshoorn. Eckhard and Maria Germany

We found our stay at Riverside Guest Lodge incredibly comfortable, relaxing and perfectly situated for day tripping the Little Karoo! Our hosts, Albert and Elza, were extremely accommodating. From choosing perfect dining options and making reservations to mapping out the local attractions and incredible drives for destination sightseeing. Each bedroom felt so private and the bathrooms were a great size with modern fixtures. An honor system at the bar is so nice, it allows your stay to be as private as you want. The best surprise was to find ostrich on the breakfast menu! When in Oudtshoorn you must eat ostrich! I almost forgot to mention having access to the river, a perfect spot for bird watching when we weren't to lazy to wonder off the patio with our glass of wine.

Large comfortable, clean cabin. Self-catering option. Friendly hosts. Worked well having a seperate room for adults, with kids in the common area. Nice small bar area to chat to hosts or other guests. Had a very comfortable stay. Nice setting on the river.

We had a very bad experience and felt very unwelcomed by the owners. In the end the owner canceled our reservation and we had to look for another guest house for the same night. But let me describe our unpleasend experience in more detail: Some background: My wife and me love to travel and are currenrly doing our first trip with our little baby (6 months) through South Africa. We are already in the country for 6 weeks and always stay in accommodations for about 50-80€. We always book a room for the two of us and our baby sleeps with us in the bed, no extra bed needed. On the day of arrival we traveled from Prince Albert to Oudtshoorn and arrived there at about 12 pm. I knew that check in was possible from 2 pm onwards but the only thing we wanted to do was parking the car in front of the hotel (as we had all our luggage in the car) and then have lunch and come back for check in in the afternoon. We saw that there were many free parking slots on the venue, so we were sure that this won’t be a problem. It turns out that already at the gate the owner (her- there are two owners, I suppose married, I will refer to them as „her“ and „him“) was very unfriendly and the only thing she said was that check in is at 2 and asked us what we want at their property so early. I could explain to her that we only want to park the car inside and then go for lunch. We could already sense that she only very unwillingly opened the gate. To be fair: It say‘s in the description of the accomondation that early arrivals and check-ins are not possible. So technically I guess she was right. But, you can judge yourself whether a caring host would deviate from that rule in this situation. Further, I also expect some respect and friendliness regardless of who is right. It think already this incident reveals the attitude of the owners and you have to think about whether you want to stay with such hosts. But we made another mistake which turns out to provoke the owner (her) even more: we brought a baby and only booked a room for the two of us. The owner (her) said with a kind of military tone that she has to put us in the garden room and that we have to pay the extra. Her voice was becoming really aggressive and we felt extremly unwelcome. We never had that attitude towards our family before in South Africa. In fact the opposite is the case. Everyone is really friendly and happy, also with the baby. But it got worse. I said that I have to check on *********** and see whether they state, that they do not accept babys in the rooms (it does say that, again, we made that honest mistake). In the meanwhile, I think the owners decided that they don‘t want to host us anymore and the male owner (him) said he will cancel the booking. He seemed very friendly but as I asked him to send me a confirmation he immendiately got very unfriendly and said the he won“t do it. I asked him again since ai wanted to avoid a situation where I have to pay the room anyhow as it will be fram