Don Johannesburg International Airport - Johannesburg, South Africa 

Spent four days at 'the Don' as something went wrong with my reservations for my normal hotel in the area (the Birchwood). Thought it might be a good chance to discover an alternative, as the Birchwood while not bad is still no great hang. Unfortunately, the Don didn't live up to expectations as the Birchwood was better. Let's start out on a positive note: the price (I paid 865 ZAR for a suite - kitchen, living area, bedroom, bathroom) was fairly good. There were a couple of really nice staff members (day manager was particularly good. Unfortunately I didn't get his name even though he knew mine every time I walked in the door!). The wireless internet worked well in the courtyard, lobby area, bar and in my room on the ground floor (apparently it doesn't reach most of the rooms). The rooms were generally clean although my room suffered from an ant infestation and I heard other people complain about the mossies. Annoying stuff: almost completely devoid of atmosphere, located in an industrial estate (depot on one side, factory on the other) next to a very noisy highway (if you're on the front you might have trouble sleeping), food was poor quality and limited, and the pool looked better suited for the polar bear cage at a Romanian zoo (Ceausescu days). For an airport hotel in that price category many of these items could have been compensated by a friendly and attentive staff. Unfortunately, with the exception of a few truly super individuals, a lot of the staff gave the distinct impression that they didn't give a @#*$ about you or the hotel. Shame, because I was quite positive the first day when my friend the day manager greeted me by my first name as I walked in the door returning from a meeting. It was down hill from there though, culminating in a 20 minute checkout because the paper for the printer was locked away somewhere and no one seemed bothered about finding a key! You can do better for the price and location. There's a smaller hotel a little further down the highway towards town called Werner's which looked interesting and had good rates. Will probably try that next time. Luke

We used the Don for one night on June 9th, 2007 after being in the bush on Safari for two weeks. We had better service in the bush than at the hotel. The person at the front desk at night for check-in didn't know anything beyond our room rate, couldn't answer simple questions and was not willing to make any effort to find out anything. The person in the morning also couldn't answer any questions about our reservation descrepancies and her attitude was basically "It's not my job". The hotel advertises a restaurant for breakfast and dinner but when we asked about dinner at 7 PM they gave me a Take-Out-taxi menu and told me to call them. The menu was so old the number was out of order. The only two good things about the place was the low price and the size of the suite. We got 2 bedrooms and a small kitchen and small living room for $120 but the carpet as dirty, the tiles in the bathroom were moldy, the trim was peeling off and we all got lots of flea bites from sleeping in the beds. Only stay here if you are desparate.