Walking along the terrace takes a guest over the bridge to the island where the main group of 40 suites are located. Here too is the largest heated outdoor pool in Cape Town, and the spa. The spa is beautifully tailored and treatment rooms are large and well designed. In the relaxation room provision is being made for guests to be able to listen to their own music on their own iPods - annoying if you want just a restful silence but find the tinny tinkling from others in the background. Whilst the spa’s exterior has some wonderful water features looking like bucks heads, the opportunity to perhaps add the sound of water inside has not been taken up. Internally the spa is coolly modern echoing the external, very successful, architecture.

This hotel generally seems to look inward, setting itself apart from the waterfront. Whilst the architecture is strong and the interiors are well designed, the whole lacks real panache. There are many good interior design practices in South Africa producing strong hotel interiors. There is a local emerging aesthetic that is based on the local culture, which can be seen expressed with varying degrees of success in the Cellars Hohenort, Steenberg and Bushmans Kloof. Sol Kerzner may have wanted to bring to his home country the quality and style of his other resorts but he has failed to give this hotel any real personality. Maybe size works against design, maybe the lack of a local designer removed all the little style cues evident in other developments –but whatever the reason it is evident to this critic that bigger is not necessarily better.

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