De Hoop Collection - Opstal Houses

The reserve is magical! Absolutely love the location! The restaurant is also good and the food was delicious. The beds of the Giant King Fischer House was comfortable and the bed linen was new and clean.

For the price we paid we do feel more effort can be done with the interior of the Giant King Fischer. Just because something is classified as ‘old’ or ‘antique’ doesn’t mean it has to be neglected. The interior of the Opstal house needs maintenance. The furniture is just old and not in good condition also the kitchen and bathroom. Also wouldn’t recommend a family of 6 to book this particular house as there is sadly only 1 toilet. Really feel an additional toilet with basin is essential. Being South Africa it can get very hot in summer so a fan in each room would have been nice since there is no aircon.

This was a lovely place to visit. The restaurant was excellent, with very nice staff and delicious food. Our three bedroom house was spacious and spotlessly clean. Enjoyed seeing the animals roving the grounds, saw many whales from the dunes.

The weather was cold, and there wasn't any heat in the house. We made a fire in the fireplace, but the bedrooms were cold. Some of the mattress heaters did not work.

Blue Crane Opstal House was a lovely self catering base for a couple of nights. The building itself was cold but electric blankets meant we were lovely and cozy at night. Well equipped kitchen with lovely dining and lounge area. Great sheltered little front patio with Adirondack chairs for just sitting and enjoying the wildlife wandering just outside the garden wall....made all the more exciting by two male baboons deciding to battle it out in the garden and around the house - certainly got our heart rates up !

For the price paid a couple of bags of wood for the fire could have been included - it was in other places we stayed. If you want to eat in the restaurant quite understandably it has a daily menu with three starters, three mains and dessert - you just need to be prepared with other options if you don't fancy any of the three offerings. We didn't eat there so can't comment on quality or value for money really. The woodwork in one of the bedrooms in our house had also been recently painted - this meant that room was un-useable due to the smell of paint fumes. No problem for us as we only needed two rooms BUT we were not informed or offered alternatives so if we had needed all three rooms there would have been an issue.

Lovely situation, beautiful surroundings, free roaming animals, views from Koppie Alleen, friendly helpful staff.

We had a three bedroomed chalet for six people - but there was only one toilet, which was both a disappointment and inconvenient. Room for improvement in that respect.

De Hoop is such a special place and Opstal houses create a perfect environment from which to appreciate the natural magic that surrounds it. This is our 3rd visit to Opstal and the nature reserve and this time we bought about 10 friends who all agreed that it was the high point of our holiday to SA. On previous visits the rock pools have been one of my favourite features and I was disappointed in this trip to discover that a higher tide would make these inaccessible for our entire duration as they had been a highlight on previous trips but, hard to know who to complain to about the tides?!... the moon maybe?! However the weather was cooler than my previous visits which made walking and exploring much easier. We did several sunrise missions to the coast and it was simply stunning. Accommodation is no frills but very clean and totally in keeping with the simple wonder of its surroundings. In short De Hoop is stunning and Opstal houses create a perfectly balanced atmosphere from which to appreciate it. Bravo!