I'm a bit surprised of some reviews. For sure, it's not a luxury hotel, but I've seen worse in Europe and America.

Room was clean and spacious, bathroom would benefit from a makeover but were still ok. The front is certainly not very appealing and a facelift wouldn't hurt.

All in all, it really depends what you are looking for. If you want to stay one or two days to benefit from the beach activities (uShaka, casino, etc) and central Durban (whatever you may find appealing there...), this is a good, not too expensive place to stay. It seems to be popular amongst locals. Beach front is safer since World Cup but the area is still dodgy at night. Do not wander south (Point District) and west (Central Business District) by yourself, these are very dangerous areas at night, especially if you're not a local. Nightlife activities have move to Berea district so there isn't much to do around the hotel at night anyway.

If you travel with family (wife, kids), I wouldn't recommend, as I wouldn't recommend any place in the area, upscale or not. In that case, you may be better served north of the Umgeni river or even farther (Umhlanga Rocks, Ballito).

The Beach Hotel is in dire need of refurbishing. But the location is good and the food is quite ok. The staff could be a bit more attentive though. We stayed one week to run the Comrades Marathon and got a very competitive room rate. Considering that the stay was good value for money.

What a disgrace? The Beach Hotel should be demolished"
Roaches running around in the cupboards, No bathroom curtains, so shower in the dark unless off course you want the people in the streets to have a birds eye view? You can't bath the drain is blocked.....? The room stinks, the TV does'nt work....?
Breakfast, well to be honest when i saw the state of the so called Dinning Room, I refused to eat, it's fulthy, the staff look as though they are dead, all they need to do is fall-over.
Im demanding a refund, R1800.00 for two days for that horrific place.....NO! NO! the website should be upgraded, it's false?

Arlene & Paul Cape Town

We stayed at the Beach hotel in Feb 2010 as part of a large school group. We would advise not staying above the ground floor as the lifts were crap. A group of 12 pupils were stuck in the lift for two hours during our stay. The hotel staff were hopeless in dealing with the situation. The emergency services were only called at the last minute and at the request of school staff. It was a traumatic experience for the pupils trapped inside and we received no apologies or compensation from the hotel management. We were blamed for having too many pupils in the lift yet the sign inside said a maximum of 13 people. It was not until a few days later after the lift got stuck again that the lifts were deemed out of order. The lifts in the hotel got stuck a total of 4 times during our stay. As we were on the 8th floor it was very tiring.

The bar also closed before 10 o'clock every night - even on a saturday night! The rooms and the bathroom also needed updating.