"Sun City" a Sun City Travel Page by johnaalex

First impression is that the place makes even the gaudiest that Las Vegas has to offer look tasteful!

There are three hotels; Cascades, Sun City and the most expensive The Palace of the Lost City. The building of The Palace looks like something from a movie set for the type of movie made in the 1970s and given a B rating. The rooms are a good size and well equipped but, like the rest of the resort rather dated. The one concession to the 21st century is that wireless internet is available in the rooms free of charge. You just need to get a user id and password from the business centre. They could provide more than the one “international” power socket, especially as the one that is there is on the other side of the room from the desk (at least this was the case in room 565).
Residents of the palace also benefit from use of “Palace only” shuttles to take you around the resort. The free transport does work well and as Palace guests they do what they can to ensure you’re not kept waiting – on some occasions we were driven around in a Mercedes S Class.

In addition to a rather large, but unheated, swimming pool at the rear of the hotel there is a round pool in the Lost City and a man made beach with wave machine capable of generating waves good enough for surfing!
There are other attractions such as game drives in Pilanesburg Wildlife Park, but note that the Birds of Prey Centre is no longer there, but there is a small aviary. We did try to see the butterflies in Butterfly World, but it was closed as the butterflies had not hatched from their cocoons (this makes me think they did not have many to start with).

We tried several of the restaurants and to be honest found them to be in the range of very poor to mediocre at best. The one very notable exception was the Raj in the Sun City Hotel which served superb Indian food and with very good service. One night we tried what was supposed the best restaurant the Palazzio in the Palace Hotel. We had to send both our main courses of Springbok back as the meat was overcooked, dry and tough. The second attempt was not much better, but we were hungry. When we complained they apologised but took nothing off the bill. The steak house was very poor, overcrowded and bad service and mediocre steaks. The buffet in the Sun City Hotel was OK, the one in Cascades was terrible.

The brekfast buffet in The Palace served in the Crystal Room was very good with regard to the range (crispy duck with pancakes etc on some mornings) and quality of food, but the service suffered when the place was busy.

The comparison to Las Vegas is valid in my opinion, but sorry to say Sun City falls a long way short of Sin City. The worn out and faded carpets and some threadbare furniture in the public areas of The Palace are signs enough for me that this place is in need of a major refit. I do not intend returning, there are much better places in South Africa.