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Summary
We chose to spend 3 days in Sun City because we
heard it was a mini-Las Vegas oasis and is a great place to just
hang out in luxury. We figured we would be under no pressure to
see any tourist sites or do anything except sit by the pool. Well,
we would say it is more a combination of the outlandish decorative
spending of Las Vegas (but no where near the level) and the attractions
of a Disney World (no where near the size). Basically, it is
five hotels, a man-made lake, full size and mini golf course,
crocodile farm, wave pool and man-made beach, huge water slide, numerous
pools, animal farm, walking trails, entertainment center, casino, and
lots of statues/lagoons in a large valley in the middle of
nowhere. We visited during the week to avoid the massive crowds
that supposedly visit the resort on weekends so we felt like we had the
place to ourselves. We concluded that Sun City, though quite
cheesy, would be a great place to visit with kids the right age to enjoy
it.
Detail
Based on many recommendations we stayed at
the Palace Hotel, which is considered the nicest of the five
hotels. It was quite large and had a great pool and restaurants,
but was the farthest from the entertainment center and casino. We
could not believe the number of people the place employed -- there might
have been more employees than guests. There was plenty of room at
the pool and restaurants since we were there on weekdays.
The room was nice and had the most complex interactive TV/internet
system we had ever seen -- we doubt that many guests ever use it.
But we thought the minor luxuries were overlooked such as having a list
of TV channels or a list of important phone numbers or listed price of
phone calls. The money was spent on the millions of floor inlaid
mosaics and the royally painted ceilings and marble structures.
We spent the whole first day relaxing by the
enormous Palace pool trying to even out our farmer's tans. We put
on sunscreen and were careful to not stay in the sun too long before
allowing the many pool attendants to erect an umbrella for us. Of
course, we were not perfect on our sunscreen application and got pretty
burned in funny spots. Therefore we could not go to the pool
anymore on this trip.
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A view of the Sun City Palace Hotel from the
entertainment center.
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Panoramic of the Palace pool where we got
sunburned. It is hard to tell from this picture, but the enormous
pool is about 100x50m in size.
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We stayed in the 'elephant' wing of the Palace
Hotel. This is a view of the courtyard from our room at night. There
are many of these courtyards in the Palace.
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Kristen standing on the bridge to the entertainment
center. Note the cheesy statues everywhere.
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The large wave pool and man-made beach.
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Kristen, in the crocodile farm, standing next to the
skeleton of '3 step', the 100+ old crocodile that died from an infection
last year.
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Dan displaying the smelly, bloody, chicken head that we
used to feed the crocodiles.
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Action shot of a crocodilec going for the meat.
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The crocodiles fighting over the next bit of food.
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An island where the baby crocodiles are held. It
is hard to tell from this picture, but these crocodiles are only about 2
ft.
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The many shops and restaurants in the entertainment
center were empty, but of course still open with full staff. We went to
the casino and gambled a little bit. They had an interesting twist on
Black Jack called Diamond Rush -- if you bet an additional R$5 (~US75¢) on a
hand and drew three diamond 7's then you won R$350,000, or less if you
drew non-diamond 7's. Since we had drawn three 7's a few times in
the Quito casino, we bet the R$5 on each hand. On one hand Dan had two 7's
(not diamonds, unfortunately) -- before dealing the next cards they called
over the pit boss and some other casino hosts to watch. Kristen was on
Dan's right and we could not decide if she should take a hit or let Dan have the
next card. Dan suggested that it might be a 7 and we would be mad if she
got it and not him. So she passed and it was a 7, to make 3 7's!
They played loud music, rang bells, made intercom announcements , and gave us a
Diamond Rush hat. Unfortunately, the payout for 3 non-diamond 7's was only
500 rand which was less than we probably spent on the R$5 bets, but it was fun
anyway.
We also visited the crocodile farm where they claim to have
the 3 largest Nile crocodiles in captivity in the world. For R$10 they
gave us a plastic bag of bloody smelly chicken heads so that we could feed the
crocodiles. We did not know the farm was so large -- we used all our
chicken heads before we reached either the biggest or the smallest crocs!
We walked around a while and were amazed at the number of crocodiles they
had. We were able to see over to a non-display area where there must have
been thousands of adult crocodiles. Unfortunately, there was no one around
to explain to us why there were so many or what they did with them.
Getting
There
We flew the 60 minute flight from Hoedspruit airport (Ngala Safari) to Sun
City airport on a 30 person prop. It was all very easy travel.
Contacts
| Name |
Contact Info |
Comment |
| The Palace Hotel at Sun City |
(+27 14) 557-3000
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A bit outlandish, but the nicest of the 5
hotels. Probably not worth the extra cost, though. The Sun
City Hotel seemed as nice and closer to everything. |
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