Almost 31 years ago, a pugnacious chartered accountant turned restaurateur and hotelier built a resort outside Rustenburg in the lee of an extinct volcano.
He was called Sol Kerzner. It was called Sun City. The world would soon know them both.
The resort, nestled in the bosom of an apartheid homeland, was an unashamed mimic of the excesses and glitz of Las Vegas. By 1992, it boasted four hotels, from the Joe Everyman’s Cabanas through to the ridiculously exotic Palace of the Lost City, Kerzner’s final whimsy recalling the fables of H Rider Haggard and King Solomon’s Mines.
It was the playground for the people of Joburg and Pretoria, but the punters came from far and wide as did the entertainers, breaking international sanctions and inspiring the unforgettable hit by anti-apartheid musicians, (I ain’t gonna play) Sun City.
Democracy came in 1994, the homelands were reincorporated into South Africa and casinos started springing up on the outskirts of the bigger municipalities. The experts were unanimous: it was the end of the Sun International chain around South Africa, with the biggest casualty being Sun City. It hasn’t happened.
The big annual drawcard events are still there to draw everyone from daytrippers to international celebs, from top-notch golf to Miss SA Teen and even the coronation of the country’s boerewors king.
The truth of the matter is that the resort is great value for money, boasts an incredible array of activities, caters for a range of budgets and is as welcoming to the high-rolling gambler as it is to a family out for fun.
It’s an incredible balancing act that’s been going on for three decades and shows no signs of letting up.
The four hotels are the Cabanas, the eponymous Sun City Hotel with casinos on the ground floor, the Cascades and the rarified Palace. It’s the Cascades, though, that’s the true jewel in the crown.
Even if you don’t know the name, you’ll know the shape, the stepped pyramid that’s always in the background as the golfers approach the Gary Player clubhouse. It looks like it’s the hotel that was filched from Las Vegas, but in reality it’s the oasis of calm amid the hubbub of South African’s premier entertainment hub.
The gardens are well worth a wander through, with a suspension bridge that’s more like something out of Indiana Jones than what the architects tried to achieve at the Lost City, an aviary that’s home to a whole bunch of indigenous South African birds that are simply awesome up close, as well as tennis courts, and two pools, one of which is heated and has its own mini beach and water slide.
The Cascades has two types of rooms – luxury and suites – and they are breathtaking. The luxury family rooms have recently undergone extensive renovations to the bathrooms and the dressing rooms alongside, effectively making them the size of a starter townhouse. The beds are massive, the linen crisp, there are mini bars and dining tables, couches and reading chairs – all in a single room.
Downstairs, accessed on one of three panoramic externally mounted glassed-in lifts, which travel all the way up to the 12th floor, the ambience is of understated elegance and luxury.
Breakfast, served in the Peninsula Restaurant, maintains the legendary standards of service and sumptuous spread set by Kerzner back in 1979. You can have your breakfast hot or continental, or both. You can eat as little or as much and for as long as you want. On any day, you can expect to choose between 11 different fruit juices and as many cheeses, and that’s before you’ve decided on an omelette with all the trimmings or just your eggs sunny side up.
The service at the Cascades, in general, is exceptional, precisely what you’d expect at an establishment of this nature. If you look at the published rack rate for the rooms it’s expensive, but it pays to shop around.
The same, however, can’t be said for the other satellite services at Sun City.
The entertainment centre, with the obligatory slot-machine casinos in the centre, has always been the day tripper’s mecca, home to franchise fast- food outlets, pizzerias and steak houses.
Quite frankly they’re overpriced and the service is appalling.
Once again, that’s not based on a single source, but on multiple testimonies over the last six months, so much so that the resort management will have to step in because these independent operators are undoing all the hard work the four hotels’ staff are putting in to make guests’ stays memorable for all the right reasons. - Saturday Star