Gold Reef City Theme Park Hotel

Great service it was,I have never experience such modesty,I loved the food, bedding,the outside view and the service,I will be going again for the festive holiday,my children can't stop talking and grazing about it,the next time I am taking my friends along

This is our third stay at this hotel to ride the 94.7 Ride JHB cycle race. The new mamangement have really made a big difference to the facilities and the general attitude of all the staff. Perfectly situated within easy riding distance of the start/finish at FNB stadium about 5 km. Nice refurbishment of the rooms and in particular Barneys Restuarant. Breakfast were excellent as were lunch and dinners. Was very busy at lunch on Sat as the theme park was really busy but they coped, and a little patience was all that was needed as the food quality did not suffer as a result.

I stayed at the Gold Reef Theme Park Hotel from 6 to 9 September. My room number was 131. Once entering the block of rooms, there was a sewerage smell on the ground floor. The latch on my door lock was broken. These are relatively insignificant against the poor service and food quality at the Barney Restaurant. On the Thursday night I ordered a fairly simple dish, fish and vegetables. I waited 45 min for the food and on arrival the vegetables were raw. Uncooked butternut is very hard to chew and swallow. I sent a piece back for the chef to try. The waiter came back and said the chef agrees. With that, he put down a bowl of salad, said sorry, and left.

We started at the Gold Reef City Theme Park Hotel in November, and the first noticeable and pretty unique thing about this hotel is that, unlike most theme park hotels which are outside the parks’ gates, this one is literally in the middle of the theme park. This makes it an ideal location to enjoy the park and not have to faff around with taxis, monorails or the other methods of getting into other theme parks around the world. Entry to the park is free for hotel guests. You go the reception every morning and they give you a wristband which get you on to all the rides. This is a nice little extra which also makes it exceptional value for money. We have stayed at theme park hotels at parks in Europe and the US, where you get charged extra for park tickets so it was great to see that wasn’t the case here. The theme park itself is stunning and I’ve written a separate review just of the theme park. There’s also a casino on site with various chain restaurants and the Apartheid Museum which are both easy walking distance, or the staff are more than happy to take you in the mini bus or golf buggy, just ask at reception, they did this several times for us. The room felt a bit dated. The bed was comfortable enough, but the room just felt a bit bland and like it needed modernising. The front door to our room was very thin and that could do with being replaced. The light in the bathroom also stayed on permanently which was kind of annoying. The hotel grounds are very nice. They have gardeners everywhere and they do an amazing job at keeping the gardens looking nice. We didn’t bother eating at Barney’s restaurant in the evening but we did have breakfast there which was also included (again, making it a great value experience). The breakfast was pretty good, but at dinner time the restaurant looked too bright and didn’t look to have much atmosphere, so we instead ate at the restaurants over in the casino building which were ok, but nothing amazing. There’s also a small pool at the hotel which had some table and chairs around it but surprisingly no sun loungers so we only sat by the pool once in the evening, when Barney’s bar was busy with a corporate function. It looks like some new rooms are being built, and so perhaps the hotel are in the process of updating all the rooms. Either way, I’d still return here. The location of the hotel, the helpfulness of the hotel staff, especially the reception team who were very kind and friendly, and the overall experience we had were all pretty excellent, so I’d definitely return and I’d recommend this hotel to others. The hotel also offer an airport transfer service, our driver was very friendly and took us all the way to the hotel reception, which was very handy for us as we’d not visited before so would probably have got lost otherwise. It’s also worth mentioning that the site is kept very safe. It’s gated and security staff are everywhere, as well as safes in the hotel rooms for valuables.