Joburg City: Where We Stayed and Places of Interest

I’m going to break down the 1.5 days/2 nights we spent in the City of Johannesburg into our hotel experience and the points of interest we visited, followed by where we ate and drank.

Since we ended up arriving in Johannesburg two days earlier than planned due to our last minute rerouting to avoid the unrest in HKG, I had to scramble to find a suitable hotel for the two nights we had before we drove out into the bush to experience our first safari (stay tuned for that adventure!). I had originally planned to book an airline staff rate at the Hilton in Sandton (one of the upscale neighborhoods, which we ended up visiting as you’ll see below), for roughly $115 a night. Since I have Diamond status, we would likely get a good upgrade, and have free breakfast and executive lounge access for evening drinks and snacks. However, right when I was ready to book the rate, the staff rate disappeared, and I could only curse my luck as the new rate was over $200 per night. Instead, I found availability at the Protea Hotel Johannesburg Parktonian All-Suite, part of the Marriott family of brands. It was only a Category 1 hotel, costing 7,500 points (worth roughly $55) per night, with the same points cost for all rooms whether you booked a queen bed, two twin beds, or a king bed. I booked a King Executive Suite for a total of 15,000 points, which was the perfect redemption since I had roughly 16,000 points orphaned in my Marriott account with no real way to use them.

I quickly confirmed the reservation, and fired off a quick email to the hotel confirming our stay, our early check in time (we ended up rolling into the hotel just before 11 am), and noting that it was our honeymoon and anything that they might be able to do to make it special for us would be much appreciated. For what it’s worth, I find it’s always worth noting special occasions in hotel/restaurant/flight reservations, as worst come to worst nothing happens, and a customer driven business will make an effort to make a special occasion memorable. We experienced that on the Lufthansa flight experience, and at several other points in our journey as well. Naturally, don’t do so with a) expectation of free stuff, and b) falsely, when no such special occasion exists, but I find that letting the staff know enables them to deliver some over the top customer experience moments and is often a source of pride for them to “show off.”

After picking up our rental car, we rolled up to the hotel at around 10:45 am, well in advance of the official check in time of 3 pm. Parking allegedly only cost 25 ZAR in the garage (~$2), but we the garage was located a block away from the hotel and we found free street parking directly adjacent. The security guard warned us at the end of the stay that it wasn’t safe to park there, but a) it was at the end of the stay as we were leaving, so what were we supposed to do? and b) we didn’t have any issues and felt comfortable especially with it being so close by, but your personal risk tolerance may be different

Upon walking into the physically imposing hotel (one of the tallest buildings in the area at 24 stories), we were met by a cramped and dated lobby. We were helped by an associate upon stopping by the reception desk, which was a bit confusing, since all the desks annoyingly had a “Check-out” placard on them, and none marked for “Check-in.” We eventually were directed to the next available agent, who despite a bit of a language barrier, was quite friendly and greeted us every time he saw us throughout the stay. There was one more awkward moment, when he presented me with a form with the check-in details, and there was a cash rate of ~250ZAR a night (~$16…???) reflected, and after I politely pointed out that my reservation should have been paid for entirely with points, he talked to a supervisor and then promptly removed the charge. Always check the paperwork before signing, especially for hotel and car rental reservations!

We were directed to wait for a few moments in the lobby while the staff finished preparing the room. Reception proactively brought us WiFi credentials so we could browse the web while we waited. A short time later at 11 am, we were brought the keys to our room, and had the features and amenities of the hotel explained to us. The elevators were located in a room that required key card access, which was the first time I’ve seen that in a hotel but perhaps makes sense as a lower cost/complexity security feature than programming key slots in each elevator individually.

We were assigned a King Executive Suite on the 22nd floor, and walked into a fairly spacious, well lit room, albeit with somewhat dated furniture (like the rest of the hotel). The main living room had a walk out balcony, which was nice but definitely triggered some of Robert’s agoraphobia. The couches were rather uncomfortable, but overall the room was spacious, clean, and a great value for the 7,500 Marriott points we redeemed for it.

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Walking into the bedroom, we cracked up upon seeing the towel swans and rose petals scattered all over the bed. How cheesy/cute is that? It was a lovely gesture, and I felt bad moving the arrangement when we settled in for a jet-lag fueled nap later. They even scattered rose petals in the bathroom floor as well.

We ended up napping for a few hours, and were woken up by a phone call (“We have your welcome gift waiting outside the door!”). Groggy and confused, I opened the door to find two beautiful arrangements of strawberries and cream with chocolate meringues. What a wonderful touch, and they were delicious. The British influence on South Africa was still apparent ;).

The bed was large and reasonably comfortable, but I slept funny the first night and woke up with a slightly tweaked back. The only air conditioning unit in the room blew directly on the bed in our faces, which made it hard to get comfortable since I need moving air/fan to comfortably sleep but the Antarctic breeze from the AC was less than ideal.

Our first night in Joburg was mainly resting, with dinner and drinks to be reviewed in the next post. The next day, mainly driven by Robert’s obsession with vinyl record shops, we stumbled upon a few really cute neighborhoods.

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The first area was Melville, located about 15 minutes northwest of downtown Joburg, in search of Microgram Music Traders. We almost didn’t even explore the area, since Google Maps had Microgram on the wrong side of the street. We ended up wandering a mini shopping plaza of sorts called 27 boxes, constructed almost entirely of shipping containers, which seems to be a fairly new development. This is where Microgram was eventually found, much to Robert’s delight. The whole area in general, was extremely walkable, filled with cute boutique shops with plenty of parking, and felt extremely safe. We enjoyed the South African sunshine and cool weather, and wandered the area and shops for the entire morning.

After Melville, we moved on to the Milpark/Sunnyside area, located just a few minutes away, in search of Mr. Vinyl. While the surrounding area was a little bit gritty (Parking was an adventure with several aggressive “car guards” common in Johannesburg), the vinyl shop was located in a cute little village of shops called 44 STANLEY, which featured lots of cafes/restaurants, some vintage clothing stores, and all sorts of lovely little surprises. I ended up being a little uneasy because we had haphazardly parked our car in the middle of uncertain “car guard” territory, so we didn’t stay long, but if you arrive using other means or park somewhere more secure, it’s easy to imagine spending all afternoon there.

Afterwards, we ended up popping over to Sandton briefly, since it’s known to be the most developed area of Joburg (and where the Hilton hotel I originally wanted to book was located). Our first impressions of the area, upon driving into the neighborhood, were indeed that the area was filled with upscale high-rises and a much cleaner experience than the nitty-gritty of the city. We drove to Sandton City Mall, but was disappointed (though not surprised) that the mall was mostly filled with tourists shopping at expensive high-end stores, and there wasn’t anything remotely authentic about the experience. Sandton relative to downtown Joburg reminds me a little bit of Pudong relative to Puxi/Old Shanghai. Lots of newer, more developed architecture, fancy cuisine, high end shops, but lacking the older, more authentic feel of the working class going about their lives. It’s a good neighborhood to be if you’re just looking for somewhere with creature comforts and familiarity to stop over on your way to and from safari, but not where you might find an accurate representation of real South African life.

After Sandton, we decided to venture WAY southeast of Joburg, driving almost 1.5 hours (it’s about 1 hr away from city center) to go to the Suikerbosrand Nature Reserve. We paid less than 100ZAR total to get the two of us plus the rental car in the park. It’s worth noting that while doors close at 6 pm, they technically stop admitting vehicles at 4 pm since the driving route for tourists is about 60 km long, and will take at least 1.5 hours if you make a few stops to admire the scenery and wildlife. We ended up pulling up at 4:15 pm, and with some gentle chiding from the guard we were admitted. Towards the end of our visit we did have to rush a bit in order to make sure we exited the park in time.

The park as a whole, was absolutely BEAUTIFUL. There was so much variance in topography and geography, it truly brought back memories of watching the Lion King as a kid and seeing versions of the grasslands depicted throughout the animated film in real life brought back waves of nostalgia. It was also so incredibly peaceful the few time we stopped for some fresh air and pictures. Once I turned off the car’s engine, there was literally nothing you could hear, with the exception of planes taking off from the airport two dozen miles away! At the top of some of the hills, not even insects or birds were audible. It was just so incredibly quiet and peaceful, and rejuvenating for the soul.

We also saw quite a bit of herbivorous wildlife as well, including a huge flock of zebras. It was an exciting prelude to the safari adventures we would be enjoying shortly, and WELL worth the ~$6 equivalent it cost to get in.

That’s all we had time for, and it was virtually entirely crammed into one long but exciting day. Johannesburg is definitely worth exploring and spending some time in at the beginning or end of your safari adventure!