We spent a week at the Bush Lodge in December. Bakubung offers hotel rooms and individual lodges. We had a lodge, which had two double bedrooms, separate bathrooms (one bath, one shower), a sitting room, small kitchen and barbecue terrace overlooking the watering hole. From there we were able to see wildebeest, zebra, warthogs, a mongoose, jackal and even three rhino snoozing under a tree in the hot sunshine.
In December it is summer over there - temperatures rose to around 33 degrees. There were storms, too, and heavy rain - you need waterproofs as well as something warm for the evenings.
The Lodge includes a spa (which we didn't try), a pool with pool-bar, tennis courts, restaurant and bar. They seem very good with children. There is a Young Rangers programme and quite a bit of play equipment. The staff were endlessly patient with small children and babies there during our stay.
The Lodge is extremely well-staffed with a team of friendly, helpful people. The food is not brilliant but choose the buffet option and to be honest, if you can't find something you like then you would be very unlucky. A buffet operates at breakfast, too, which is excellent. There is an internet facility by Reception.
There are game drives from the Lodge each day but we had a hire car and preferred to go under our own steam. You can get a map and information booklet from the shop by Reception and in your own car you can spend as long as you like, stop when you want and reach areas which are inaccessible to the buses. We went out every day and saw lots of elephant, rhino, giraffe, wildebeest, zebra and hippo. When we went some years ago we saw a cheetah but no such luck this time. You can get a pass for the Park from Reception, which lasts for the duration of your stay. December is a great time to go because there are baby everything - cuteness overload with young giraffe, zebra foals and tiny elephants.
You are out in the bush at Pilanesberg, with not an awful lot nearby. That was just what we wanted but Sun City is nearby - if you haven't been before, high tea at the Palace Hotel there is a hugely memorable experience.
Sleep wasn't fantastic, due to a combination of storms, noisy birds at the watering hole and some extremely active squirrels living in the thatch of our lodge. As stated, we were in a separate lodge. The hotel accommodation is nearer Reception and given that the buildings are not particularly well sound-proofed, I should imagine it could be a bit of a problem there, with the game trucks leaving at 5am and people walking around. On my way back from the restaurant one night I could hear a baby crying in one of the rooms from the walk-way - I should imagine everyone in the nearby rooms could hear it too.
Normally, when I am on holiday I miss my home and look forward to getting back. This time I didn't want to come home.

Initial check in was a bit of a disaster as I arrived at night during a power failure The reception staff tried to just give me a key and directions to my room. Not knowing where to go and not even the offer of a torch was a poor start. I asked to be escorted to my room and from there on was happy with my stay

I discovered next morning my room overlooked a waterhole and could see animals wandering outside my window. Did two included safaris,so chose one morning and one evening safari. The vehicles were not able to go off road so some of the sightings were not real close however saw plenty of animals including a lion feeding on a fresh giraffe kill.

Transport was available to go into Sun city. There was a spa on sight

The breakfast buffet was awesome and staff in the restaurant very attentive.
I felt the lodge was good value and enjoyed my experience
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I loved the lodge, the room was beautiful, the food, while standard buffet type fare, was very decent and the staff was very welcoming. There is a nice pool and a watering hole that you can view from the terrace bar.
My main complaint is with the game drives. I did three of them and on two we basically took the same route and saw the same things. If you are desperate to see the Big Five, I would recommend Kruger National Park instead. While Pilanesberg is advertised as Big Five country, after a few questions, the drivers admitted that buffalo and leopards were extremely rare. I guess another herd of buffalo is going to be introduced soon near the lodge as the existing herd is in the far north of the park where the roads don't go. I took three drives and saw more on the one evening drive than I did on the two morning drives but that may have only been my experience.
You will see elephants, hippos, antelope, Rhinos, lions, giraffe so it wasn't like we didn't see anything, just seeing the Big Five is extremely rare.
One recommendation is to arrange your trip so that you can take a game drive in the evening on either Sunday or Wednesday evening because the game drive will end with a cookout in the bush.

I stayed at Bakubung timeshare resort for a long weekend and was most impressed by the excellent facilites, accomodation and close proximity to the Pilanesberg National Park, where we saw excellent wild game including rhino, hippo, buck, giraffe, elephant etc. The food, service and amenities at Bakubung were all great.