Badala Park Hotel
, Kotu
Badala Park Hotel reviews
- Holiday Date:Jan 2010
- Good For: Beach
- Board Basis:Breakfast Included
- Tour Operator:Cosmos
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3 readers found this review helpful
We have spend 2 very nice weeks in Badala Park Hotel.
Rooms are basic, but if we need something hotel staff is always there to help and they will help you without asking for tips, opposite to people form outside of the hotel.
First room we have been offered had window looking at the wall, not nice view for holiday. We have asked for another and we had it. They said if we do not like it, they will show us next one and next... Our 3.5 year old son enjoyed holiday as well, there wasn't any kids garden or other eqipment design for little ones however two corners of the pool were sepatate for kids and there is always something to do if you use your imagination.
Compare to other hotels in Kotu which we have visited it is the most friendly one in the area.
We will try to go back there again and it will Badala Park Hotel!
- Holiday Date:Mar 2009
- Advice: Rent bike from gays (Alex) opposite to hotel
- Activities: Wild Monkey Restaurant, Leybato Restaurant. Don
- Board Basis:Bed & Breakfast
- Tour Operator:Thomas Cook
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6 readers found this review helpful
When we first got to the hotel we were a bit taken aback at the amount of attention you get from the staff (altho at this point you dont know who are staff and who is just hanging around)so we stayed in the complex all day.
The rooms were basic but you get what your paying for and I always say the room is where you sleep and get ready and would never let it effect my holiday but there was hot water a toilet places to keep things and a bed. The balcony was large but we didnt get the sun on it due to trees (the whole complex was built around the trees). The pool was lovely and gets the sun all day but get your towel down early, I wouldnt usually do this but had no choice as there are as many dutch people as English!
Really close to the beach but we went to paradise beach most days as it is beautiful calm and you get waited on all day and there is lovely food (go to sailors bar, the do lovely food brought out to you on the beach, free sunloungers and they keep the local market people away if they can see you look uncomfortable)
Didnt have a bad meal out there there are 4 restaurants about 2 mins walk from the front of the hotel and you dont get much hassle from the bunsters on your way. TIP the restaurant people will be outside the restaurant dont follow the people who tell you about there restaurant and try to take you with them.
Getting back to my earlier comment in the complex there are the people who work there who will offer to take you out and about, you will work out who works there as they never come as far in! If you do go look out for Ratty he is lovely, knows alot about the country and is always happy to help, he is a gardener and my boyfriend and I would of been lost without him.
We did 2 trips on our own one to the monkey park which was amazing it was about 90p to get in and they sit on your shoulders and eat out of your hands (your not meant to feed them but no one listens) and if they offer you a guide turn it down no matter what they say! The crocodile park was good you can stroke some of them its abit surreal but i wouldnt walk there as you go thru a very poor village to get to the entrance and you will get alot of people around you. We did a lazy boat day as an excursion with the tour operater and that was a lovely day a really good lunch and a pims!
Only thing that most people out there were moaning about was the breakfast, eggs (boiled or fried) cheese, bread, toast, cornflakes. Im not a breakfast person but i quite enjoyed it myself!
GO THERE it was the best experience of my life and am now looking into sponsoring a Gambian child.
- Holiday Date:Feb 2009
- Advice: Its lovely
- Good For: Beach
- Board Basis:Bed & Breakfast
- Tour Operator:Thomas Cook
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1 reader found this review helpful
we have just returned from a fortnight in the badala park hotel,only thing i can say is amazing!there was 3 adults and a child that went.there realy is something for every age in the gambia!the hotel is basic but comfortable,we did have a few hiccups,the tap in bathroom fell off plus the shower door but all were imediatly fixed.The rooms are cleaned daily by very friendy staff,fresh towels daily too.breaffast changes every day but they do have ur basic eggs,beans,mushrooms etc.. The staff in the hotel are very friendly and will do anything to help you,the entertainment in the hotel is brilliant they are great with kids and yet again will do anything to help you and make your stay the best it can be they call themselves the A team.we didnt think a fortnight was long enough so we are booking again in december to go for 3 weeks.would recomend this hotel to everyone.once you have had a taste of the gambia youl just keep going back!!
- Holiday Date:Jan 2009
- Activities: crocodile pool and monkey park.
- Good For: Beach
- Board Basis:Bed & Breakfast
- Tour Operator:Thomas Cook
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1 reader found this review helpful
well ive got to say..... everythink about badala park was absolutley fantastic. my husband and i chose to spend our honeymoon there. our room was average but nevertheless very clean all the staff made us feel very welcome and couldnt do enough for us.the maid was also nice and kept our room clean daily. the food was good and the entertainment at night was excellent. i thought gambia and the people i met treated us like royalty. beautiful country and people. has for the hotel...romantic palm trees overlooking our balcony and smiling faces everywhere you looked. we will be returning back to gambia and badala park hotel soon. i felt that a five star hotel wouldnt have been any better. my husband is a gambian man he said i would have loved it when i had been once. yes he was right.
- Board Basis:All Inclusive
- Tour Operator:Thomas CookSUNSET
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It was basic but I had a fantastic holiday so did everyone we went with.
Breakfast was basic but you can have as much as you want. Rooms ok, cleaned everyday but have a shower between 6 and 7 you get hot water then.
Eat at Al Baba up the road, you get a massive portion of chicken and chips for 90 d and have family size pizza - you've got to do it.
Senegambia is brilliant, it has the monkey park, loads of restaurants and a wicked Indian. Go to Jambenjelly and see the nursery we built from scratch, it's called Winnies. Everyone in the village are so friendly.
You should go to Gambia, its amazing and great value for money.
- Board Basis:Bed & Breakfast
- Tour Operator:Thomas Cook
Was this review helpful? Yes
This being our first trip to The Gambia we were not sure of what to expect, but that can happen on any holiday.
The hotel was basic. The room was cleaned every day, being there for 7 days, only twice we did not have any hot water for a shower and only had a power cut for a few minutes on our first night.
The staff were friendly and everything is done in "Gambian Time" in other words abit slow but in that heat what do you expect.
We went on a trip which you visited a school where we took pencils and paper, what a eye opener. 1300 kids, split into two shifts morning and afternoon and 20 teachers. All the Gambians speak English so it was easy to chat.
Breakfast was basic: fried eggs, sausage, mushrooms one day, another would be boiled egg, sausage, beans, but there was cereal, toast, ham and cheese, watermelon, juice, tea and coffee.
The brochure does say for the economical traveller but we had a great time and would go back either to here to another hotel depends on price.
By the way neither of us were ill with Banjul belly!
- Board Basis:Bed & Breakfast
- Tour Operator:Thomas Cook
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When we first arrived in Gambia my initial thoughts were 'what have we done?'.
Airport staff were literally snatching our luggage from us and expect to be paid for carrying it a few metres, my boyfriend dropped his jacket and without realising a local picked it up and asked for 2 pounds before he would give it back, there were children begging in the coach park and fires in the streets of Banjul.
However, don't be put off; when we arrived at the hotel, although tens of locals were sat in the grounds watching us carefully, I was pleasantly surprised. The room we were given was very spacious. We had a shower big enough for four people, a very large balcony (although the view wasn’t very good), and overall in a lovely quiet part of the complex.
Within the hotel there are 5 places to eat. The snack bar by the pool which is replaced every night at about six o clock with candle lit tables with entertainment on the stage.
There is an Indian restaurant which me and my boyfriend absolutely loved and a Chinese restaurant. All of the places to eat are really really cheap and you can get a three course meal for two for about 20 pounds. Cigarettes and alcohol are also very cheap. A bottle of the locally brewed lager is about 75p and 20 cigarettes are about 50p.
If you’re going to Gambia a must do is a visit to the monkey park and the crocodile pool. Absolutely fantastic.
Beware of the sun; it is so hot, my sandals melted!!
- Board Basis:Bed & Breakfast
- Tour Operator:Cosmos
Was this review helpful? Yes
Before I went to Badala Park I had read stacks of reviews about it, all pretty negative, but I would like to say that for £250 B &B for a week each, you can’t really grumble.
The rooms are very basic, but they are clean. The breakfast is again basic, bread rolls, toast, jam, juice, cheese, ham, tea and coffee and some cooked items, but we didn’t starve!
There is plenty to do around the hotel, but be warned, when people say you are likely to be hassled by locals, they really aren’t joking. They just don’t leave you alone!
However, if you are firm, and sometimes a bit rude with the persistent ones, they do leave you alone.
Also, I wouldn’t say they are dangerous so don’t let them spoil your holiday, and make sure you get out and about! You get less hassle when you are in the areas away from the hotel.
We visited the monkey park whilst there and we couldn’t fault it, it was excellent! None of this in cages business, the monkeys roamed around the reserve.
We also visited the crocodile pool where my partner stroked a crocodile. It’s all reasonably priced, but I wouldn’t go as far to say its dirt cheap!
I travelled with my partner and we are aged 21 and 27 and we had a great time, although we both agreed it wasn’t a place for kids really, even though there were plenty of families with kids.
For the price we paid and what we saw I'd say this is a very good value for money holiday!
- Board Basis:Bed & Breakfast
- Tour Operator:Thomas Cook Sunset
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4 readers found this review helpful
As with others we read these reviews before we left so we had an idea of what we had got ourselves into.... although we really had a great time overall there were a few downs but mostly ups.
The hotel is a little ragged around the seems but improvements are being made, whilst we were there our room received new bins and toilet brushes and nice little handsoaps(admittedly small things but improvements nonetheless). Also the entertainment area gained a new TV projector although despite much fiddling with only seemed to show a bollywood movie and football !!
Our room was in C block on the top floor and was cleaned by Lamin who is a very honest and hard working boy who always had a friendly smile and hello. The room itself was upto our needs, beds, shower, fan, safe and was clean. The balcony looked out over a portion of 'the jungle' and I even saw a red colubus monkey in the trees on the first day along with a spectacular array of birds. Alas the balcony also had a view of the 'Happy corner' which sometimes offered views which would offend more genteel personage !!??
The hotel staff were numerous and sometimes it was hard to discern the staff from others who seemed to loiter around the grounds, and some of the attention from some verged on the intrusive. We particularly liked the following people around the hotel who we discoverd were trustworthy and attentive...... Lamin the C-block cleaner, Mohammed the big smiling waiter, Cheeky Jay the waitress with a great sense of humour(ask her for a cappucino !), Mariamma the waitress who served us most regularly and who we liked alot, Awa on reception who is a cute as a button, BB our bag man and fix it boy and most importantly Abdullah the cigarette seller right next to the front gate who is a great guy and always gives you a straight answer to any question, buy your cigarettes from him, he gives a good price and has a lovely family which would benefit from your business.
The food in the hotel is passable, the chinese restaraunt is probably the best of the three but we ate outside the hotel more often as the choice of restaraunts locally and in Senegambia is really good....highlights include African Queen and Paradiso on the strip, Kunta Kinteh, Tam Tams and Barracuda in Kotu.
The hotels evening entertainment is OK but a little erratic and often similar in its style, although one night there was a 'pub quiz' which was highly entertaining due to its total lack of organisation. If you want a night of true Gambian culture try outside of the hotel. Kunta Kinteh organise a fabulous BBQ on Sundays and the entertainment is absolutely top notch.
When leaving the hotel it is always like running the gauntlet....and could become a bit much if you just want a peaceful stroll... the walk to Kotu village and the walk to the beach via the palm beach hotel are particularly entertaining/annoying(delete where applicable). Common phrases which you will hear...."Happy couples", "your satisfaction is my gaurantee", "your happiness is my pleasure", "a gift from my heart", "nice to be nice", "the more you smile the browner you get" and so on, generally these are proffered to elicit cash in some manner.
Gambia is a beautiful country and its people are wonderful so it really is rewarding to leave the hotel and do some trips to some of the attractions and local villages. We initially booked 2 through the holiday company which is a good idea as you do get a good level of organisation and you can speak to other tourists of their experiences. We would highly recommend the 'Treasure Island' trip but wouldn't advise the trip to Fatarah in Senegal as you pay a lot and see very little. The organised trips are ok but expensive and the money doesn't go to the locals so it is better to find someone you can trust who offers trips..... The two people below we used and we cannot recommend them enough...
Firstly....
OMAR SHERIFF(yes, as in the actor) our good friend who looked after us from the first time we went to the Kunta Kinteh beach bar on Kotu beach. A really good rasta guy with a heart of gold and strong sense of fairness. He took us to the monkey park and we also did the Roots tour with him. He can be found most days at the Kunta Kinteh beach bar or give him a call on ([--]).
and....
ENSA SAIDY a taxi driver from the Senegambia strip who is a cool guy, a real big personality and also a man who can be trusted wholly. We used him to ferry us from the hotel to the Senegambia strip and back most nights and found his company and choice of music hugely entertaining. We also took a day trip with him which took in the Crocodile park, Lamin Lodge, the batique factory, Serekunda market, Brikama and a thoroughly humbling visit to his mother and his village. He also took us to JOKOR, the famous mbalax nightclub. We enjoyed all our time with Ensa who we now class as a good friend. Find him and his jeep on the Senegambia strip or call([--])
Other highlights of our stay........
KUNTAH KINTEH beach bar on Kotu beach, great food, great staff,(thanks Yousef), the best cappucino in Gambia and a place to really feel safe to relax and enjoy the sun.
OUSMAN the aeroplane boy. This guy makes the most incredible things from scrap metal to sell to make his fees to go to engineering school. We got him to make us a helicopter complete with lights and spinning blades. This young man and his determination and ingenuity reduced us to tears. His smile and honest nature along with such talent made him No.1 on our list of favourite Gambians.... Email him to meet him and see his work [--].... you won't be dissappointed.
Overall Gambia is a great place to visit and the people are lovely. It can be relaxing, hard work, emotional and exhillerating, just remember to take loads of sweets and pens and excersize books for the kids....."TOUBAB" "MINTY"
If you use any of the contacts mentioned above please remember to say BIG HELLO and THANK YOU from Ian and Kay in Manchester.