Holiday Beach Club Hotel

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14 readers found this review helpful

As most people have probably written about their whole holiday I will just tell you about the hotel itself. It is just off the main Sennegambia strip about 100 yards just passed the Sarges (formerly Tafbel) and across from the GTS.
Entry is through 2 green iron gates with security guards. A short drive down a shelled gravel drive brings you to the start of the apartments which are enclosed within a wall for privacy and security and have a security guard. Our apartment was A1 which was at the end of 8 joined apartments at the bottom and 8 above us. It was very quiet and we were particularly envied because we were the only ones that had the sunshine til the very end!
The rooms are well maintained by Adama and very clean. 2 large single beds with brand new mattresses. Towels changed every day and bed linen every other day. There was a dresser and a built in wardrobe with loads of space. Bathroom was very clean with toilet wash hand basin and shower (although when using the shower it did soak the whole bathroom due to the design of the curtain rail. Nice little touches of beside wall lamps and 2 electrical sockets (3pin plugs). Entrance to the apartment was on a little terrace with a table and 2 chairs then through large sliding doors. In the evenings you have your own discovery programme watching the monkeys play and in our case jump on our almost completed jigsaw!
All staff are very friendly and extremely helpful....not everyone looks for something in the Gambia contary to belief. The gardeners work hard and the little girl round the back that does the washing is rarely seen so it's worth walking that way to tip her as she's often forgotten. We needed a lightbulb replace on the second day and it was done within a half hour. "Smiler" as I called the maintenance man actually plastered a bit of the wall round the back so we could engrave our names on it!! Looks like a tomb now!
The beautiful hotel grounds are meticulously kept and are made up of well established palm trees, shrubs, bushes and flowers.....very beautiful. There are little paths leading to each apartment block.
From our apartment which was at the very back, it was a short stroll to the hotel shops, reception, bar, dining room and very large swimming pool.
The back exit of this hotel is straight onto the beach so no having to pass through other hotels or walking via the road.
I have given this hotel a 9 only because of the breakfast which people do complain about. The tea and coffee are pre-made and are not hot enough and not to everyones taste. They would be better putting out just boiling water and letting you add your own tea/coffee but I expect this is down to expense. But if you ask for a cup of boiling water with a teabag it will be given. Not much on offer, juice, bread, cheese, spam, fruit, yukky cereal, butter/jam. You can purchase a hot breakfast at stupid prices.
On the whole this hotel well exceeded my expectations. This is my 4th trip to The Gambia and my friend Jeanne's 40th. She celebrated her 79th birthday there! She has stayed in almost every hotel in Kololi and Sennegambia and this one bar the Kairaba was the most pleasent yet. It is totally safe, clean and helped ease the stresses of the dreaded Credit Crunch!

We managed to find a cheap holiday to the gambia in october and as we were going to egypt in december we thought why not...it wasnt long b4 we found out it was so cheap as it was 20mins from arriving to our room we had our passports and money stolen, ok i will add it only took 3 days for us to get them returned but the manager of the beach club just wasnt bothered, the rooms were ok, the food wasnt, and if u leave ur sliding door open 2'' as we did at night as it was so hot dont be to shocked to wake up with a blk secrurity gaurd trying to get into bed with you..lucky for me my husband who was in the bed next to me and is a light sleeper, poor security gaurd was very poorly for sometime i heard..lol