Banjul Highway, Palm Grove Hotel Review

Overall Rating

The garden and pool area was well looked after every morning gardeners would be out watering the grass to keep it green... all staff were polite and were always running around to get you whatever you wanted... the room was cleaned daily and with fresh sheets and our friend (lemin) the gardener left us fresh flowers every other day on our table outside. food was of a good standard well prepared with a good choice for everyone.
It was so hot and they beach was lovely when you walk out to the island it feels like you are all alone on the deserted beach, just dont wait for the tide to come in or you will have to swim back!

My partner and I were on a specific budget and although we tipped everyone for the first few days it started to run out, they DO expect a tip for everything, if they get you a drink if they do anything at all for you, I wouldn't have minded had I had it!
They sometimes also 'forget' to bring your change back so my boyfriend had to ask for it all the time which made it embarrassing for all of us!
I can't blame them for trying though!
At the end of the holiday when we had no money for tip they did get moody with you which was a shame as they were so polite otherwise.
The hassling, a lot of Gambians know this is a problem and we spoke to a few locals at the beach who would start a conversation with you by saying 'I don't want to hassle you' I felt bad and we had an excellent conversation but there were a few hasslers on the beach who were brazenly trying to get you to hand some money over! politely say no thanks smile, and they will leave you alone. mossies.. they do try and eat you alive... the pool is FREEZING but quite refreshing!

Palm Grove Hotel:
Okay, so all in all I had a lovely time.. all I wanted... lots of sun and relaxing.... but there always a few points which aren't so good... firstly I read on this site before I went and it does not prepare you for the hassling you get when you touch down, locals trying to look in your plastic bags for magazines, papers (locals then try and sell these for £2 (100 dalasi each in hotels!!!) ask you if 'you got anything' and we had three different people take our luggage and saying 'its their job' then ask you for some money before we even got on the transfer to our hotel we spent like 10 quid!
So just watch out for people doing things for you they are not free needless to say on our way back we did not allow any one to do anything for us!

When we got to our hotel they made it very easy, getting the keys and settling into our room.. we went to dinner in the hotel a buffet style meal with starters main meal and dessert for around £8 400 dalasi, which wasn't bad seeing as you can eat as much as you can, the chef is a big guy who is absolutely lovely and there was another guy who fills in on his day off, he was always trying to get my boyfriend to have third helpings!
Breakfast was lovely too there was choices of a fry up pancakes breads and pastries cheeses cold eats cereals, gorgeous!

As I said before we walked out to the island where there is a long stretch of beach you can walk for ages the pool is clean and well looked after and at lunch times. We went to the restaurant on the veranda which you could get fish and chips and burger and chips for like £5, 250 dalasi, which we thought was expensive for what we got.. you will see that everything is uk prices (they know how much you pay here and expect you to pay it over there) but the lunch again was nice, just not much of it!
The thing that you spend most on is drinks to be honest a bottle of wine is about 290 dalasi almost £6 and a coke is 30 dalasi it all adds up. There is a cheap bar down the beach, it is independent from the hotel and drinks there are only 15 dalasi and the food is cheaper but bumsters hang around there and if you're a girl like me they keep trying to woo you but its all in good humour!
The hotel is situated on a highway so there is nothing around really unless you travel to the main resort kololi.
Strangely though we never heard the highway and it was not a disruption.
If we are honest we went for a week and took an excursion (and went outside the hotel once!) to the crocodile pool and went to feed to monkeys which was amazing... he charged us a lot and I knew we got swindled but I didn't really care he worked for his money.. I just didn't like how he went about it he was an official tour guide who wear the khaki uniform you can trust them more than the normal-clothed 'guides' as they are set up by the government and the hotel lets them in to obviously get some business which takes them out of the hotel to boost the local economy.
I am not one of these people who stay in hotel when they go on holiday I like to get out there and see the country but unless you have got a really tough skin, I don't advise this, one trip was enough to get the taste I needed with out the hassle.
Rooms were spacious and the bathroom was massive and comfy we always went back to our rooms to use the toilet as the ones near the pool had scary spiders in!
All in all it's a three star and I believe that is its true rating it's not luxury but its okay nothing bad to say about it!