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Hands down 4.5-5 stars!!! — and I rarely give ratings this high… but it’s really hard to fault this place — and it’s definitely the little things that make the difference! From check in to check out, everything was wonderful. They have clearly recently renovated and the aqua and teal colors everywhere are fabulous! Our room was sparkling clean, complete with everything we needed, and the shower is absolutely amazing! (just be careful you don’t scold yourself, as I accidentally did, as the handle in the shower does not indicate which is hot and which is cold…) Staff are all-round wonderful, and many of them speak English. The beach chairs are a perfect width, with built-in pillows and your own Hotel Africa Queen quick-dry towel… how cool is that? The walk into the village is a short but sweaty one, with a local market, fruit and vegetables, and souvenirs galore… make sure you try at least one trip into town! I walked up and down the beach a few times and never once felt hassled or like I didn’t belong here. The beach is filled mostly with young kids playing in the water and playing soccer on the sand, as well as a few stray dogs trying to shelter from the heat. When the tide goes out there are a few places along the beach that look quite dirty, with trash everywhere… however, the hotel area is pretty clean and I noticed the staff were up early cleaning the beach first thing every morning. Something that fascinated me was watching locals come down to the beach to wash their goats and the young kids measuring out a soccer field on the beach using the inside of an old cassette tape — genius! Dinner was fantastically displayed and staff were wonderful during each meal. Awesome live music and entertainment on the Saturday night, full of energy, Senegalese traditional dance and amazing African drumming — what a treat!! Excellent wifi (I could stream videos/TV shows and upload same with relative ease). Super quiet hotel — we slept like a baby each of the three nights we stayed! Only two (very small) negatives: quite a few cockroaches around; the cleaners came to our room around 1pm each day and left our door wide open whilst they left for about 20 or so minutes — this seemed a bit odd and not very security conscious… These last two points aside, Hotel Africa Queen set a very high standard for the remainder of our trip and we wouldn’t hesitate to return!

Lovely spacious and very clean room, good bedding. The staff is attentive, very welcoming, smiling and warm. The breakfast and dinner buffets are varied and good, there is something for everyone! (especially the dessert buffet -:) We had a very pleasant week.

We stayed at the hotel for 9 nights with our two young children and some friends who also had their kids with them. We found it a real mix - the setting was really beautiful - gorgeous beach, lovely pool and nice looking huts to stay in, but there were lots of annoying problems throughout the holiday. Firstly, the food looked pretty decent - but it tasted fairly average unfortunately. As the hotel is all inclusive, this left us feeling like we were a bit stuck for dinner (although we ended up going to another hotel to eat a couple of times for a bit of variation). The puddings in particular weren't great - they looked awesome, but often just didn't taste of very much. Secondly, dinner is from 8-10pm. Maybe this is fine for many guests from the Mediterranean, but it was really late for our kids (who are normally in bed by 8) and there was no flexibility offered and no way of ordering dinner early from the restaurant or something. That left us with ratty kids getting tired and staying up late, or going to bed hungry. Another annoyance was the very loud music being pumped out by the pool. The clientele when we were there were hardly 18-30 party animals - almost everyone either had kids or were in the older age bracket, so it didn't seem to fit and ruined the general feeling of peace on the beach and down by the sea. The loud music continued into the night with raucous drum performances every few nights and loud music and singing on others. That started at 10pm and went on for a couple of hours most nights, keeping us and the kids up even later. For families I would recommend asking to stay further away from the restaurant so this would be less of an issue. Also, although there weren't many mosquitoes visibly around, even in the evenings, we got bitten to death at night. There were no mosquito nets over the beds and I assume that they were getting in through the thatched roof as we weren't able to track them down and get rid of them. My little one got 50 bites over a couple of nights and I had a couple of dozen - even using DEET and trying to cover up at night. I could barely sleep with them buzzing in my ear and ended up wearing full length clothes all night to avoid getting savaged every night! Annoying not to have nets which would have immediately solved the problem and are standard in many other hotels we have traveled to around Africa. Some more positive things were the availability of taxis outside the hotel, who the hotel were able to call for you if you wanted. We went on a tour to the nearby Bandia Reserve which was pretty decent and the (quite grumpy) hotel events guy was able to arrange this easily. The staff were nice to the kids, although a bit rude and non-responsive to us which didn't make us feel particularly welcomed. Also for fellow Brits or other non-French speakers, the staff didn't speak much if any English (to be expected and we speak reasonable French so were able to get by). There was a bit of gentle harassment from sellers

Given some of the marginal places I stayed on my pass through Senegal, this place was probably the nicest. I was probably not the target customer as I didn't use them as an all inclusive and clearly that is the intention. The property is a bit of a walk from humble downtown Saly, but otherwise this place has charm and character all over the place. The bathroom was particularly generous and the bed nice and comfy. It was quite a hike to get out of my room and back on the street though, because the grounds are quite large. If you like service though, this is surely the place you want to stay in Saly.