Les Manguiers de Guereo

The site is beautiful, but the service is terrible. 1. Getting to the lodge was a headache because GPS/Google Maps directed us to Somone, and we had to take a dirt road from Somone to Sindia for over 18 minutes to reach the lodge. It’s better to call them to ensure you take the shortest route. When we called, the person on the phone couldn’t give us the correct directions. 2. Once there, we arrived at 9:57 PM and were informed that the restaurant was closed, despite the official closing time being 10:00 PM. We told them we had called the reception around 9:30 PM and mentioned we were on our way, so they could have taken our order, but anyway... The driver had to stay on-site and went a few kilometers to the nearest restaurant, which was supposed to close at 11:00 PM, to get food. Despite the fact that we ordered before the driver moving, the food went out around Midnight. The food in the area is extremely expensive. 3. I booked a Garden Suite, which was not only poorly lit (Suite 6), but we were not informed of the room number and couldn’t remember if it was 6 or 9 (looking at the number on the key couldn't help). At one point, I had to go alone to find the driver (because there was no one at reception at midnight when he came from that restaurant). In the rain, I helped the driver unload the luggage, and we got lost (again, the suite is not lit outside). 6 is not 9 .... 4. On facilities, there was no fridge or phone in the room, and the WiFi didn’t work in the room. 5. The service was extremely slow; we ordered dinner at 8:39 PM, and it was served at 10:42 PM after numerous follow-ups (using a mobile phone since there was no room phone), all this for a supposed 4-star suite. When placing our dinner order, we brought the menu from the room. After repeating our order more than three times, the server told us that the menu we had was outdated and that the stack of menus in front of us was more recent. He threw the old menu into the trash in front of us and asked us to choose our dishes again. Throughout this scene, we were standing, and the server left us to pass the order to his colleague at the computer. Even his colleague was shocked by the lack of professionalism. We didn’t receive a receipt to sign that night after two hours of waiting, and when we pointed out the issues, the server had nothing to say except “we are all Senegalese” when we mentioned sharing our experience online. 6. Oh, and the toilet doesn’t have trash bins. You have to go outside in the bathroom to find one !

This property is beautiful. But the location of the property is not close to anything. The restaurant's food was okay because the options were limited. Also, they advertise English speaking staff, but we relied heavily on Google Translate to communicate with staff. We had power outages off and on for approximately one hour. We were disappointed that no one checked to see if we were ok during that time. We had a private pool room and were unable to use the pool on our last day because it was not clean. When I alerted the receptionist, he said, "You can use the main pool." I informed him that we paid for use of the private pool. This property has a cat and a dog. The cat was very aggressive and could be seen reaching on the table to eat off of guest plates. A member of our party had a cat allergy. We alerted staff, and they would chase the cat when it came close to us. Since this was the last leg of our stay in Senegal and our first time to Africa. We wanted to have a relaxing stay before our 10-hour flight home. Despite the mishaps, the stay was good.

Les Manguiers offered the perfect place to begin our holiday in Senegal. The rooms were excellent - spacious and private. The pool was a delight. Walks down to and around the lagoon were brilliant. Staff were incredibly accommodating and made us very welcome.