Réserve de Fathala

Great experience visiting the reserve and seeing animals like giraffe, warthog and rhinoceros. Really amazing. Hotel service could be certainly improved. Toilets and bathrooms do not offer enough privacy.

We spent 3 nights in Fathala during February 2025. The food, accommodation and staff were excellent. Our main guide Mamadou was very knowledgeable with very good English and a real passion for wildlife. For experienced Safari goers the range of animals is limited and it felt a little bit like a very large wildlife park. However, for a first venture into the African bush with our children (8 &10) this camp was just right. It could have been improved slightly if there had been literature for the children (and adults) to use as reference material. A basic field guide list of common animals and plants that you could then tick and date once you had spotted them would have been a really nice keepsake. A map of the area would have also been a bonus.

Stayed in Fathala lodge for 1 night. Very comfy room and bed. Loved the expertise our game drive guide had, professional and good knowledge of nature surrounding and its animals. Staff at the lodge nice and very helpful. Dinner and breakfast were good. Would wish more vegetarian options for the breakfast buffet. However the lodge prices outrageous - 2500 CFA ~ 4€ for a bottle of water when you’re remote with no other options (normal price in senegal 400 CFA ~ 0,60€), postcard basically advertising their own lodge 7000 CFA ~ 10€ (??). If you don’t pay for the package, breakfast is 18€ pp. Maybe the owners expect everyone to be happy (or trust their customers be unknowing about senegalese prices) and pay expensive prices, even on european standards, in Senegal. They also mention it’s forbidden to bring food and drinks from outside to their lodge. Wifi is also charged at 5000 CFA ~ 7,60€, sim card wouldn’t do you no good since the place is so remote. Feels silly to be benefitting from wildlife customers this badly when the country around you is at least 4 times cheaper. The south african lady at the lodge also doesn’t miss a chance to remind you about kevin the rhino and how he likes to come to the area infront of the lodge, this feels a bit too promising to keep bringing it up since we for example didn’t have the pleasure of seeing him, yet our hopes of seeing him were kept unnecessarily high - he is a wild animal after all. All in all we were happy with our visit to Fathala reserve and to Fathala lodge. Besides the rhino, we were lucky (and happy) to see basically all the other animals living in the reserve. Coming to Fathala for 1 night was a splurge on our month long budget holiday in Gambia and Senegal, so for us the pricing inside the lodge was a massive downside and affected our opinion about the experience. Only by 1 star though.