Review - Badu Angola ⭐️
All pictures by Aria Christen, rights reserved
This is now closed, see AshaRhia’s website for her other projects.
Creator and designer AshaRhia has a long track record of creating pop up destinations, which she builds for a few weeks and then takes down again, only to start something new.
In this review, Aria and I went to stay at AshaRhia’s latest destination experience - Badu Angola and the neighboring Badu Congo.
As always, all pictures come from my amazing partner Aria Christen, check out her website and Flickr feed.
Overview
With Badu Angola and Congo, Asha has come up with another excellent vacation experience, which we highly recommend.
Asha tells us that these sims will be around at least until the end of September, and then she will decide what to do, Note her website already makes mention of future projects like Utah and Ireland so our guess is this won’t be open much beyond October, so if you want to go and see and stay, you should do so over the next few weeks.
Angola is set along a beach, and is more of a resort, while Congo is for those wanting a vacation rental experience with weekly rents, and is inland.
The two regions are however connected, and share facilities.
Given the Africa setting, the regions have a lot of lush greenery, and African themed decor with a modern touch. As with her previous destinations, everything is of really high quality with excellent attention to detail.
Angola has a very large pool, water sports facilities along the beach and a bar. Congo has more of a jungle feel and features elephants and gorillas.
The two regions are open to visit, which means you can hang around one of the three pools or the nature spots, but to enjoy it fully, we recommend staying here.
This is a self check-in resort, you find a free bungalow or villa and pay the rental box at the door.
Overall look and feel - 4.5 / 5
The rooms
Congo has very large houses at 6000L a week (above slide show), note nightly rentals are not available in Congo.
However, from what we saw these are big enough to accommodate small groups, so you might want to consider it for a bunch of friends going on vacation (or say two couples).
Angola, where we spent most of our time, has bungalows at 500L a day and beach villas with a private pool at 700L a day.
The Angola prices in particular represent excellent value for an SL resort, especially given the high quality of the accommodation and surroundings.
For 500L for example you get a bungalow with a really nicely decorated kitchen and living room on the ground floor and a loft style bedroom on the top.
We stayed in a beach villa (700L a night). These feature a private pool overlooking the sea with a terrace, a large open plan living room and bar area, a bedroom and a bathroom. The bathroom, though small, is probably one of the nicest we’ve seen in terms of decoration.
Everything has a very exclusive, high end feel about. I like places that make you feel as if you really are on an RL vacation, and Badu Angola definitely does.
Overall - 5 / 5
The facilities
In Angola, you’ll find a beach with activities including jet skis, bumper boats, a waterslide and of course places to hang out, sit in the sun and cuddle.
There’s also a huge pool, which is a highlight, a beachside bar and a club (the Mokambo club), with African themed decor, and a ‘hangout bar’ overlooking the beach.
Congo has a smaller, but more intimate pool overlooking the resort with a small snack bar, with self-serve mojito and guava juice.
Congo also has a forest hangout, a small lake with elephants (and canoes you can rez), and a larger residents’ pool.
Finally, under the elephant bridge you’ll find the Mandala Restaurant.
Though you won’t find RP staff on hand to guide you through activities, there is a lot to do, so you certainly won’t get bored.
Overall - 4 / 5
The animations
Our beach villa had a Chez Moi adult bed, which had a range of both Adult and PG anims, but took a little bit of adjusting.
The bath was a Fancy Decor Crane bathtub, which is a good choice, and the living room had Abiss sofas.
The terrace had Nutmeg Poolside sun loungers, you can also find these throughout the resort.
From what we could see, there were only MF options (at least in our villa).
Note you can of course rez your own poses
Overall - 4 / 5
Other considerations
Lag - a little, these are two very detailed sims, that are also quite popular (it was never deserted when we were there)
Adult - the regions are moderate, there are adult options in the rooms
Prices - 500L a night upwards
Privacy - Good, our beach villa could only be accessed from the beach side, and we had no problems with intruders
Summary
Like all of AshaRhia’s destinations, a great deal of thought clearly went into delivering an excellent vacation experience. The public areas are beautiful, the villas and bungalows are well designed, and there is a lot to do when you are here.
Highly recommended, come and visit before it closes!