I have only had like 2 manicures in my entire life before this because I don't like paying for someone to do my nails when I am pretty capable of doing my own but my friend wanted to treat herself for her birthday so we went and got our nails done together.
My friend called about an hour before we went and they were able to get us in on very short notice. I got a gel manicure and my friend got acrylics. I had never had a gel manicure before so I have nothing to compare it to, but I was definitely satisfied with how it turned out. My tech shaped my nails way better than I've ever seen them and I loved the way the gel dried quickly so there was no chance of smudging them.
While I was happy with how things turned out, there were also a few areas where they could have improved. First, they sat me several chairs away from my friend which made it difficult to talk to her without yelling across the room and disrupting other customers. Also the tech didn't give me the color I asked for; she gave me the next color over on the palette which I didn't realize until after she had already done a few of my nails. I ended up liking this color so I wasn't mad, but it was just the idea of her giving me the wrong color.
There were also two young girls (who I assume were the children of the staff) running around in the store and hugging a lot of the techs. One of the girls crashed into my tech and her hair ran across my still-wet nails, and the tech had to redo at least 3 of them.
In the end though, like I said, they all turned out good, and I am officially a fan of gel manicures.