RESIDENTS RETREAT

Massively Overpriced, Poor Service, and a Terrible Beach: Not Worth the $500/Night I recently stayed at this hotel in Seychelles for 4 nights as a solo traveler, paying between $450 and $500 USD per night. Given the steep price tag, you naturally expect high-end service, pristine amenities, and an experience reflective of a luxury resort. Unfortunately, almost every aspect of my stay fell drastically short, making it one of the most disappointing hotel experiences I've ever had. After a grueling 17-hour long-haul flight, I arrived exhausted, checked in, and headed up to my room. My bags were left behind at the concierge. After waiting 30 minutes with no sign of them, I went back downstairs only to find my luggage still setting there. When I complained, a staff member rushed out from an office to finally bring them up. For $500 a night, basic luggage delivery post-arrival shouldn't require tracking down your own bags. Also, Upon check-in, I was informed I needed to leave a €500 deposit for incidental expenses at the restaurant just for a 4-night stay as a solo traveler. Demanding €500 upfront for a single person's dining footprint over a few days is completely unreasonable and shows a lack of guest-centric hospitality. The beach situation is a major letdown. Swimming is restricted to a tiny, boxed-in area of roughly 30x30 meters marked by red warning signs. Anything beyond that is deemed unsafe, meaning you essentially do not have a functional or enjoyable beach to swim in. If you are coming to Seychelles for the pristine, open Indian Ocean swimming experience, this hotel completely misses the mark. For the price paid, the food options are extremely limited, repetitive, and poor in quality. The value proposition simply does not exist here. When you pay high-end luxury prices, you expect VIP treatment and smooth operations. Instead, this hotel offers subpar service, restrictive safety hazards masquerading as a beach, and high cash-hold policies. Save your money and book elsewhere in Seychelles, there are far better properties that actually respect their guests and their wallets.

Forget everything, perfect, wonderful place, staff more than welcoming, they have become restaurants to be able to eat in various ways and everything is everywhere because it is practically private, wonderful, the only flaw if I may say so is the drinking water, truly undrinkable with a more than unpleasant taste, I would advise buying it in glass or plastic bottles, but not from the Seychelles, the water has the same taste everywhere, plus more light in the rooms, otherwise everything more than perfect, medium-high costs.

I will try to be very objective in my hotel review, understanding that I am inevitably comparing it with my past experiences. In Constans Efelia, where we lived the first week and moved to Avani from there. So, overall the hotel is not bad, but it is worth noting the things we didn't like. 1. Flies! They are there after all, there are so many of them in the restaurant (it's open, so you can't miss them). They claim both your food and you yourselves. We couldn't sit and enjoy the beautiful view; there were too many flies, so we ate quickly and left. 2. Numbers. All new, high ceilings, good balcony. But the air conditioner is terrible. They still couldn't properly set up the mode in a week; it produced very humid and cold air with a smell of dampness. In the end, I caught a cold and am sick. This certainly dampened the mood. 3. Staff: they are moving very slowly in the restaurant. Literally. You can't wait for coffee in the morning. There is only one coffee machine in the restaurant. Guests can do it themselves, but it also worked slowly and intermittently. The thermos with filter coffee quickly disappeared and was never there again. Everything at the reception was very strange. Despite our decent English, we didn't immediately understand what the $500 deposit was for. We thought that like everywhere, it was money we would spend on vacation, but we didn't see it in our account. Let's go find out, the girl at the reception started getting very irritated by our questions about why we can't spend this money, since we paid a deposit, her irritation started "getting" us too. Neither the tour operator nor the booking mentioned that a deposit was required for the safety of the property, as we were eventually told. So the hotel is afraid that we will break a chair, for example... We were very surprised, of course. 5-star hotel and non-compliant rules. Okay, we figured it out and put the money into another deposit that was being spent. Spa: expensive, massage like everywhere Bar: I really liked the main building. Delicious and fast. Excellent Chardonnay wine I would especially like to mention the employee Jean Ives. Here, someone I've never had to wait for. Attentive, friendly, fast. Made a great passion fruit juice with salt and something else. I really liked it! Territory: clean, nice, nowhere to walk Beach: beautiful, wide, a quiet zone is designated for swimming, comfortable in the corner without waves. There is also a trail up the hill, you must go, it takes 10 minutes to walk, at the end there is a beautiful exit to the water, completely strewn with boulders. The photos will be awesome! Cuisine: predominantly Indian. Curry and spicy. We really missed vegetables and fruits. On the third day, they realized that to eat papaya and pineapple, you need to come to breakfast literally first or second. It is exactly at this time that everything appears, then everything eats it and no more is replenished. But there are plenty of apples)))) The grill didn't work right away either, because the first few days everything was just burnt. We even joked: "let's go see what they're ruining today"))) and they were ruining meat, marlin, tuna, and chicken there. Three days before the departure, the chef managed to fry without loss and we ate delicious fish. In short, the important thing: a deposit that is not mentioned beforehand Dollars older than 2009 are not accepted anywhere except at the airport (as you exit the arrival zone, the exchange office is directly to the right) Don't take many things, nothing will dry. It's getting damp just in the room Fruits first for breakfast. Or to the Eiffel Tower, where you will be fed exoticism. And it should be kept in mind that this hotel is probably for those who like to sit in the bar in the evenings, always be on the beach, maybe play billiards. Definitely not for children