Hilton Seychelles Labriz Resort and Spa

Getting here:I suggest that unless your taxi transfer to the harbour is included in the holiday price you visit the hotel website before you travel. The Hilton hotel here will take care of you should you miss your morning boat (at 9.30am when we went) The hotel staff greet you as you disembark from the boat but I strongly recommend that you pack beachwear, sun-tan lotion etc with hand luggage and keep it with you Reasonably they can't clean all rooms for a 10.30 arrival! We were so grateful to have all our luggage cared for that we were left without! It wasn't a long wait and the breakfast snacks were welcome after an early start. Metal water bottles given to each visitor make up for the lack of disposable plastic on the island - lots of refill stations so they are living the dream of avoiding unnecessary use of plastic. Having said this Nothing is too much trouble - they do sort things out and the mantra of staff is customers first. We were made very welcome in the organic garden and the gardener proudly shown us how their hydroponic system works and the papaya he cut for us was just delicious. The chef's want to please!! I indicated a interest in breadfruit and although they hadn't planned to cook any I was rewarded with more than delicious dish - thanks!! Walk if you want too but there are plenty of offers to be driven in their carts from place to place. Especially good when it rains heavily! The alcoholic drinks, as others have said (thankyou) are crazily expensive - as suggested we took our own and joined the large number drinking free tap water. Do choose a villa which is beach facing - the sound of the |Indian Ocean is incredible. If you need total darkness at night take a eye mask. The service for rooms OK We put everything on the hotel tab so did not exchange any money at all - even at the Conservation Centre which is not part of the hotel. Turtles - they are lay eggs from the third week in November. We didn't see it happening but do show an interest to the lifeguards and they will find you should one appear. They stay for a while! I did see the flipper marks which I think is exciting! Food - book to 'go out' as the buffet is lovely but I think expensive - it's easy. Reception are great Tours - the nature talk is worth going to We wanted to see he giant tortoises but a boat ride was too precarious - March is better . We considered a trek over the hill but this is really only for experienced acclimatised people so we settled for the small younger animals!

The good: The natural beauty and amazing views, the hotel???s commitment to conservation, beautiful well-appointed villas, friendly staff The not so good: Maintenance of common areas, some reception staff, limited free of charge activities.

Warning for couples looking for a romantic holiday: babies everywhere. This is very much a family friendly hotel even outside of school holiday time, which is fine, but not the best place for a honeymoon in our opinion. The location is absolutely perfect. Yes, it rains sometimes but otherwise it's lovely and the water/sea is warm. We went at the end of November so we expected a couple days of rain and clouds and we had couple days of rain and clouds. The let down is that we felt the hotel was operating on penny pinching basis and cutting corners. We opted for half board and we're disappointed that if we didn't want to go for the buffet option every night the alternatives required extra spending. There was a ??10-20 supplement on most of the main courses. We ended up spending ??50 a day extra for food and drink as only water was included. This extra per day didn't include cocktails, which were on a par with London prices which we thought was kind of fair considering it's a remote island. However, ??10 for one potatoes worth of chips, and ??5 for a sprite, was not fine. Everywhere you looked they seemed to be trying to squeeze extra money out of us. The service was fine on the whole. It's was quite good but you were left thinking tips were expected constantly. When we did have an issue the manager wasn't very sympathetic and a little bit snarky actually. We were disappointed that the sunset cruise we were booked on was cancelled three times. We understand that the weather is changeable, but we didn't think the procedure in place to deal with it was the best. We were only given 45 minutes notice before it was cancelled on us with no prior indication, notice, or recommendation to make alternative arrangements for the evening. This really put us out and pushed back other activities we had planned for a few days. When we were only there for a week, it wasn't the best use of our time. The food was very good on the whole. The breakfast and evening buffet were decent. The food at Grann Kaz was excellent. The Asian restaurants, Sakura and Tappenyaki weren't great, and the latter was hideously over charged even if the chef was entertaining. The fine dining restaurant, Portabello was fine. For anyone who has allergies, they were actually quite good with dealing with mine. We upgraded to the beach front villa which is an absolute must do if you do stay here. It was a very good size, clean, well decorated and finished. The toiletries were good quality and in good supply. Towels were a bit hit and miss in how many we got but they were happy to give us more when we asked. Overall the hotel is fine. It's the location that is truly amazing, and I think that the hotel relies on that a little too much.