What’s a difference a day (and a Hotel) makes. I have never really seen the magic of the Seychelles until this visit.
I have been here four times now and with one exception stayed in the Beau Vallon Bay Hotel. This hotel was built in the 1970’s and is to be honest a little tired, its simple things like the quality of the door on the hotel rooms, the dark corridors, architecture and the fact that the electricity supply does not always provide enough juice to charge your phone and laptop.
This time after one night in at Beau Vallon we were transferred to the Constance Ephelia Hotel on the far side of Mahe this is a new property which was only opened in February 2010, it is outstanding, the rack rate on the rooms varies from €250-€2500 per night dependant on the season and room quality. On arrival you are met and you luggage is taken from you then you proceed to the bar where they take your passport and credit card whilst you have a drink. A few moments later they reappear with your room key and when you are ready you can go to the room where your bags are waiting. The hotel is low rise and built to fit in with the surroundings, the entry level rooms are junior suits built in blocks of seven spread over the site, if you don’t fancy the walk between your room and the hotel building then you ring reception and they send a golf cart.
The Hotel is a luxurious 5 star affair, very spread out and low rise, nothing is above two stories or treetop height. It is very low density and you hardly see anyone except for when you are in the main building. The entry level rooms are stunning, well lit with high quality furniture, a bathroom big enough to accommodate the standalone bath, the rooms have patio windows running round over half the room and lead to a balcony. In order to hide the hotel from the sea the rooms do not have a sea view but this is not a problem.
The Hotel has three beaches, one of them is OK for swimming but the other two are on a lagoon where the water depth is only about 75cm at high tide, it is these two that were my favourite. They almost always totally deserted and are one of the most breathtaking places I have been on the planet. Access to the second beach is by wading round a rock outcrop where the fish are swimming round your feet. Walking around the grounds you can hear the wildlife all around in the enormous amount of greenery there is. That said I am still not a beach person and an hour a day after the conference finished was enough for me and all I wanted to do on the last day was come back home!!!
As CNN would say though there is a “back story” The Hotel has been unpopular with the locals as it has blocked access to a beach they used to use for Barbeques, the Hotel still say they can swim on the beach and eat in the restaurant if they want but few locals could afford to step foot in the place. It was a staff member from the hotel that told me this and I have to say its quite unusual to find this sort of stuff out, I am told that whenever there is news in the Seychelles that they don’t want the tourists to read it is published in Creole only. Apparently this was the case a while ago when a tourist was shot in the head.
