We chose to stay on Mahe for the 8 days of our honeymoon and deliberately chose a lower star hotel to stay in so that we could splash out in the second week. However, once we arrived we realised that lower stars did not mean lower quality.
One arrival (after a 3 hour delay which meant we arrived in the heat of the day) we were offered a cold freshly made fruit drink and sat down in the restaurant to fill in the welcome paperwork. If you take a deep breath, slow down and relax, you instantly get into the Seychelles pace of life - nothing is hurried but you are looked after. Don't feel that you are being ignored if things take a while, the staff just like you to appreciate the view and relax!
We were upgraded straight away as this was our honeymoon and put into one of the rooms with its own balcony, jacuzzi and sun deck. It was bliss! There was construction work being carried out nearby on new rooms but our travel agent had warned us of this so we were aware and didn't mind due to the free upgrade.
The room was basic but very clean and the staff cleaned it beautifully every day.
The hotel is very remote (which we deliberatly chose) so we arranged to hire a car for 3 days to explore Mahe. I would recommend doing this as walking to nearby restaurants / shops is tricky as the hills are all around and the buses are scary!
The other evenings we ate at the restaurant attached to the hotel and enjoyed the varied food. All food on the Seychelles is relatively expensive so you need to budget for it. We bought lunch from the side cafes and local supermarkets which considerably cut down the cost of food.
The beach next to the hotel is lovely but we really appreciated our jacuzzi as the waves can be vicious and its not a great swimming beach. It was lovely to relax in the jacuzzi in the heat of the day and read.
Overall, this hotel is clean and well run but without the upgrade we would have felt it was a little overpriced - with the upgrade, the jacuzzi and the sun deck it felt perfect.
- Chez Batista Hotel
