A Winter Paradise!
We discovered SeyVillas quite by chance while searching online for accommodation for our holiday on Praslin. We had already arranged our flights and transfers ourselves, so we only used them to book our stay. We were extremely pleased. They gave us excellent advice about which part of the island to choose at that time of year (January); because the trade winds blow in opposite directions during the two different seasons (summer and winter), they recommended the south-west coast.
Beaches & excursions
In the end, we chose the Ocean Jewels Resort on Grand Anse beach, and we had a fabulous week. Although the forecasts we had seen in Italy suggested that we would spend the entire week in the rain (statistically, January is the wettest month of the year), not a single drop actually fell on us. The weather was very changeable, but the few clouds moved away so quickly that we had sunshine almost all the time.
Besides the beach at our resort, the first beach we visited was Anse Lazio… truly beautiful and every bit as picture-perfect as we had imagined… Spectacular waves and an intense turquoise sea!!! We got sunburnt straight away… so the next day, a visit to Vallée de Mai was a must.
Another beach that certainly should not be missed is Anse Georgette; together with Anse Kerlan, it forms part of the Lemuria Resort, and access to these fantastic beaches requires authorisation from the resort itself (by telephone or email the day before).
Another excursion not to be missed is Curieuse Island (famous for its giant tortoise nature reserve), followed by a lovely stop at the small island of Saint Pierre, where we went snorkelling.
The accommodation
And what can we say about the beach in front of our resort??? Without a doubt, it was beautiful and magnificent, with dazzling sand and never any crowds… it really felt as though we were the only tourists on the island.
The accommodation (Ocean Jewels Resort) is excellent, and I would genuinely recommend it to everyone. For a price that we would consider reasonable for a hotel room in Italy, we had an 80 sq m apartment with a huge kitchen, a living and dining area and a bedroom, as well as a private veranda furnished with a table and chairs and a small garden. The resort consisted of 4 buildings: two had ground-floor apartments like ours, while the other two were proper villas, with a kitchen and lounge on the ground floor and two bedrooms and two bathrooms upstairs, right by the sea… absolutely fabulous… ideal for two families. The resort also had a covered area on the beach with a barbecue, a large table and wooden benches… one evening, we cooked fish there with an Italian couple we had met… it was wonderful to eat on the beach at night, surrounded by the silence of the Seychellois evening, with only the sound of the sea and a starry sky unlike anything we had ever seen before…
The property is very well maintained and has every comfort (a small private beach with parasols and sun loungers), as well as a shower. Daily cleaning is provided. Just one small point: perhaps the owner (an Englishman, I believe, who moved there with his family) should review how breakfast is managed. It is brought directly to the apartment upon request, but as only one person prepares it, guests have to follow a set timetable, which means there is a risk of having to wait for breakfast even on days when you have arranged an early-morning excursion.
The resort is not actually in Grand Anse, but in Amitié, a couple of kilometres outside the village towards the small airport. There are several small Indian-run minimarkets nearby, as well as one run by the resort owner (a small shop that also stocks Italian products, but is very expensive). Restaurants are quite pricey, so I would recommend choosing accommodation with at least a kitchenette, allowing you to cook something yourself rather than having to eat out all the time. I know there were also a couple of takeaways that were said to be cheaper, but we did not try them.
It is easy to explore Praslin using the local buses; you just need to be prepared for the rather daring driving, but they are very inexpensive (the equivalent of around €0.50 in the local currency, and our 5-year-old son travelled free).
Conclusion
Overall, it was a wonderful holiday, and I would recommend to everyone the accommodation suggested to us by SeyVillas, as well as contacting them with any questions.
The Italian couple we met had arranged their entire trip through SeyVillas, and they told us that they certainly had not paid any more for their flights and transfers. They also had a local representative who helped them when their luggage was left behind in Dubai because the connection between their two flights was too short.
I have already shared the details with everyone I have spoken to about my holiday, and I am pleased to tell our story here on the SeyVillas website too; perhaps someone will find our travel account useful.
