Review – Hilton Seychelles Labriz Resort & Spa

Introduction

The other day, I reviewed the sister Hilton hotel in the Seychelles, the Northolme property, which is on Mahe the main island.  Today, I’ll review the Labriz property, which is on Silhouette island and is only accessible via a boat or helicopter.  The helicopter ride is 638EUR ONE WAY or the boat is 99 EUR ROUND TRIP.  We decided to take the ~60 minute boat ride.  We had the Northolme call us a taxi to the ferry, which cost us about ~$16 USD and was like 5 minutes away!  I had the taxi driver stop by a convenience store to pick us up some bottles of wine since I knew alcohol on the island would be expensive.

 

Award

We booked 5 nights at the Labriz using 80K HH points each for a KING GARDEN VILLA. However, since we have the AMEX Hilton card, we only had to pay for 4 nights, so a total of 288K points.  Rooms were going for about 400EUR a night, so we were getting roughly 0.7c of value, which is pretty good for a Hilton point.  We were Diamond at the time and were celebrating our anniversary, so they actually upgraded us to a DELUXE BEACHFRONT VILLA (which has a private plunge pool) that was going for 800EUR a night.  The general manager had confirmed the upgrade a week ahead of our arrival.

Arrival

We had to arrive at the port about 30 minutes ahead of time.  They gave us complimentary juice/water and a stick of fruit while we waited for the other passengers.   This is also where we signed the paperwork.  We had decided to take the 9:30AM ferry since we wanted more time at this property than the Northolme.  They mentioned our room may not be ready at the time, but we were willing to hang out on the beach until our room was ready.  They also gave us a map of the property.  Our beach villa is to the far right.  While we appreciated the upgrade, we could tell the walk to the main hotel area would be a trek.  FYI, it takes about ~7 minutes to walk from the furthest villa on the right to breakfast.

Pictures of the lounge area on the Mahe side:

On the Silhouette side:

The main lobby:

Back of a garden villa.  Not sure what’s back there.  That’s the view facing the beach, which you’d have to walk past another villa to get to.  Not an ideal room to stay in if you’ve traveled that far to the Seychelles.

Our villa:

 

Room

As soon as we stepped into the room, we were very happy.  We weren’t as surprised as we were like the room at the Northolme since we were expecting something similar (yes, I know #firstworldproblems.)  The sofa was huge.  The closet area was huge.  The tub…probably my favorite tub EVER!  The plunge pool was a bit too cold.  The shower had double rainfall shower heads and both turned on no matter what you did.  It’s like they expect people to shower together ALL THE TIME!

If you sat on the couch, the A/C would blow directly on you, which is great when you’re hot but not great when you’re a bit cold.  The A/C seemed to remain on 24/7, even when we pulled out the keycard that controlled the lights.

The bed has a mosquito net that turndown service would let down.  We didn’t notice the mosquitos on the first night, but we noticed a dying cockroach.  Then after breakfast on day 2, we came back to our room and saw a huge ass spider.  It was so big, I found a housecleaner outside, who called someone to come catch it and threw it outside; I wasn’t going to try to battle a spider on vacation.

 

Wifi

The wifi was based on name and room number and allowed up to 4 devices although you may have issues getting the 4th device to connect.  The lobby has codes that you could use if you have more.  The wifi was spotty at times and there are areas on the resort with no to very little coverage.  It’d also crap out on you a couple of times a day.  Also, there is NO FREE T-MOBILE INTERNATIONAL DATA in the Seychelles so you’ll definitely have to rely on WIFI.

 

Breakfast

The breakfast buffet, free for Gold and Diamond members (not sure the cost if you’re not,) was huge of course.  I believe it’s open from 7AM to 10:30AM.  Since we were still jet lagged, we were usually at the buffet pretty early.  Ideally, you’d eat late so you could skip lunch and hold off until dinner (food is expensive!)

I made use of the omelette station every morning.  And since all the Europeans were drinking champagne at breakfast, so did we.  The fresh fruit was AMAZING, especially the passion fruit.  That was my first time eating passion fruit and I never noticed there was a hint of pink guava in the middle.  So delicious!

 

Activities

There were some free activities like a tennis court, ping pong table, and bikes (free for 1 hour; free all day for Diamond.)  We made use of the gym a couple of days – not to work out, but to get out of the damn heat!  There were lots of paid activities like bow shooting, which we took advantage of, as well as hiking excursions (around $100 USD per person.)  There were fishing excursions which I found relatively cheap at around $100 USD a person too I believe.  I don’t recall the diving prices.  There was also a spa that we also didn’t partake in.  After doing the spa at the Conrad Maldives where you are looking through a glass bottom while getting a massage, I couldn’t imagine this place topping that.

 

Dining options

There are 4 restaurants on the resort.  Remember you can’t go off-hotel since there’s nothing else on the island.  There is an Italian restaurant, which we went to on the first night and thought it was okay.  Two entrees and 2 glasses of wine cost us about $100 USD.

There’s a creole restaurant that you SHOULD NOT GO TO named Gran Kaz!  Imagine 4 small bowls kinda like what you get at an Indian restaurant.  It was $150 USD for the two of us.  It would have been fine if the food was decent, but 1) the food was subpar and 2) the mosquitos will eat you alive!!!

There’s a teppanyaki (think Benihana) and an Asian restaurant combined.  We had the teppanyaki one night and that ran about $150 for the pair of us (and that’s choosing the cheapest meat option.)  We did NOT do the Asian restaurant.

There’s also a bar that serves one page of food.  We ate there one night, since it seemed pretty cheap relative to the restaurants, but to be honest, you could get room service for the same price and a wider selection.

On the last night, we decided to do the “bbq” room service and splurged with the seafood option.  Pro tip – only order 1 “entree” since the portion is quite substantial.  The seafood option ran us about $160 USD.

 

Pool

My wife enjoys going to tropical beach places, but yet she loves to hang out by the pool.  Don’t ask me why I traveled so far for a pool.  There is a bar where you can order drinks.  I didn’t see too many people walking around to take your order, so you’ll have to order at the bar and they’d bring it over.

 

Beach and snorkeling and diving

The tide would go out every day at around noon and you could walk about 100 yards out.  There’s no need to snorkel since you can see the sea life by just walking out there.  The beach does have a nice breeze.  We had no issues finding a chair to sit down on.

There were diving excursions that we could have done, but we’re not divers.  I imagine it to be pretty good since what we saw on the bench was already pretty.

Beware of this pretty fish.  They will bite you and break skin!

Stingray action.  I miss the stingrays on Bora Bora where the hotel would feed them, so they knew to come by every day to get fed.  I’m pretty sure these stingrays are not accustomed to people petting them.

 

Conclusion

Overall, we enjoyed the resort.  The room was awesome!  Diamond members are treated as VIP here.  The beach and pool are awesome!  On the negative side, I thought the food price was pretty high at this resort.  On the last night, man oh man, the mosquitos came out in full force.  During dinner IN OUR ROOM, I must have killed 10 mosquitos.  They were just non-stop.  I didn’t notice this “insect” and mosquito issue in Tahiti or the Maldives, or even at the Northolme.  Unfortunately that was my last impression of the Seychelles and this hotel.

Our final bill came out to be around $1000 USD for the 5 nights (that’s 3 restaurant meals, 1 bar for dinner, and 1 expensive room service.)  That included the $200 USD for the ferry.  A little bit on the higher side than what I expected, but it is what it is.

Would I ever go back to the Seychelles?  NO!  Not that I hated it; it’s because we just like to explore new locations.  Do I recommend this hotel if you’re going to the Seychelles?  DEFINITELY (just don’t go during the rainy mosquito season!)  Do I recommend you go to the Seychelles?  NO but that’s another blog post.