If you earned points and Diamond status on business travel paid by your company, but you are a traveler on tight budget and willing to have a beautiful honeymoon just like me; you might be interested in my review below. Any questions welcome!

I have booked a 7 day point redemption stay in a hillside villa (37,500 pts per night). Before arriving I have checked Hilton website and it showed no availability for my booking period, so I did not expect an upgrade to the oceanfront villa. As expected, I was not offered an upgrade (and I did not ask for one explicitly) so I have ended up in a hillside villa. A welcome letter said that due to the villa nature of the resort they do not offer any upgrades for Diamonds, but they recognize my loyalty. Not sure whether this was due to the status, but we were treated with some small gifts every day (including sun hats, a coconut rum, candy etc). Breakfast and internet (just enough for surfing, but I did not manage to use for calling) were of course included.

Our villa was located in the very end of the resort. The remote location might be tiring for some as it required a walk uphill from the pool/restaurant/reception area, but it proved to be a bliss for us since it provided us with absolute intimacy. We were surrounded only by jungle basically, everywhere but from the right hand side where the next hillside villa was located. The oceanfront villas below were located further to the right so from the terrace we had a beautiful view at the ocean (especially at the sunset) and the blossoming trees. Some strange bat-like-wing birds were coming to the trees only in the early evening. They were fun to watch and they did not make any noise. Our villa was one of few one-floor hillside villas. Most hillside villas are two-floor, but they are designed in a way that the guests sharing the building do not interfere with each other at all.

We have rented a car to travel around the island and not to be forced to eat at the property. Except for the breakfast, we ate only once at Northolme. The all-day Oceanview bar offers some basic meals such as curry, pizza, steaks at appr. 250 SCR incl. tax. (similar prices for the in-villa dining), local beer at appr. 80 SCR if I recall correctly. I can't tell anything about the property restaurants which were open for the dinner. There are no outside restaurants within walking distance. The closest ones are in Beau Vallon, but you will walk the way probably just once since it is an uninspiring and rather dangerously narrow road. BTW I read some good reviews about the Baobab pizzeria in Beau Vallon, but since the pizza oven was closed at the time we wanted to eat, we ordered spaghetti which turned out to be the worst we have EVER had = not eadible. There is a market on the beach in Beau Vallon on Wednesdays where you can buy souvenirs and delicious take-away food at bargain price of 50 SCR.

Back to Northolme: breakfast was a usual Hilton lot with an exceptionally wide "healthy option" (about 25 different items such as veggies, pickles, tofu, feta cheese etc.), a-la-carte items (pancakes, porridge, omelettes, English grilled vegetables and hash browns), vegetable juice to be freshly squeezed (carrot, cucumber, celery etc. to choose), a few fresh fruit - some of them changing on a daily basis. The selection was huge so I think it will make everyone happy (but the quality of some items might be improved I think). Plus the champagne for those who like to start the day in glamour.

During the day we either went to the infinity pool (never saw more than two people in it even though the resort seemed to be fully booked), one of the small resort beaches or explored the island's beautiful beaches. The one located in Port Launay, next to a church, was our favorite - no waves, shallow water. It had a very laidback character - as most Mahe island beaches by the way. I have seen beaches of similar beauty only in the Carribean, but the ones in Mahe beat them because they are virtually empty.

I do not pay much attention to the staff quality since I am more concerned about the quality of rooms and breakfast rather than everlasting smile; but nevertheless I found them nice and they acted genuine when they greeted us.
In the morning on the day before our departure we received a letter with the offer (on first come-first serve basis) to switch to the Hilton Labriz hotel on the Silhuette island (including free return transfer from/to Northolme) for one day (a few different dates were mentioned) This was probably due to the Northolme property being overbooked or solving some villa occupancy issues. We were happy to take this offer since on our last day we had a late evening return flight with probably small chances for a late checkout and we were generally a little bored with Mahe island (as beautiful as it was). At the reception we were told that we can come back from Labriz to Northolme on departure day to store luggage and to refresh until our taxi was booked to take us to the airport at 1930. Unfortunately Northolme forgot to pick us up from the ferry terminal and it was quite an unpleasant situation to convince the disoriented Northolme receptionist (on the phone with the Labriz receptionist in the ferry terminal) that this was our arrangement. They claimed that since we have checked out on the day before, we are not entitled for free return transfer and we had an impression we are not welcome to be back there (even though the written copy clearly stated that). At one point we already considered to cancel our 1930 airport pickup from Northolme and to wait at some restaurant in Victoria together with our luggage. Eventually Northolme realized that they made a mistake, they have sent a cab to pick us up from the ferry terminal and they sincerely apologized on our arrival at Northolme (including the offer to use one of their villas to take a shower and free cocktails). I found they responded very well to the mistake they made so this rather unpleasant situation did not spoil our generally absolutely positive experience with Northolme.

Summary:
Before arriving at Northolme, I was a little worried due to some recent comments I read in this thread (especially about the cleanliness), but I was absolutely happy with my stay. In my opinion, this resort is an exception because it looks actually much better than in the pictures (maybe due to the wooden finish which is hard to be photographed). It was worth every single Hilton point. Generally, If you are someone who often complains about the hotels, you will find reasons to complain here as well (especially on a paid stay). You might be probably be disappointed by the wood looking a little be dated, but in my opinion the villas are still far from the need to be refurbished.

If you are on tight budget and/or honeymoon and consider either Labriz or Northolme, the choice is obvious to me: Northolme. If you are someone on big budget and prefer perfectness rather than lifetime experience and unique style: go for Labriz.