Welcome!

Because our flight had landed very early, we arrived at the hotel at 8:30 am. One of the best moments of our vacation was when a member of the staff led us toward the open-air lounge. We were greeted by this spectacular view:

As was to be expected at this hour, our villa wasn't yet ready. After we were given cocktails, someone drove us to a two-bedroom villa that we could use as a dayroom until our villa was ready for us. A wonderful offer, since we needed a shower and sleep after the long journey.

After a few hours of sleep, a buggy picked us up to take us to our villa.

My wife headed to the spa instead where she had a three-hour treatment which consisted of a massage, peeling and facial. The treatment room overlooked the green hills and the ocean, and was partly open, featuring an openair shower. The spa staff was very friendly and the treatment was perfect. It wasn't too pricey for a luxury hotel and worth every single penny.

Our beach villa had its own huge pool and garden with jacuzzi and outdoor living room. As the name suggests, we were only steps away from the beach and could watch the sun set over the ocean from our own lounge chairs.

The actual villa was quite big and decorated in the style of the Seychelles. The toilet and the shower (also steamroom which is pretty useless on an island that is hot and has high humidity...) with glass walls so you could look into the garden. The villa had a high level of privacy. You could even go skinny dipping in the pool at night...

Our villa and garden

Bedroom (it wasn´t our honeymoon:))

Bathroom

Outdoor living room

Our own pool

Outdoor Jacuzzi

Local wildlife

Another highlight of the hotel was the infinity pool (main pool) from which we had a spectacular view of the ocean and the beach. The pool bar offered delicious homemade icecream and cocktails.

The main pool

Icecream

The hotel has three restaurants, and they were all good. The Thai restaurant was our favorite. The main restaurant had internation cuisine; the menu was pretty standard but the dishes were tasty. The buffet restaurant opens only one day per week and it was really great. Everything was fresh and the servers filled the plates constantly. There was also a barbecue station on the patio where we sat, where a cook barbecued sea food and meat.

We also tried the room service once and it was one of the best room service dinner we ever had. The food was hot and fresh, looked delicious and tasted even better. One thing we noticed though, was that desserts don't seem to be the strong point of chefs in the Seychelles.

Roomservice meal

You could have breakfast on the terrace or in the restaurant. We chose to eat outside with a view of the ocean. The breakfast had a good selection of breads, danishes, fruit (especially perfect local papaya, mango, ananas and baby bananas), raw fish, iced teas, eggs, Asian dishes and more. You could also order several warm dishes.

The beach at the Banyan Tree is one of the biggest of the Seychelles. It looks absolutely stunning but sadly the waves are quite high, which is why we didn't go into the ocean, but other people didn't seem to mind and were even swimming with their kids. The beach was wonderful for walks, though, and to relax on lounge chairs.

Beach