Four Seasons Desroches in the Seychelles – a review

For our two week holiday last year, we visited Mumbai and then the Seychelles. We stayed six nights at the Four Seasons Desroches and then one night at the Four Seasons Seychelles on Mahé as we had an early flight home the next day. Here’s what we thought of our stay on Desroches.

Getting to the island

To get to the Four Seasons Desroches, you have to get on a small plane and take a 30 minute flight as it’s one of the outer islands of the Seychelles. There are only two flights a day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon and we arrived on the morning flight. The staff at the Four Seasons always come out to greet new guests and to say goodbye to those leaving, which is a lovely touch.

When you arrive, you are met by the manager and a staff member in the reception area by the landing strip, who offers you a cold drink, gathers your passport details and then takes you to your room on a golf cart.

The villa

We stayed in the Sunset Beach Villa, which was located by Sunset beach – named because that’s were you’ll see the sun set. The villa was absolutely stunning and beautifully decorated. The villa is really private too, it’s only at certain spots that could you see the villa next door.

Whilst the villa was one one floor, it looked like a duplex. The ceilings were really high and there was an upstairs outdoor lounge area so you could get a better view of the beach.

The villa pool area was fabulous with comfy cushions and a double towelled mattress to lounge on. There were these beautiful bright orange-coloured little birds that liked to keep coming and drinking the pool water. They were so quick though that I could never get a photo!

There is direct access to the beach from the villa and we also had a hammock nestled amongst the trees if we wanted to relax in the shade and read or have a nap.

Inside the villa was a large bedroom with a lounge area, which opened on to the outdoor terrace. I loved how it was decorated with tropical prints. As there were huge sliding doors, the room had lots of natural light.

Every day they refreshed the fruit plate, which was lovely. Some of the fruits were quite exotic!

Behind the bedroom were the wardrobes and then the huge bathroom with separate toilet, indoor shower and an outdoor shower. Again, I loved the fittings and the beautiful black and white rug. I definitely took interior decor inspiration from this villa room!

The outdoor shower was completely private and offered a nice alternative to showering indoors!

The resort

Each room comes with their own bicycles so that you can cycle to and from the restaurants or beaches. The island is about 5.5 kms and is split into two sections. The Four Seasons is on one side and the village and private residences is on the other. We loved having a bicycle and we enjoyed cycling around the Four Seasons Mauritius Resort too! Of course you can also ask to be driven by golf cart if you prefer. We only did that once, when it was absolutely bucketing down with rain when we were about to leave for dinner. We still got soaked!

There are beautiful beaches all around the island and even a tortoise sanctuary! In terms of activities, there are tennis courts, a gym and you can book fishing and diving trips and guided snorkelling excursions. Snorkelling equipment, as well as canoes and paddle boats, are all free to use as you wish. When you arrive, you’re given a timetable of all the activities for that week so you can plan what you’d like to do.

We loved cycling to the beaches on the other side of the island. Our favourite was Madame Zingara, which was the first beach when you crossed over to the village. On one visit, there were guys cutting down a fallen palm tree and they kindly prepped a coconut for us so we could drink from it!

Sometimes we liked to just relax by the resort pool. As every room has it’s own pool and there are numerous beaches, the resort pool was never busy. No fighting over sun loungers here! Being by the pool, you’re brought little cold drinks or smoothies and sometimes snacks, which was great. What wasn’t great was the horse-flies, whose bites were bloody painful! They loved to hang around the pool too because apparently they’re attracted to water.

The restaurants and bar

There are only two restaurants at the resort – Claudine and The Lighthouse -although of course you could organise dinner in your villa or something more special. Claudine is where you eat breakfast and they serve lunch and dinner, with themed nights twice a week. The Lighthouse is only open for dinner and often not open on the nights where there is a theme. There is also The Deli, where you can get sandwiches, pastries and picnic goodies.

The breakfasts were great! Lots of choice from a buffet of fruit, cereal, bread, pastries, yoghurt etc and a menu of hot food, including Full English breakfast, poached eggs, waffles and pancakes. Every day there was a different juice to try.

We only ate lunch a few times as we were often so full from breakfast. The lunch menu wasn’t particularly inspiring, I have to say.

The best meals we had were definitely at The Lighthouse. The sushi chef was phenomenal and the steak was cooked to perfection. The setting is really beautiful too, although annoyingly I didn’t seem to take any pictures at night!

The Lighthouse also has the most amazing bar, which we only went to once (and are kicking ourselves for that). We did happen to choose the evening that had the best sunset though!

You can walk up to the top of the lighthouse too so that you get a better view. It also gives you a fab view of the bar from the top. As you can see it was completely empty when we went, which is unbelievable given how amazing it was.

Dinner at Claudine varied, to be honest. We mostly enjoyed the food there but we weren’t that keen on the Creole themed night. Also, we were meant to have had our mains cooked on the barbecue but as we were the last table that evening, the chef just cooked ours on an oven. We were not impressed at all, particularly as it was our last night and we had booked The Lighthouse before we’d even arrived, only to be told the night before that it would be closed.

Our thoughts

Apart from a few niggles – including them not remembering my husband’s birthday, even though they’d been told numerous times – we had a wonderful stay. I think service could be improved in some aspects and we did talk to the manager as we feel it’s important to give constructive feedback, which he took on board. Overall, we loved our stay here. It’s a beautiful resort and a stunning island!