Praslin Island in the Seychelles is a tiny island in Indian Ocean. With a population of only 7,754 residents, it is home to a host of luxury accommodation for those seeking a quiet luxury island lifestyle. We would stay at the luxury Château de Feuilles, a Relais and Châteaux property for a terrific three day stay on the islands.

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This post is one chapter on our trip to the Republic of Tanzania and the Islands of the Seychelles. This trip was redeemed through Air Canada’s Aeroplan and enhanced through World of Hyatt and Marriott Bonvoy Elite Status. For more information on how this trip was booked, please see our trip introduction here. For other parts of the trip, please see this index.

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Review: Le Châteaux De Feuilles, A Relais and Châteaux Property, Praslin Island, Seychelles

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In terms of luxury resort choices on Praslin, there is the over the top Raffles hotel and an assortment of bed and breakfasts. We ended up at the only Relais and Chateaux property in the Seychelles: the Château de Feuilles. The property only features 9 rooms. We had to book well in advance at approximately 5 months before our stay to secure a room for a 3 night stay over the weekend.

One of the main benefits to the property is that the hotel offers a private excursion on the weekend to Grande Soeur, a private island that is of exclusive use for the hotel on the weekends. Due to the small volume, the hotel does not participate in on line travel agencies; all reservations here need to be booked direct with the hotel.

The pricing at the property also included daily breakfast and a complimentary rental vehicle for use during your stay.

Getting to the Chateau de Feuilles:

We transferred by hotel arranged car to the property. I had considered just getting a taxi but it seems when you arrive on an island by boat, there are never enough taxis available to meet the boat and we didn’t feel like waiting for 30 minutes for them to come back. This was a wise move as most people seemed to be met at the Cat Cocos Mahé – Praslin Ferry. It was less than 10 minutes up the road and we arrived to the hotel.

The hotel invited us into the open air lobby and took our passport details. Getting the arrival experience right, the hotel then escorted us to the small format bar and provided us a welcome drink of lemongrass and ginger, along with candied coconut. The coconut was exceptionally tasty and was a great introduction to their kitchen. Something as simple as sampling candied coconut while overlooking the beautiful waters made me want to eat in their restaurant. The bar had a wonderful view over the bay below the hotel.

We were then led to our room. We had originally booked a Chateau Room (the lowest category at 416€ a night) and we were informed that they had upgraded us to an Ocean Suite. I believe this was a fortunate upgrade as 7 out of the 9 suites were occupied during our stay. As indicated above, the property does capture being at a luxury price point, but there is some value there since the rate includes a private rental car and breakfasts for the entire duration of your stay.

The Room: An Ocean Suite

We transferred over to an exceptionally well appointed and decorated room. The room was a short walk from the main pool area. It is perhaps worth nothing that this resort area is situated on top of a sloping hill. Those with some mobility concerns may have a more challenging time here as a result of the winding and hilly pathways. As a result, we left our baggage transfer in care of the property staff to transfer from the lobby to the room.

The bathroom was moderately sized with a single vanity sink. The bathroom offered a tub and in room shower that was located in the corner of the bathroom. It made for showering a bit of a wet floor experience, but we were able to keep the water under control during our stay.

The hotel used toiletries by Afracology of South Africa. I always appreciate when hotel use regional products. While these toiletries were boutique, they weren’t super strong in terms of cleaning power.

The storage space for the room was regular shelving behind fabric. It housed a small coffee maker that we never used. There were tiles and accessories on the fabric, making it very seaside-y. There was also a small mini bar (at charge).

Topping off the room was a small Mac Mini computer. This was handy for the online check in for the way back…

Lastly, the room offered a nice covered out door space. The space was nicely appointed with a seating area. During the daytime, it offered pleasant views.

All in all, it was a very comfortable room made even better with an excellent arrival experience.

Around the Property:

The Château de Feuilles Restaurant

The hotel offers a small format restaurant. The restaurant doesn’t have a name exactly, other than being on the property of the hotel. The hotel grows its own produce on site and we later had a tour of the radishes, okra, eggs and other products that the hotel grows with great care.

Having just arrived to the hotel and Praslin Island, on the day of our arrival, we decided to stay on property. The hotel is in a residential area of the island and there isn’t any other restaurants that are walkable from the property.

The hotel offered a 4 course mini degustation dinner experience every night. After we had settled in on the day of arrival, we headed up for dinner.

The Restaurant is in a covered outdoor space next to the pool. It offers a really pleasant open air dining experience.

MrsWT73 looked at a sample of the menu and was having no part of it. The hotel was kind enough to arrange a Clubhouse Sandwich for her, while I got into a fantastic dinner.

The first course presented was Grouper, labelled as Grouper Beignet, vegetables confit, and tartar sauce. While the grouper that I have had in the past was quite bland, this was prepared exceptionally well. It was spiced just right and lightly battered in a manner that was not overpowering.

The second course was Tofu, labelled as pan fried tofu, green salad and sweet chili emulsion. Having grown up on a steady diet of Asian tofu, I’d like to hope that have eaten enough bad tofu to tell the good from the bad. This course was well presented and perfectly cooked. The sears were done just right, with a delicate crispness to it. I wanted to savour more than what was on the plate.

The main and third course was Mini Fish, presented as whole grilled mini fish, pumpkin gratin, roasted vegetables and bilimbi salsa. The entrée was served with two fillets of mini fish and the accompaniments for each side was absolutely massive. The mini fish was just slightly overcooked for my liking (a touch dry) but the pumpkin gratin was amazingly tasty. They must have slow cooked the pumpkin for hours as it was amazingly soft with cheese that matched every bite. The roasted vegetables, particularly the carrots and okra were so crisp, they were better tasting than the organic foods I get at the supermarket at home back in Vancouver.

The last sweet serving was Tiramisu. It was presented with a macron and a chocolate wedge. It was again exceptionally light, but thick and rich at the same time. MrsWT73 helped me out with this one.

Overall though, it was a terrific dinner which I wished I had started a little bit earlier in the evening than I did. It was quite late when I got back to the room having gotten through the service ending at about 11 PM.

Breakfast at Château de Feuilles:

We enjoyed our breakfasts in the same restaurant location as dinner. The breakfasts were tasty and contained items like Cappuccino, fresh fruit, croissants and a poached egg with fresh parsley.

Devine. . . add the lounging views and it was a great way to start the day.

Walking Around the Resort:

After breakfast, we took a look around the property. The Château des Feuilles is situated on top of a bluff with absolutely spectacular views over to La Dique.

A Hot Tub Overlooking the Ocean:

At the top of the property was a small jacuzzi. While it’s a bit silly to have a hot tub in the islands of Africa, the views across the channel from this one were pretty tough to beat!

The property was quite jungle like in places. Despite this, it was well taken care of and properly landscaped. Heading down off the top hot tub, we wandered through the property to the sun deck.

As I indicated earlier, at times the pathway around the resort were a little steep. I was happy not to be carrying our luggage around the area, as I was working up a bit of a sweat in the tropical heat just getting from one end of the resort to the other.

The Property also featured a private sun deck that was shared between the nine suites. We didn’t see anyone here during our entire stay.

The Property does lack a true private beach due to it’s mountain top location. However, it does make up for it with a private pool with magnificent ocean views. With the world class Anse Lasio up the way, we didn’t miss the beach as much as we would have thought, despite travelling all this way.

An Included Car Rental:

A Car Rental is included for those staying over 3 days at the Château de Feuilles. At about 10 AM on the day after arrival, I made the arrangements to get the car rental.

It is also worth noting that although a car rental is offered for throughout the stay, it was only made available to us the next morning after our first night. There is no rental agency on site and the rental agency representative comes to the Château de Feuilles in order to process the paper work and assign the car. I did not make inquiries on the night of arrivals so I can’t speak for what would happen if you asked. I only raise this in the event of guests wanting to leave the property for other destinations or arriving with the expectation of having transportation available on the day of arrival.

I ended up paying 38 € extra to keep the car past 12 PM on our last day. Despite having paid this, it allowed us to self drive ourselves to the Praslin Airport, return the car at the airport without a drop fee, and avoid an extra taxi or transfer fee from hotel to airport.

Private Island Day Trip:

The Chateau Des Feuilles property offers a private island day trip to Grande Soeur, a nearby island east of Praslin Island. They seem to charge a landing fee for tour operators from the general public during the week but on the weekend, there are no day tours permitted and the island is made available to the exclusive use of guests. At the time of our trip, it was included in a three day stay but it now appears to have a 195 € charge per person with a minimum of 8 travellers per boat ride.

Regrettably the trip did not go ahead as planned during our trip. On day one, we were up to breakfast for about 8:15 AM, with an expected 8:45 AM departure for the private island tour. The weather was quite cloudy and windy this morning, and at about 8:30 AM, our host advised us that the tour was cancelled for today and would be re-scheduled for tomorrow. The stormy weather continued and on our next day, we got a call in the morning at about 7:30 AM from the front desk to report that the private island excursion had been cancelled for the second day in a row on the account of weather. If you’re planning on coming, make sure you a lot extra time to get in enough sunny days.

On the day our trip was cancelled for the last time, we had a beautiful day around the resort. The property really is peaceful, tranquil and a great place to relax.

The Bottom Line: the Château de Feuilles

The Château de Feuilles was a terrific find for us on Praslin Island. We had great stay at this little property. Everything was handled well and the surroundings were very comfortable. It’s highly recommended and I think we would easily return.

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If you’ve visited Praslin Island in the the Seychelles, where did you stay ?

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