Six Senses Zil Pasyon

Six Senses Seychelles is a rugged island glamping experience, which is fine and is a fun experience in its own way, but it is not a luxury resort. If you want a luxury Seychelles resort, stay at the Four Seasons Seychelles - it’s amazing and everything you would expect. There is no need to also stay at the Six Senses and you won’t miss anything by staying only on the main Mahe island. I wish someone told me that before we came. I really don’t like the Six Senses Seychelles, first and foremost because it is not the luxury resort that they advertise. I felt deceived and tricked into coming here, and I wish we had not come. These are my genuine feelings, unfortunately. This is actually our first Six Senses hotel, and to my disappointment it has exactly the shortfalls I would have expected - it doesn’t have the polish of a true luxury brand, and it feels every step of the way like there is no one intelligent in charge monitoring the operations or even putting any thought at all into what the daily experience of a guest would be. I will explain all of this in detail below. Six Senses Seychelles is very different from a normal beach resort. First, it’s hard to get here, and you either need to deal with a long and annoying boat transfer on a public ferry, or you do a 20 minute helicopter transfer that’s over 1100 euros each way. We did the helicopter transfer and it was fairly smooth since we got lucky with the weather, but we’ve heard horror stories about cancellations on windy days, and the hotel doesn’t do a good job of letting you know in advance when your transfer will be. It’s all booked ad hoc at the last minute, which really tests the nerves and anxiety of a Type A personality who is likely to stay here. In fact, I was so anxious about the helicopter transfer that I decided it wasn’t worth the trouble and I went to cancel my reservation the week before coming, only to realize that I was beyond the cancellation period. Oh well, I thought, I’ll have to tough it out. Not so fast - that no-cancellation policy is only one-way… The big shock we encountered upon arrival, literally ten steps after we got off the helicopter, was the hotel manager quickly telling us that our room type, the Pasyon Pool Villa, wasn’t available due to a maintenance issue, and instead they’d give us an Oceanfront Villa as well as a 350 euro credit to make up for the price difference since we had booked a higher category. Wait a minute - my booking was non-refundable, but the hotel didn’t have a single room of my type available, and didn’t tell me before coming, and then quickly rushed it by me while we could barely hear due to the helicopter rotors? Are you kidding me? We booked the Pasyon Pool Villa for the high up, scenic island views. We’ve stayed at tons of oceanfront rooms all over the world - we came to Seychelles for the unique views of the island and the rocks, not another oceanfront view. Not telling us in advance that our room wouldn’t be available so that we wouldn’t have an opportunity to change our room or cancel the reservation is insane - I’ve never had this happen before. And then, when we got the invoice before departure, they had not added the credit amount they promised. So I had to ask them to fix and correct it. Do you think they left it off on purpose hoping I’d forget? There’s a thin borderline between incompetence and scam, and I personally believe that a lot of Six Senses Seychelles falls on the scam side of the line. There are a lot of managers working here, and you’ll see the group of them in their different clothes each morning doing their morning meeting. Like 4 of them introduced themselves to us one by one when we got off the helicopter and they told us they changed our room type without asking. What do these managers do? I have no idea. At our second breakfast, a guy who I think said he was the dining manager came to our table instead of the usual waiter. He was trying to do this fun and friendly hotel manager routine with small talk, whatever. Anyway, he asked what we wanted to drink, and handled everything all smarmy like he’s a cool dude who doesn’t mind being a waiter sometimes because he’s so interested in the guests, and then he just walked away and never brought the drinks we ordered or a menu. And the real waiter staff are clearly keeping their space around him since he’s the boss, so this manager just entirely ruined the usual waiter order flow, and we ended up sitting there in limbo for 10 minutes confused about what to do to get breakfast or drinks. I get the idea that all of the managers here are like that - incompetent but smiling faces who bounce around between these second tier island resorts every few years because it’s hard to get good staff and the better international brands like Four Seasons can see through their routine during their interview process. So that wasn’t a great way to start the trip. Oh but wait, the room also wasn’t ready yet. So they took us literally on a 1-hour tour around the island - we were so hungry and tired by the time we got to our room later that afternoon. Our room wasn’t available, and they knew it in advance, and the replacement they forced on us also wasn’t ready? A really annoying thing about getting around the island is the buggies - they come in a few minutes, but half of them require you to sit on the back, so you’re riding backwards. I got car-sick every time on the reverse buggies, and the reverse buggies have these overhangs so that if you’re tall like me you can’t see anything while sitting in the buggy. Also, all the staff drive too fast - you have to really hang on and it would be so easy to fall out and get hurt. On some of the turns you could feel the suspension leaning dangerously close to one side. Because of this, there are like 10 speed bumps near the main restaurant, so every time you go there you have to hit these hard, really uncomfortable speed bumps. So because the hotel can’t train their staff to drive calmly, every guest has to hit literally ten hard speed bumps every time you ride. It is so awful and miserable. As bad as it was that they changed our room, honestly I could have let it slide if the rest of the resort was great, but it’s not - this hotel is really bad and disappointing in every respect. The first big issue is the main dining venue which they use for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. There is no other dining venue. There’s a Japanese place on the second floor for dinner, but we live in Japan so that’s not appealing to us (since sushi in Japan is literally 10x better than anything outside Japan). The main dining venue looks very basic - like you’d expect it as kind of a nicer cafeteria at a kids summer camp or a much lower grade of island hotel. I seriously cannot believe it is the main and only dining venue. And from it, you can see the ocean, but it’s like across the general pool area yard and people and chairs and stuff are scattered in the way. And at breakfast time there are still plastic coverings over most of the chairs and pool loungers, so it just looks cheap and shabby. The main dining venue at a private island resort should be elevated with a sweeping vista - it’s like the one thing you can’t screw up, and unfortunately Six Senses Seychelles just doesn’t even come close to acceptable. Again, this would be fine if you were going to a rugged island glamping hotel, but it’s so obviously not an acceptable level of quality given how Six Senses markets this place as a luxury resort. Ok, so the dining isn’t great. But at least you can hang out at the beach, which is the main draw of a remote island hotel, right? Nope. Perhaps the most shocking thing about the Six Senses Seychelles is that there is not a single beach with an attendant to set up beach chairs, give water, order food, etc. There are 3 beaches at the resort, the small beach, the main beach, and the grand beach. The small beach has six loungers and 3 hammocks, and has a do-it-yourself station with towels and bottles of water. It’s the most pretty beach, but it’s small, so it’s usually full. The main beach is very rocky and next to the pool. It is the main place to snorkel (more on that later), but has no loungers, no towels, no waters, nothing. But by far the worst is the grand beach. The grand beach is a long 5 minute buggy ride away from the main area. The grand beach is very rocky, and today it had two loungers, one without a cushion, and no towels, no waters, nothing. My wife and I were laughing after the buggy dropped us off there. Like what are we even supposed to do? It was so bizarre, felt like we were on a reality show or something. Thank god I had cellular service to ask the butler to send a buggy to rescue us, since the beaches don’t have wifi signal. I genuinely don’t understand how this hotel has been in operation for a decade and doesn’t have even one staffed beach. Isn’t like lounging on a beach 95% of an island vacation? I honestly would like to just ask a manager here, what do you think guests are supposed to do on this island? What do you imagine a normal day is like for a guest? I’m so certain they’ve never given it even a moment’s thought. I bet if you ask the hotel about the beach issue, they’ll give you some dumb line like, “oh we’re happy to bring chairs if you would like” - but of course it would take a while and you’d have to ask every single time. I think the staff just don’t want to take the time and trouble of having chairs and towels and water, etc, available at every beach. There are always several staff members sitting around at like the recreation shack with a ping pong table that no one uses, and I’m sure they just don’t want to spend their day driving around the beach areas. But like, that’s the point of a beach resort. There should be at least one attendant at all 3 beaches, and they should prepare a few loungers spaced out at each beach every day, and there should be a roaming attendant bringing water, coconuts, etc. But they don’t do any of that because they are lazy. You can lounge by the pool, but the pool area is very weak, and like the main dining venue, looks like it belongs at a much lower 3-star hotel. It just looks shabby, and there’s a bad-looking rocky mud area in front of it, and it looks onto the helicopter pad which is buzzing with arrivals and departures all day. Why why WHY did they build the helicopter pad right next to the main dining venue and pool? It destroys any semblance of peaceful island vibes. Speaking of island vibes being destroyed, the bar area randomly starts playing loud bass-y music during breakfast each morning, clearly an employee’s phone connected to a speaker since it pauses for notification buzzes. So you’re sitting at breakfast, trying to listen to the waves, and poor quality music is just blasting - it’s so awful. So what else is there to do? They have a spa which is wildly overpriced, didn’t even bother to try it - I have a great massage place back home, I’m here to see exotic scenery, not get another massage. There’s snorkeling! And yes, every staff member will tell you that you can snorkel at the small beach or the main beach. My wife and I tried both, and it was very dangerous. We are both strong and athletic swimmers with a lot of snorkeling experience, and we did not feel safe. The waves are rough, the coral is very close to the water surface, and there are no lifeguards watching. I wouldn’t let a kid snorkel here, and I wouldn’t recommend anyone not in great shape to even try. You could go to the neighboring island, but they charge a lot for a boat shuttle which is weird. The boat shuttle for 2 people, which is a shared shuttle with other guests, is 200 Euros round trip, and they only do it two days a week. A private boat round trip is 450 euros. It’s like a super close island - they should have a free boat shuttle leaving every hour. I don’t understand this at all - it’s clearly a scam tactic. There’s a very beautiful small island right next to the hotel called Coco island. It is featured prominently in all of the hotel’s marketing. But there’s no sightseeing boat that goes around it, and we asked a staff member about it and he said you can’t really go see it during the monsoon season. I thought September was a good weather season for the Seychelles but whatever. It’s just so stupid that Coco Island, one of the most beautiful islands in the Seychelles, is immediately next to the hotel, and the hotel has no arrangement for having guests enjoy it. Stupid incompetence bordering on scam again. So the dining is bad, the beaches are bad, how is the room? Sorry, bad again. The villas are big, but they’re just not the level of quality you’d expect of a luxury resort. They feel a bit worn even though the hotel is only 10 years old, and feel much more like rugged island shacks rather than a luxury room. Which is honestly kind of fine, except that they miss a lot of the important stuff. For example, our room doesn’t have bathrobes. Thankfully, we stayed at the Four Seasons Seychelles before this and they gave us monogrammed bathrobes as a turndown gift. So the entire time we have been here, we are wearing our Four Seasons bathrobes. And they don’t have slippers either!! Too bad we didn’t bring those from the Four Seasons as well… They do give you these little woven flip flops for wearing inside the room, but they’re rough and not cozy. I choose to stay at luxury hotels precisely because I don’t want to wear rough flip flops - I want soft, plush slippers to relax in peace in my villa. The room minibar isn’t complimentary which is weak, but the sign does say there’s complimentary chips and cookies. Our room didn’t have any cookies, and they didn’t refill our chips after the first day. Well, at least you can take a nice relaxing bath with the view, right? Nope. The hot water runs out before the bath is even 1/3 full, so you won’t be having a relaxing hot bath. Instead, you’ll be arguing with your partner about who has been using the shower too long and who will have to take the cold shower. I never ever want to think about the amount of hot water while at a resort. Insanity. Water is a big problem at this resort too. Today, at 9:45am, our butler messaged us a pre-made flyer that there was a water leak and so there would be no water in any of the rooms between 11:00-4:00pm that day. What??? I assume this happens a lot since they had a flyer made for it. I rushed to take my morning dump by 10:30, but then it seemed that they turned off the water early and the toilet wouldn’t flush as of 10:30am. This water issue was an annoyance for us, but we toughed it out. But what if we had kids? Or a baby? And yes, there are families here with kids and a family with a baby. And yes, those kids and baby are loud and annoying at the only breakfast venue and the pool area (which, I should remind you, is the only area on the island with staffing for loungers and towels). Every other part of the hotel is unpolished or poorly thought out. I could go on and on. Just a minor example - there are QR codes in the room for menus. And then your butler will also text you menus on WhatsApp. But the menus (both of which are digital) have different items and different prices. The in-room QR code menu has a burger for 34 euros, but on the menu from your butler, the same burger is 56 euros. Stupid, incompetent, lame, tacky, scammy. On the buggy tour, they’ll take you over a hill and tell you, oh we call this “the viewpoint” because it has a scenic view - but there’s no bench or anything there to take in the view, and you’d have to ask a buggy to drive you up there and just hang around until you’re done - it’s so poorly thought out, like everything in this resort. On our last night, we asked our GEM (attendant title) to drive us up to this wooden deck they have on top of the island for a sunset view. He dropped us off at 5:50pm, and it was a bit cloudy, but we figured we’d just enjoy the vibes. I kind of thought he’d take the opportunity to bring us a drink or a snack or really do anything at all, but he didn’t, just dropped us off there. He said he’d be back once it got dark, and we wanted to go with the flow. But he didn’t come back until 6:45pm, an hour later. And it was cloudy and rained a bit. I tried to message him at 6:15pm to come rescue us, but there’s no cell signal up there, and no wifi, so we were stranded. I didn’t really care that much but it upset my wife. This entire hotel is just poorly thought out like this. As an aside, the name “Six Senses” is a terrible name and I feel is representative of what a poorly thought-out hotel chain this is from square one. “Six Senses” is hard to say even for a native English speaker and sounds generic. Even worse though is that “The Sixth Sense” is a very famous horror movie in America where the “sixth sense” is the ability to see dead people. Why would you ever name your luxury hotel “Six Senses”? Did they not engage a marketing consultant to point out what a bad name this is? This is what I’m saying - every step of the way from square one, this is a hotel where absolutely no thought has been put into the details. Six Senses Seychelles is a poorly constructed mirage without functional working parts - I truly cannot get over how bad the beaches are and how low quality the main dining venue is. No one expecting a luxury hotel experience should stay here.

the view from the room is fantastic， the room is of very high standard. there is hardly any flaw in those areas there could be improvement in the service area. we had some small issues， but I still give a 5 star rating to the hotel because the manager, I can't remember his name, he is a tall and big guy with glasses, and his colleague,the guy in charge of the rooms , dealt with the issues promotly. by doing that, they not only showed me the level of responsibility the hotel should been on ,but also upheld the name of sixsenses in my heart.

We just spent three wonderful days at this exceptional place. The location is simply outstanding – Félicité is surrounded by some of the most famous granite islands of the Seychelles: La Digue, Ile Cocos, Grande Soeur & Praslin. There are stunning views from every point of the island, and of course from each and every villa! We stayed in Oceanfront Pool Villa # 3 directly opposite dreamy Ile Cocos, simply wow. The layout of the villa is well thought-out with floor-to-ceiling windows and direct access to the pool deck from both bed- and bathroom. Bath amenities are top notch and mainly from The Organic Pharmacy. I often stumble with the handling of the shower, here it was easily to use, a big bonus ;-). The villa also features an outdoor shower in the garden area. On the pool deck, hidden in the cupboard, you can find an ice-cube machine, not a bad idea. All 30 villas provide highest level of privacy and a private butler, called GEM. Our GEM Letitia was a lovely person, very attentive and dedicated. Due to the hilly landscape, a buggy if often needed (with minimum waiting times, btw). We tried to walk as much as possible, but all depends of course on the specific location you are heading to/from. Félicité is easily reachable from either Praslin or La Digue, approximately 20 minutes by boat. We stayed prior on Praslin, thus arrived that way and departed via the most coolest option - by helicopter on a scenic 20 minutes flight back to Mahé. You can either combine Félicité with neighbour islands or use as sole position for excursions to the others. 3 beaches are located within the resort section, more are scattered over the rest of the island. Due to prevailing waves/rocks, swimming can be a tad tricky from time to time. Anse Peniche is the one which is best accessible all year round. There is a smaller stretch of sand at the end of Anse la Cour, it seemed there are as well bathing options depending on the tide, yet we did not try. We do love Grande Anse Beach which is a bit remote and truly a picture-perfect beach, fringed by palm trees and those iconic granite boulders. A few cabanas are placed under the trees, fresh water and towels are provided for self-service at the close-by beach hut. Grande Anse is also a perfect spot for a romantic picnic or breakfast. Only one third of the island is occupied by Six Senses, the rest remains pure tropical nature. It's definitely a paradise for hikers with many trails to explore. There is a large bunch of experiences on offer, we tried the following activities: Sunrise Yoga on the spa pavilion perched above the boulders surrounded by the sound of the waves, truly a wow-location! I would say that is one of the most spectacular Spas in the Indian Ocean. The spa pool amidst the rocks is another stunning place. We also tried a sound healing session on the pavilion which was an interesting and relaxing experience. At Alchemy Bar we crafted our own body scrub with all organic ingredients like salt, coffee, coconut oil, and freshly cut flowers. That’s always a nice experience and you can re-produce same at home. Beach fitness in the morning at Anse Perniche was a bit laborious, especially for me as I am not so trained 😉. Anyway, not the worst way to start the day! Sunset hilltop experience along with bubbles and small bites is an absolute highlight and a truly impressive and a lasting memory. Your GEM drives you up to the hill where you walk over the rocks to a romantic lounger with fascinating view over the islands around you. Along with the resident marine biologist we also went on a snorkel trip directly in front of the island and were totally surprised. Apart from a large area with fantastic coral garden we encountered a shark, rays and a turtle all on one single round, really a lovely tour. Usually, we are not so into snorkelling in the Seychelles as we are a bit spoiled from the Maldives, this was a real exemption compared to the other times. At the Marine Lab you can dive deeper into marine life and environmental things. Also, renowned Olive Ridley Project is based on the island. The other day we did an interesting nest monitoring tour with one of the ladies along Grande Anse Beach. There are lots of hawksbill and green turtle nests on the island, so fingers crossed that at least of few of the hatchlings will survive! On departure day, we enjoyed a floating breakfast in our villa along with some champagne. That was truly breakfast with a view! There are two main outlets, Island Café (all-day-dining) and KRI (dinner only), the latter a Japanese restaurant located on the upper floor. At Island Café, I would recommend to try the Ceviche as starter, very nicely prepared. In the evenings, the large Badamier Tree is illuminated, creating a romantic scenery in front of both venues. Of course different options like private cooking class/chef’s kitchen, wine vault dinner, some special events at Ocean Lounge and destination dining are available. Island Water is served on a complimentary base. The selection of wine by the glass I found very limited: 2 white and 2 rosé from Italy were only on offer (red ones I did not check, but most probably also 2), and as well pretty expensive, 400 SCR per glass. The selection of wines by the bottle is of course more comprehensive and also more reasonably priced. This is definitely a point to look into further. Breakfast comes with a nice choice of smoothies, juices and shots. In addition to the à-la-carte menu there is also a buffet option. Many of the vegetables, fruit and herbs are grown in the own organic garden. A vital part at every Six Senses resort is of course the strong focus on sustainability and social responsibility. The team members have been very amiable and cordial, and the allover vibe is familiar and pleasant. Félicité is truly a special island and the perfect place to combine ultimate relaxation with exciting experiences amidst a spectacular landscape. This was surely not our last time 😊.

Great experience of a wholesome care and support by the spa and wellness team, with thoughtful fitness and yoga classes with Parivesh, and comprehensive wellness plan designed and led skillfully by dr Delvin. Thank you!

Set on a private island, this resort offers spacious villas with ocean views and total privacy. The natural surroundings and attentive staff create a peaceful and exclusive experience.