Review: Club Med Seychelles All Inclusive Resort

Club Med Seychelles.

An all inclusive luxury 2 week holiday at Club Med’s 5 star Exclusive Collection Resort own island?

We had kept an eye on this hotel for a while since it opened in the spring of 2021.

The first reviews were a bit mixed, Club Med Seychelles seemed to suffer from a couple of growing pains.

Nothing major, but we decided to wait a handful of months to give this resort time to get fully on its feet.

We booked a 2 week stay at Club Med Seychelles for the second half of September.

Here is how it went and what we honestly think of this all inclusive resort.

We paid for our stay at Club Med Seychelles and didn’t get or ask anything in return for this review.

Flight

We flew from Brussel to Mahe on our way to Club Med Seychelles and back in business class with Qatar Airways with a stopover at Hamad International Airport in Doha.

You can watch our movie about both flights and a short stay at the famous Al Mourjan business lounge here:

Video

We made a video of our stay at Club Med Seychelles.

You can watch it here:

Bus and boat transfer

We landed at Seychelles International Airport in the morning.

Passport control was swift, we were one of the first ones to arrive since we got off the plane first. Our luggage arrived quite fast as well.

All in all it took about 30 minutes between landing and walking our of the airport which is great. Especially if you have been traveling for 12 hours.

Once outside a Club Med representative was waiting for us.

She crossed our names off a list, handed another staff member luggage tags with our room numbers on it to attach to our suitcases.

A driver took us to a minibus, loaded the luggage in the back and handed us cooled bottles of water.

Off we went, to the cozy Club Med lounge. Driving us there took about 10 minutes.

There we were greeted by a Club Med staff member who offered us coffee and other refreshments.

We sat outside on the balcony overlooking a small harbour. The shuttle boat to take us to the small island where Club Med Seychelles is located arrived, our luggage was transferred downstairs and loaded into the boat.

And then we waited well over an hour for other guests to arrive, something that was not communicated by the Club Med staff member when we got there. We found out about this after we asked her what was going on.

All the guests arrived, we made our way to the boat. Everyone received a life jacket and hand sanitiser.

On our way, let the holidays begin.

The shuttle boat transfer to Club Med Seychelles on Sainte Anne island took about 15 minutes.

Arrival

Arriving at Club Med Seychelles is allways great.

A welcoming team of GO’s wait for you with a smile.

(A member of the entertainment staff is called a G.O., which stands for ‘gentil organisateur‘ or something like ‘kind staff member‘ in French. The guests staying at a Club Med resort are called G.M., gentil member or ‘kind client’.)

Same thing here at Club Med Seychelles: as we arrived staff members stood on the jetty to welcome us.

A GO comes to us and says he will take care of us.

Welcome drink

He walks with us to the Club Med Seychelles reception area and sits us down.

He hands us a welcome glass of iced tea and a refreshing cold towel and asks if we want a glass of champagne as well, which we gladly accept. A great start of our holiday here!

In the meantime the GO gives us plenty of information about the resort, the mobile app, the facilities and services.

Chef de village Barq also pops in and introduces himself. The chef de village is the one who is in charge of the entire resort, the boss of Club Med Seychelles if you like.

We are very happy to hear that our room is already available.

We get a blue wristband with which you can electronically open your door.

Our GO takes us to a golf shuttle that is parked in front of the reception entrance and takes us to where will be staying for the next 14 days.

Room 5035

The shuttle takes us to room 5035.

It is located in the Bel Air area of the resort, close to the water sports club, beach bar, tennis courts and archery field.

We booked a junior suite with private pool.

And at first glance it looks absolutely fantastic.

Garden and pool

Our private garden with pool and sun bed area looks so peaceful.

The constant sound of drizzling water is so calming.

Next to it is a separate outdoor shower area.

Yellow bath towels for swimming are preset in the room.

Bedroom

Our bedroom is very spacious.

The double bed is quite large. It consists of twin beds covered with a sheet.

However it is not enough to cover up the uncomfortable gap and mattress ridges.

The duvet and pillows are of an excellent quality.

In the room are also a sofa, coffee table, desk, phone, TV, Lavazza coffee machine and Palais des Thés tea corner, kettle, bottled water and minibar.

On each side of the bed is a USB socket.

All the other sockets in the room are type G, 220-240 V.

The room is airconditioned and refreshingly cool.

Bathroom

The bathroom is spacious as well.

It contains a vanity with 2 sinks, a bathtub, walkin shower and built in cupboards, one of which contains a large safe and an ironing board and iron.

Fragrant Cinq Mondes bath and body products are provided.

You can also find accessoires such as a shower cap, comb, shaving kit, dental kit, cotton pads, sewing kit and cotton buds near the sinks.

Fluffy bathrobes, slippers and a hair dryer are present as well.

A door leads to a separate toilet.

And another door next to the shower leads to the outside shower area that is also connected to the garden and pool area.

Watch our video from 2:50 onwards to get a more detailed idea of how the room and garden look like exactly.

Exclusive collection services

With the Junior Suite come a couple of extra free services.

We had access to faster “premium wifi” that worked well in the room but was a bit weaker in the garden. Without the “premium wifi”, the speed of connection is really slow.

The minibar is “free and restocked daily” with non alcoholic beverages such as Sprite, Coke, Fanta, water and Grannini fruit juices. However we never had it restocked daily. 5 times at most during our 14 day stay. And that after mentioning it to the front desk. The 4 large bottles of water next to the coffee machine were often replaced, but again not daily.

A turn down service is provided between dinner and bedtime daily. And we have to say that again this happened only a few times. Having your bed made before going to sleep is not very important, however if Club Med Seychelles includes it in its room services it should happen as well. Or just take it off the list.

The room was well cleaned daily, and that almost always before noon. On days where there are a lot of people leaving and arriving it might be much later in the afternoon. Bed sheets are changed regularly (even if you don’t put the change sheets notice on the bed), towels changed daily if you put them on the floor.

Room service is available and costs €30 to have meals delivered to your room.

Mobile app

You can download the My Club Med app and login using your booking reference and family name.

The app gives you access to an overview of the activities and facilities in Club Med Seychelles such as sports, daily program, dress code theme and more information about the resort itself.

You can also make a reservation in the specialty a la carte restaurant, and that maximum 2 days in advance to give everyone a fair chance to book a table. However half of the time we tried to book a table the app returned an error message – try again later.

You can request extra room services as well by just clicking on the icons such as having your mini bar restocked, a request for extra towels, water, soap and so on. A wonderful tool, unfortunately the app never really worked well. You can make up to 3 request however when one request has been fulfilled, that request is not taken off your app which means that it is impossible to add a new request.

We ordered breakfast in the room one morning. You can chose in the app from a small breakfast menu what you want such as tea, coffee, cereal, pastries, fruits, cheese, smoked salmon and cold cuts. And even an approximate time when you want your breakfast to be delivered to you. Breakfast never made it to our room though, so we called the front desk and we were informed that there was a problem with the app and that no breakfast orders had been received from anyone.

We never tried ordering breakfast again and preferred to go to the buffet or a la carte breakfast restaurant instead.

It sounds innovative and easy but the My Club Med app was very disappointing.

Wifi

The wifi reception throughout the Club Med Seychelles resort is good, even on the beaches.

Reception area

The reception area is spacious and airy.

The staff behind the 3 reception desks speaks both French and English.

Here you can activate your blue wristband by linking a creditcard to it.

On the right side of the reception is the Club Med boutique shop.

You can find clothes, accessories, kids toys, jewellery and souvenirs.

Watch our video from 8:05 onwards to get a more detailed idea of how Club Med Seychelles looks like.

Excursions

Interested in excursions?

The excursion staff is happy to tell you all about the available day trips.

A catamaran boat trip to dazzling Praslin and La Digue for instance.

Or a boat shuttle to bring you to Mahe island to visit its capital city Victoria. A return ticket costs €40 per person (which is really a lot of money for a 15 minutes trip), leaves at 9pm and brings you back at 5pm.

The allways smiling excursions rep Adele fixed us a rental car for a day, a great way to explore Mahe’s beautiful nature and pristine beaches. She even recommended a few restaurants along our way, where we could try the famous Seychelle’s fruit bat curry.

Excellent service!

Pools

There are 3 pools at Club Med Seychelles.

The main pool near the main restaurant, an adults only zen pool at The Reef a la carte restaurant and a separate kids pool behind the main restaurant.

The main pool near the main restaurant is the heart of Club Med Seychelles.

It is where the ambiance is: the traditional daily aqua gym at 11:30am, followed by crazy signs and a little music, pre lunch bites, cocktails, games in the afternoon, beach volley tournaments etc.

There are plenty of sun beds and cozy Bali beds around the pool and a bunch behind it facing the blue sea. The beds are very comfortable. When we were there, there were plenty of empty beds, no need to get up early for a sun bed race.

Yellow beach towels are also provided on both sides of the pool, if you are fast enough. There were often no towels at all for hours.

Only one outdoor shower is in the back of the pool area, and a couple of hand showers to rinse the sand off your feet.

Watch our video from 11:38 onwards to get a more detailed idea of how the Club Med Seychelles main pool area looks like exactly.

Monkey Tales Bar

Near the main pool is the main bar called the Monkey Tales right next to the theatre.

The bar itself is indoors and has plenty of indoor and outdoor sitting options.

You can order just about anything you want, except for premium wines and spirits. Champagne is free as of 6pm and was very good.

The Club Med Seychelles bar staff in front and behind the bar was absolutely fantastic.

We never had to wait more than a couple of minutes for a drink. Fast service, very friendly, big smiles behind the face masks and professional. Mery was amazing, a hard worker and always ready for a quick joke.

You can go up to the bar and order your own drinks. The bar staff also walks around the main pool area and brings your drink orders right to your sun bed.

If you feel a bit peckish in between meals, the Monkey Tales bar is one of the places where you can find a bite to eat. Starting with a late breakfast bite until noon: pastries, fruits and fruit juices.

Right before lunch, a station is set up with the cocktail of the day and small savory bites, vegetables sticks and dips.

High tea in the afternoon with sweet snacks such as cakes, cookies, fruits, biscuits, waffles and from time to time pancakes cooked on the spot.

Right before dinner you can enjoy a couple of drinks and more savory bites from 7pm onwards: cheese, loempias, samosas, dim sum, cold cuts, crisps, peanuts, vegetables and an array of small one biter pastry cups filled with ingredients such as smoked salmon, olives, anchovies, foie gras mousse, cream cheese. One hot appetizer is also made on the spot: well seasoned fish or meat stir fries.

The bar staff even finds the time to fill small plates with appetizers and bring them to you.

Impeccable service, well done Club Med Seychelles bar staff!

Oh and bring mosquito repellent, you will need it especially in the evening.

Main restaurant

Club Med is well known for serving excellent food.

And we had a couple of delicious dinners here at Club Med Seychelles.

But it wasn’t perfect.

The food let us down quite a few times, but what was even worse was the service. A bunch of inattentive staff members, from breakfast to dinner. Chaotic, lazy, uninterested, slow.

A handful of waiters and waitresses were really pulling their weight though, not all of them were like that (thanks a lot Cécile!).

Used tables were not being cleared and cleaned. It was at times very hard to attract the attention of someone to order a bottle of water or wine. And half of the time our order would just be totally forgotten which made guests go up to the restaurant’s bar to get what they need.

Breakfast was total chaos. Sleepy staff not bothered to clear and clean tables that were unoccupied for over one hour and for that reason raided by pigeons. The coffee machines didn’t work half of the time so again you had to ask a member of staff IF you were lucky enough to see someone AND grab their attention. That order would take ages for that waiter or waitress to come back after half an hour and ask you what exactly it was you ordered.

And again guests would go straight to the restaurant’s bar for a cup of coffee.

Total chaos and disarray.

No service.

The restaurant staff is clearly not managed properly, no one to tell them to put their phones away and bust their asses. After 14 days of Club Med Seychelles were are still not sure if there was a restaurant manager present. And if there was, then he or she was not doing their job either.

The restaurant was very noisy as well. We have been to loads of Club Meds before and each time a restaurant manager or waiter would ask you where you would like to sit. They would always put families on one side of the restaurant and couples on the other side in a quieter area. Even though there were large family table in the back the staff wasn’t intervening when guests would start moving tables for their large families to sit at.

The restaurant is large enough to separate groups easily but what do you expect if there is no management at all.

It was disgraceful for a Club Med and a resort that claims to be 5 star quality.

The kitchen and buffet staff on the other hand were great, fast, professional – just how it should be.

Watch our video from 13:00 onwards to get a more detailed idea of how the restaurant and buffet area looks like exactly.

Breakfast

On the Club Med Seychelles breakfast buffet are the usuals.

Different freshly baked pastries and breads, yogurts, cereal, fruits, smoked salmon, cold cuts and cheese, raw vegetables and salads, jams, boiled eggs, beans in tomato sauce, sausages, bacon, scrambled eggs, eggs and omelets cooked to order, hash browns, pancakes, French toast, porridge, oats, miso soup, fruit juices, baked apples, rice pudding and flans.

Breakfast was OK but nothing more.

The disorganisation in the restaurant area in the morning made us often go to The Reef a la carte restaurant for a quieter a la carte breakfast (see later on in this post).

Watch our video from 13:00 onwards to get a more detailed idea of how the Club Med Seychelles breakfast buffet looks like.

Lunch

On the Club Med Seychelles lunch buffet menu.

Breads, a nice selection of cold cuts and cheeses, a salad bar with plenty of choice, a raw fish creation (such as tartare, ceviche or poke bowl), meats (such as ham, steak, lamb or chicken), fresh fish fillets, at times entire baked red snappers (wow), a creole corner with stews and other specialties (excellent), potato and vegetable gratins, vegetable sides, fresh fruits and lush desserts.

And the usual burgers, fries, pizza and pastas.

The creole corner was amazing, great flavors. Always a joy! And don’t miss out on the baked red snapper, another delight. The meat was often overcooked or tough though.

But again the chaotic restaurant area made us often go to The Reef restaurant for a quieter a la carte lunch.

Dinner

And then the Club Med Seychelles dinner buffet.

It was quite similar to the lunch buffet. Salads, a raw fish creation, a creole stew, fresh fish fillet, potato and vegetable sides, fruits, breads, pasta, pizza and burgers.

And each night a couple of specials such as grilled lobster, huge prawns, oysters, lamb rack, ossobuco, ribs, tomahawk steaks, prime rib, pan seared foie gras, steak tartare, veal roast, roast beef.

All meals looked great however a couple of meat specials were sometimes tough or overcooked like the duck and the oven roasted ham. Sushi looked spectacular but was underwhelming and bland.

3 out the 4 lobsters we tried where mushy and absolutely inedible.

Big shoutout for the Indian food corner though: Indian stews and freshly baked naan breads.

A real delight, together with the Creole dishes our favorite station here!

Wow, yum!

We tried the pizza as well.

Unfortunately it consisted more of bread and very little toppings which made it very chewy.

The fresh pasta was delicious though, silky and cooked perfectly.

Really good.

The table wines were tasty as well.

We especially enjoyed the red and rosé wine.

Watch our video from 16:40 onwards to get a more detailed idea of how the Club Med Seychelles restaurant and dinner buffet area looks like exactly.

Desserts

And what’s for dessert?

A bunch of fresh fruits and ice creams.

But we were blown away by the patisserie, and the only station that showed consistency day in day out during lunch and dinner.

We enjoyed the classic lemon meringue tart, the salted caramel and walnut tart, classic French chocolate tart, baba rum, pavlova, sweet petit four bites, traditional Paris-Brest, cream puffs, eclairs…

Too many to name.

Big thumbs up for the pastry chefs at Club Med Seychelles!

Adults only zen pool

Two weeks before heading to Club Med Seychelles we received an email.

An email to inform us that the zen pool would be closed due to a leak in the pool system.

Which really disappointed us since this pool was located closer to our room.

And we like a quiet space to relax and read under the sun from time to time.

As we arrived, the pool was indeed empty and closed off.

The wooden sun beds around the pool were also unavailable. So we used the plastic sun beds behind the pool in the sand overlooking the sea for almost our entire stay.

What a pity because the zen pool looked like such a fantastic place to spend a day.

The zen pool opened again at the end of our stay.

We were able to enjoy at least 2 days here, which was a real delight.

A quiet place here at Club Med Seychelles with comfortable sun beds and delightfully warm water.

Drinks and food all day at The Reef beach lounge overlooking the pool.

Just amazing!

The Reef beach lounge & a la carte restaurant

The Club Med Seychelles beach lounge is opened from 9am until 11:30am for breakfast.

Lunch starts at 12:30pm.

Afternoon snacking lasts until 6:30pm, which makes this place another spot to grab a bite to eat if you are hungry in between meals.

Dinner starts at 7:30pm every day except on Fridays and has to be booked in advance.

As much as we enjoyed meals here, again the staff wasn’t well trained and managed.

All of them were very friendly and polite but it was often hard to get their attention. Orders were quite often mixed up, incomplete or didn’t come at all and took ages at times.

As much as the very friendly restaurant manager Emmanuele tried to be present and come over for a chat, he should have been more strict with his staff. We told him quite a few times about the mistakes his people would make, but it didn’t really improve over the next days, on the contrary.

The only time when we started to really feel a difference is when extra staff was brought in when the pool was open again and more people came over for breakfast and lunch.

The food was good.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner is a la carte.

Watch our video from 21:00 onwards to get a more detailed idea of how The Reef and zen pool look like.

Breakfast

On the a la carte breakfast menu.

Hot beverages, fruit juices, omelets, scrambled eggs, fried eggs, bacon, vegetables, toast with smoked marlin fish and avocado, toast with creole sausage, a selection of breads and pastries and a fruits platter.

Everything we had here for breakfast was tasty.

A nice and quiet way to start the day.

Lunch

On the a la carte breakfast menu.

Octopus salad, Caesar salad, greek salad, BBQ fish or meat, a burger and fries and a grilled vegetable sandwich.

Each day there is also a different lunch special from 12:30pm until 15:30pm: vegan detox bowl, tuna poke bowl, fish sandwich, fish and chips, curries with fish, meat or vegetables, octopus stew and vegetable biryani.

Desserts are fruits, a selection of cheeses, ice cream and a cake or tart of the day.

We especially enjoyed the octopus stew, the BBQ fish, curries and freshly baked cakes.

Dinner

There is a free a la carte dinner menu.

Starters: slow cooked octopus, vegetable tian and beef carpaccio.

Main courses: catch of the day, vegetable lasagna and beef tenderloin.

Desserts: chocolate fondant, coconut creme brulée and tiramisu.

We enjoyed our dinner here, great flavours and perfect execution.

Delicious!

You can book special dinners here for an extra fee: grilled local lobster (€60 p/p) and grilled prime rib for 2 (€70).

The wine list is quite expensive, but you can also just order the free table wine you get at the main restaurant.

Theatre and shows

We went to see 2 shows after dinner.

However we left before the end.

Was it us? Were we too tired?

Perhaps.

But we were not really blown away by what we saw.

Beach bar and water sports club

Right next to our room was the Club Med Seychelles watersports club and beach bar.

Here you can book a trip with a kayak, paddle board or go sailing.

Sailing lessons are also free, sign up for it before 11am.

Also free is a snorkelling trip by boat, twice a week at 9am on Mondays and Fridays.

You can take your own snorkeling masks, tubes and fins with you to Club Med Seychelles or borrow them right here at the sports club for free.

Enjoy a drink at the beach bar in the shade of the palm trees while looking at the deep blue sea and watching people sail. The bar closes at 6pm, there is music from 5pm onwards.

This is a great place to end a warm sunny day.

Scuba diving is also possible at Club Med Seychelles.

Go to the Padi centre between the jetty and Club Med Seychelles reception area for more information about trips and scuba diving lessons.

Watch our video from 25:05 onwards to get a more detailed idea of how the water sports club and beach bar look like.

Shuttle service

If you look at a map of Club Med Seychelles, everything looks close by.

However there are a couple of steep little hills to conquer if you want to get from one place to another. Especially if you are staying in a room behind the main restaurant area.

Golf shuttles are provided and ride around to pick up if you like. There are shuttle stops along the road or just wave at the driver if he rides past you to hitch a ride.

The shuttles are a very welcome way (and for some of the guests the only way) to get to the reception, main restaurant or zen pool.

But.

Finding a shuttle was more a miss than a hit around where we had our room. During the day you might get lucky since the tennis and archery fields were located near us and people would go there often.

However we have stood there at the shuttle stop waiting for half an hour without seeing anyone drive past. Yes, you can call the front desk and ask them to send a shuttle to your room. But that didn’t change things a lot. So often we just started to walk uphill in hopes of encountering a shuttle a little further.

And we would quite often end up walking all the way down to the reception ourselves.

Another Club Med Seychelles service that didn’t deliver.

Facilities

Other facilities, activities and games are also available here at Club Med Seychelles:

• fitness, gym and yoga
• wellness and spa
• tennis and paddle tennis
• archery
• pétanque (boules game)
• ping pong tables
• petit, mini and passworld club for kids between 2 and 17 years
• guided walks
• meeting rooms
• medical centre and ambulance service

PCR test

Medical staff at Club Med Seychelles assured us that a PCR test to fly back with Qatar Airways was absolutely mandatory.

So we took the test a day before leaving.

The results would be available at the reception the next day at 4pm.

By the time we had to leave for the airport at 5pm the results were still not in due to a system error at the lab.

A medical staff member assured us that we would get the results by email before checkin. And that a Club Med Seychelles representative would be at the airport to print out the test result if you were not able to connect to your inbox.

We left our email address and got on the shuttle boat.

At the airport we waited for any incoming emails but didn’t get anything. It took ages to find the Club Med Seychelles representative who wasn’t really informed about the situation, let alone able to print anything.

Other Club Med guests tried their luck, checked in and came back to tell us that no proof of a negative PCR test was being asked by Qatar Airways.

So we checked in as well.

We received our PCR test results at 7:30pm, 20 minutes before takeoff.

What a joke.

We paid €90 per person for a test that turned out to be purely optional, and totally useless because we got the results way too late.

We will ask for a refund, and keep you updated about our request here.

Leaving Club Med Seychelles

Check out is at 12pm.

You can ask the reception if you can get a late checkout (for an extra fee).

As we were leaving at 5pm, we still had a nice afternoon to spend at the zen pool. And so we were covered in sunscreen, sweat and sand.

The good news is that there are comfortable changing rooms here at Club Med Seychelles that you can use.

And yes, these came in handy. The changing rooms are located next to the Padi centre near the reception area. There is a separate one for both men and women. In it you will find a toilet, lockers (to put your fresh clothes in that you want to wear on the plane), 4 shower rooms, fresh bath towels, shower gel, shampoo, body lotion and a hair dryer.

You have to bring all the rest.

What we did was put our stuff in a locker around 12pm and also a fresh yellow bath towel to make sure you have one when you get ready. When we got back, there were no fresh towels anymore. Saves you the chance you have to walk down to the main pool to get towels, and end up not finding any there either.

Anyway, we were glad that we were able to take a good shower and get dressed in a comfortable and clean changing room before heading to the airport.

Great!

Would we go back to Club Med Seychelles?

Good question.

On one side we absolutely enjoyed the beautiful scenery, the postcard white sandy beaches and blue seas. Club Med Seychelles is located in one of the most beautiful places we have ever visited.

But a lot of service issues and details made our stay less comfortable.

Club Med Seychelles is excellent, but only worth 4 stars at most because that is the level of service you get – while we paid for a 5 star holiday experience.

We talked to quite a few guests and they all agreed that Club Med Seychelles is beautiful but definitely not what you would expect of a 5 star resort calling itself exclusive collection.

No excuses anymore after 6 months, we really think it is time to get the staff better trained and managed.

Would we recommend Club Med Seychelles?

If you are OK with the 4 star level of service, yes.

Taking all the flaws and mistakes into account, Club Med Seychelles still is a splendid and breathtaking resort.

Pros

• paradisiacal location
• spacious room, gorgeous pool and garden
• quiet adults only zen pool
• fantastic Monkey Tales bar staff
• excellent Indian and Creole food
• fabulous desserts and patisserie

Cons

• disorganised and inattentive restaurant staff
• hit and miss quality of buffet specialties
• hit and miss shuttle service
• hit and miss room service
• misleading info on PCR tests
• lots of mosquitos

And you?

Have you been to Club Med Seychelles?

What are your thoughts about our review?

Do you want to go but you still have a couple of questions?

Perhaps we can answer them!

Leave us a comment in the comment box below and we will get back to you asap!

Address

Club Med Seychelles
Sainte Anne Island
Seychelles

You can book here: Club Med

We paid for our stay at Club Med Seychelles and didn’t get or ask anything in return for this review.