Palm Beach Hotel Praslin

This colonial style hotel could have been a nice place to stay. Located right at the Grand Anse beach on the island of Praslin it sounds perfect, but unfortunately the ambience was very unfriendly and depressing.

The 16 spacious rooms are all facing the beach, which give you a nice view of the sunset from your balcony. Our room was not particularly clean and it was not equipped with what the brochure said. The satellite TV did not work, the mini-bar was only an empty refrigerator and the A/C did not work half of the time. There was no shower curtain in the bathroom, which converted the bathroom floor into a pool after each shower. This also made the floor very slippery and dangerous.

If you bring your own laptop it can be used in the room at a fee of €20 pr stay. If you don´t have your own, you can use internet in the reception for €3 pr 15 minutes.

The restaurant overlooks the see and serves creole and international cuisine. We ate there the first night. The setting was uninviting and it was too dark to see what you ate. I ordered a tuna steak, but got a small horrible tasting bony fish instead. The chef did not seem to be very skilled. May be that´s why they kept the restaurants so dark, so you could not see what you were eating!

The breakfast was pretty sad too. White toast, rice crispies and marmalade. There was a chef there to make omelette and fried eggs, but he was rude and unfriendly, so you did not want to ask him for anything. It was also very uncomfortable with all the birds and dogs running around in the restaurant. The birds were hopping around on the toasts on the buffet, but no one seemed to care.

Most of the staff was actually rude, unfriendly and arrogant. "Please" and "Thank you" did not exist in their vocabulary. They all seemed very unhappy. After we left the hotel I learned that the staff was very badly treated by the management. They were underpaid and had to work very long days.

At the beach there were deck chairs, but be warned. I thought I´d spend a nice afternoon at the beach in the shade of the palm trees. Big mistake! The palm trees were full of mosquitos. You can neither see them nor hear them. After a couple of hours I had so many bits. At the beach there were some canoes, but no one told us that they belonged to the hotel and were free for the guests to use.

Kato Cars, car rental has its small cars at the hotel and they can be rented for €40 a day including free milage.

Palm Beach Hotel is a fairly new hotel with a beautiful location, so it could have been the perfect place to stay, but unfortunately the atmosphere is unfriendly and it is very badly managed. The price for Bed & Breakfast was €120/€95 for double/single.