Sheraton Deva is located about 2 hours from the airport, so you’ll either need to book a shuttle lift or a car (which we did, a good idea as we could go to neighbouring beaches). We booked our stay via Luxury Escapes as a package with breakfast daily and some resort credit.
The Sheraton is resort living, where you’re staying either in a bungalow by the beach or in the gardens or in some of their suites (further from the main building). You’re there to relax, for there are limited options to do things other than beach, golf or pool. Reef tours are available via a glass bottom boat, leaving from the hotel beach or nearby Poe Beach.
Accessibility wise, there’s golf carts that will take you everywhere, your rooms, the pool, the spa etc, but everything is easily walkable as well. Keep in mind it is busier on the weekend, and harder to get your golf cart and the restaurant was very busy. But we liked that they had live music in the bar on Friday and Saturday nights.
The bungalow is spacious, with a large bed, couch, separated bath and shower space, a fridge / kettle and TV (but that’s all in French). There’s a little deck and chairs outside to relax.
The resort pool is great, really big, heaps of chairs, a spa and some pool toys/noodles. It’s not heated but the weather was lovely when we were there. You can also order food or drinks to your deck chair.
Food wise, since the resort is 2.5 hours from Noumea, you basically need to eat in the resort. There is only one restaurant open in the evening, it relatively fancy and pricy (open from 6:30pm). However, they are accommodating with children. There’s plenty of options for them to order and if under 4, the kid eats free. Theres good high chairs too. We also had nice meals there, a tofu stir fry, tasty steak and lamb dishes.
For other meals, the bar otherwise has a few tapas options (like wings, squid and spring rolls), as well as pizza. There’s much better options there at lunch with bento boxes and paninis. There’s a grill on the beach that’s open for 2 hours over the lunch period with lovely views of the beach and reef, grilled seafood and meat options.
Drink wise, there’s good cocktail and wine/beer list. Coffee can be bought – machine made.
A buffet is served for breakfast daily (and Friday and Saturday nights), and the breakfast had plenty of hot options, omelette station, breads, cereals, yoghurt, fruit, pastries, hams and cheeses and a coffee machine. They do need more protection over the food as the sparrows were getting into everything. Service by wait staff was always friendly.
For relaxing, you can visit the Deep Nature Spa where you can buy a half day pass for access to use the plunge spa, hamman steam room and sauna. There’s also a little fridge with snacks there for you. The day spa offers services such as facial, waxing, massage and scrubs. Staff here were really kind and helpful.
Attached to the spa is a gym with treadmills, bikes and free weights. The one weight machine was broken (needed a technician to fix it).
They have a nice golf course which is very scenic and it is in decent condition. The greens could be better, but roll true. To play, it’s a tricky course off the plates, it played pretty long, a few long par 3s close to 200 m, and some 500 + m par 5s, quite thick in the rough, so hit the ball straight. Since it was quiet, it was quick to get around in 2.5 hours playing solo. It cost about $150 to play 18 holes including club hire and cart, Titleist clubs that were quite easy to work the ball. There’s also a small driving range and practice chipping and putting green which was well priced with unlimited balls for $10.
Unfortunately the main issue for us was the kids club was closed. We had booked this place basically to use that so to find it was out of action was super annoying. The place otherwise isn’t that great for kids. There’s only one small park (that isn’t enclosed). Our recommendation would be to fence it, add some more equipment and some swings etc.
We had one communication issue with housekeeping. One day our room wasn’t cleaned and so I called twice, went to the front desk twice and it still never got cleaned. This meant we had dirty towels, rubbish and plates. I asked the next morning and it still didn’t get cleaned until daily route.
Overall, staff were super lovely, but being a French speaking country, communication can be tricky, depending on the staff member. For the most part they were good, but some front desk staff were hard to communicate with. We met the lovely manager who made the most amazing effort to talk to us. We also loved our golf cart driver Jeanne. On two days, we had a babysitter, Emilie from HR – a very sweet girl from France with perfect English.
A lovely place to stay if you’re keen for resort living and relaxing. I’d only go with small kids if the kids club was open and they had some more kiddie play spaces.
Lot 33 Domaine De DéVA Route De Poé B.P. 50 Bourail, 98870, New Caledonia