Our trip took place 31 Oct to 9 Nov 2003, sorry but it took a while to write this report. We booked with Emirates Holidays because we live in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Emirates Airlines had recently introduced a daily flight to Mauritius, from Dubai and offered free coach (bus) transfers from Abu Dhabi to Dubai. Dubai airport is absolutely fabulous and the duty free shop is huge and excellent, but I digress.

We had heard good things about Mauritius from our European friends in Abu Dhabi and thought we would give it a go for a 9-day holiday. We also planned on linking up with our daughter who lives in South Africa (we bought her ticket Johannesburg to Mauritius, return).

Our holiday adventure began on Emirates Air flight EK701 that had a scheduled departure time of 02:30AM. We have discovered that the Arabs are ‘’night people’’ and Dubai airport is quite an active place after midnight. Many flights depart in the wee dark hours so as to arrive at their distant destinations in the early AM, thus affording their passengers a full first day at their destination.

Some rather ‘’dry’’ flight information, courtesy of the small video screen mounted in the seat in front of us, Cruising Altitude 39,000 ft, speed 553 MPH (Ground speed) distance 3,200 miles South of Dubai (20 degrees South, 57 degrees 35 minutes East Longitude. Or Just South of the Tropic of Capricorn and East of Madagascar)

We arrived at 08:45 AM (Same Time Zone) to a pleasant 22 degrees C, which was about 10 degrees cooler than Dubai. Being in the Southern Hemisphere, it was springtime. We discovered that the island is of volcanic origin surrounded by barrier reefs, which guard the shores from crashing waves, generated in the open sea. The islands topography consists of volcanic mountains with fertile plains towards the centre portion. Sugar cane and pineapple are the main crops seen. The island is clean and appeared well ordered. The residential buildings are constructed of concrete columns and slabs with concrete block exterior and interior walls, which are plastered over. The houses are basic design (no architectural award winners here) and some houses have bits of rusty reinforcing bars protruding from the roof or side walls, probably to accommodate some future expansion plans.

We were booked into the Merville Beach Hotel, in Grand Baie, located on the North Western part of the island. We were met by a driver from White Sands Tours who took us on the 1-½ hour ride from the airport to the hotel via the M2 motorway. Top speed limit on the island is a comfortable 80 KPH and they drive on the left.

The hotel consists of two buildings of 3 levels with a grassed and landscaped courtyard area. The rooms enter from the courtyard side and then open up towards the seaside. We had a ground level room billed as garden view and with a little bit of a look over the garden and grassed areas we could see the sea. The hotel also has a grouping of about a dozen two level cottage type buildings, which contained three rooms. There is a nice beach area complete with free water sports for guests (pedallo, kayaks, glass bottom boat ride, water ski, wind surfing lessons/usage, use of ‘’laser’’ type sail boats and snorkeling. For a fee guests can engage in big game fishing, catamaran cruises, private ski lessons, ski tube ride and speed boat trips.

The town of Grand Baie is within a 10 minute relatively easy (flat terrain) walk, although the public works department was engaged in digging up the centre of the main road and installing new drainage lines which made that portion of the walk a bit dusty, especially as taxi drivers passed thru the area.

We would rate the hotel as being at a three star level. Our ‘’plan’’ consisted of room and ½ board, which gives breakfast and dinner at their restaurant and leaves the guest free to explore the islands restaurants for lunch.

We rated the hotel’s (diner) food and table service as poor. Hard to get the attention of the wait staff and the food was what my wife calls ‘’functional’’, not great. Breakfast was buffet style, but it was still hard to attract the wait staffs attention to get coffee or a refill. We elected to try our luck for dinner at the local restaurants in Grand Baie and discovered Luigi’s Pizzeria and Pasta Bar (out door patio family dining). Excellent pasta and fish and focattia bread (did not try the pizza). Reasonable prices, a meal for three with a bottle of white wine, 1,500 Rupees (equivalent of $50 USD). We ate there twice. Also ate at Keg & Marlin and would rate that place as fair.

We hired an Avis 4x4 for the day to explore Port Luis (Capitol City). Driving right hand drive stick shift car on the left side of the road was an adventure for me, however our daughter, who is a pro at left side driving in Johannesburg served as an excellent guide for her dear old dad. Her constant reminders to ‘’Stay to the centre dad!!’’ were appreciated and kept us out of trouble several times when old right side of the road driving habits surfaced.

We took two tours with White Sands, one an all day catamaran sail on a large boat that held 43 people, included dolphin sighting, snorkeling, swimming and lunch. Our other tour was a coach tour of ‘’nature’’. We drove up and down mountains including the islands highest point, stopped to view waterfalls, an extinct volcano, a Hindu temple complete with monkeys freely scrambling around. After lunch at a small restaurant high in the mountains (only customers were other White Sands tourists) we went to ‘’Casela Bird Park’’ where we saw lions, tigers, tropical fish and yes, many birds including some ducks that are native to North Carolina (say what??).

Dad and daughter went on a scuba diving tour (to a depth of 10 meters) and enjoyed the underwater reef life and other assorted fish that swam by in the crystal clear water.

Trip summary:
Bad point – Hotel food and wait staff service. To be fair, when we were picked up for the two tours we took, the coach picked up customers at other hotels and during the course of the day we enquired how they liked where they were staying, etc and discovered that their hotel food and service was also not great.

Good points – Lovely island, hotel was good (except as noted above) and well maintained. The hotel had a hospitality room for those with late afternoon flights. You could use the beach and then shower up and change in the hospitality room.

Our return flight left at 11:45 PM and we arrived in Dubai at 05:55 AM.

Mauritius is definitely worth a visit. Travel times (approximate). U.S.(Chicago) to London 6 hours, London Dubai 7 Hours, Dubai Mauritius 7 hours. Then there is the time between planes to factor in (London & Dubai).