Flight to Mauritius - direct or via Dubai?

[KiplingAngelCake]

Hello all - am about to book flights for a family wedding in Mauritius and need to decide whether to fly direct with BA or via Dubai with Emirates.

The Emirates flights would have a 2-3hr stopover. I think it would be good to stretch legs, have a proper meal, and Emirates in-flight service supposed to be much better than BA.

DH thinks a stopover is crazy and we should go direct.

DCs are 10 and 7.

Any thoughts? Thanks

We flew via Dubai when the DC were 7 and 2 and loved the stopover. It meant that they weren't cooped up for that whole time, had chance to move and run and it helped break up the time in a much easier way than a direct flight might have.

Is it a direct night flight? That's definitely worth doing we did that twice (although that was Air Mauritius). In any event I hate brief stopovers, you land, wait, get up, gather all the bags, shuffle to the doors, sometimes go through security again, mooch in shops for half an hour before nervously heading for the next departure lounge, going through security again (this was Doha), queue up to board, queue down the aisles behind faffers, stow your bags, wait for late passengers, eventually take off, and then go through it all again on landing on Mauritius.

Fly direct and overnight. You lose no holiday time, minimal jet lag, kids can watch movies and sleep.

We flew direct with BA last year with a 3 year old, both night flights. We just slept and watched movies. It was fine. My daughter actually slept most of the way there and back which surprised me no end! Much better than having to wake up and disembark in the middle of the night in my opinion...

We flew via Istanbul with Turkish air which a lot cheaper than going fldirect it via Dubai. Really good flight and there’s loads of shops, food outlets etc at Istanbul to kill some time.

Direct night flight is definitely your best option. The stop off is very faffy and fraught and you’ll arrive exhausted rather than just tired.

Oh, Emirates do have the best inflight entertainment though.

Deends where you are flying from. If London, it’s quicker to go direct. If not you might as well go emirates as they are better than air Mauritius or BA and transfer time is similar to travel time to London anyway.

100% direct and the night flight

You won’t want to get off and faff about, 3h isn’t really enough to do much by the time you’ve got off anyway.

Direct with children definitely

We flew direct with Air Mauritius last April from Heathrow with our then six year old. Flights each way departed in the evening and can honestly say the time flew by...pardon the pun! Service was great and we all slept for at least 8 hours..daughter for almost the entire flight!

Direct. Don’t drag it out with a stopover.

Another vote for a direct night flight with Air Mauritius. Did it with 3 yo DD. The thought of a quick stop over and having to do the whole getting off/getting on the plane for a quick walk around duty free and and food wouldn't persuade me. Get there as quickly as you can and start your holiday .

Pretty unanimous then! Thanks all - we will go direct :-)

Direct for sure

1. Interchange at dubai is a bit of a faff
2. When i fly via dubai there are always delays!!

Shortest travel time route.
Usually direct, but might not be, if say you are an hour from Birmingham, and 3 hrs from Heathrow. Then going BHX-DBX-Mauritius might make more sense than direct from London.
Do NOT go through Istanbul until they have sorted out the new airport.

Air Mauritius direct. Their economy class has 4 inches more leg room. Service is on a par with BA.

Direct. And Dubai isn't for everyone.

No brained
Direct

We did the stop over for 3 days in Dubai going out. Was lovely and loved the 3 days in Dubai. We did a 3 hour stop over in Dubai in the way back. It was awful and I wished we had done a direct. We loved mauritus! Deffo get out and explore we hired a driver to take us on a day long tour around the island and it was incredible

We've done BA direct several times. It always seems to be overnight on the outbound but I think there are day and night flights on the return.
It's hard going but so worth it.

I'd avoid Air Mauritius if you can. Not all their planes have the extra room, and we have experienced huge variations in the standards.

The overnight BA flight is very good. I've done the via Dubai route and we swore never again, you get to Dubai in the small hours, feeling absolutely knackered, have about 3 hours to kill and then have to get on another plane at about 6am. I'd rather go direct and sleep.

Thanks again all - great advice. Booking BA direct!

Where are you staying? We were at the zilwa attitude and loved it