Mauritius

[thornbury]

We are a 50-something empty nest couple looking at our first trip to Mauritius. Other recent holidays were to Thailand and Maldives, as we holiday in December rather than in the UK summer.

We are looking for a villa with a private pool (not a glorified bathtub, but obviously it won't be Olympic standard either!) and it could be in a resort as part of a hotel complex, or stand alone, or part of a resort of similar villas. I can see that all of these are available. We don't want to find ourselves in a villa miles from shops and restaurants, and would like gym access if possible, but the difference between hotel prices and villa rental is significant. We plan to go for 12-14 days so don't want to be cooking for ourselves or continually shopping for fresh food for breakfast etc. - I have seen some resorts with villas deliver breakfast to the room or have a restaurant on site which is included, or can be.

I wonder if anyone has any recommendations? We don't mind if it's not beachfront. DH will be diving but there seem to be plenty of dive centres so we doubt we will be too far from one of those.

If diving is a big focus of your trip (for DH) he should do some research and base where you stay on where and with who he wants to dive. We stayed at Zilwa attitude hotel in the North and dived with Dodo divers who were excellent. 2 year later we stayed in the west coast at Ravenala attitude hotel and avoided the dive outfit based in the hotel (they weren’t local, did not have great reviews) but went with the one in the hotel across the river called Maritim - great wreck dive Stella Maru just off the coast from there.
It is supposed to be a lot windier east coast, but diving still good.
The hotels all seem to do all inclusive deals, or just bed and breakfast, I’m sure booking your own villa might be cheaper but the private pool options within resorts will be more expensive.