Mauritius 

• Location - Country in East Africa
• How to reach - Direct flight from Mumbai and Delhi.
• Time to reach - 4.5 hour - 6.5 hour flight(depending upon your start point
• Vacation type - Beach vacation
• Stay duration - We stayed for 5 night and 6 days. I would say, based on your interest in beach time you can plan between 4-15 days.
• Hotel/Resort - Long Beach Mauritius, a 5 star resort
• Flight costing  : Average flights(in 2024) cost range - 50K - 70K per person. 
• Hotel budget - Average cost of stay 50K-2L based on hotel and days. For us it costed us around 1.2L for a half board option for 5 nights and 6 days in 5 star resort

Mauritius - 

The planning - I had just recovered from my foot fracture and I desperately wanted to go on vacation. I wanted to go some sunny beach place. Although, we have so many beach places close to India like Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam etc. But it was month of August and it will be rainy season for all these Southeast Asian beach destination. So, we decided that we will go for either Mauritius or Seychelles. We zeroed down to Mauritius because of below reasons. 

1. Flight duration was shorter and cheaper for Mauritius. 
2. At the same budget I was getting better hotel deal in Mauritius.   

I finalised couple of resorts for the Mauritius, then out of curiosity I put query on travel triangle as well. I got couple of good response and I received a lot better deal via "Pocket friendly vacation" in India which had tie up with "Seaside holidays" tour provider in Mauritius. In terms of money I got same deal with airport pickup and drop with 3 day tour; from what I was trying to book on my own. So I booked the stay and 3 day tours via them.

Planned itinerary before going to Mauritius - 

1. Day 1 - Arrival 
2. Day 2 - City tour (visit to the famous diamond showroom, Shopping factory, Marie Reine De La Paix, Citadel fort and  Caudan waterfront in Port Louis, )
3. Day 3 -  ILX island tour (Ile Aux Cerfs island tour with other activities like sea walk, parasailing, tube ride and water fall.
4. Day 4 - Nature tour ( Trou Aux Dead volcano crater, Mare AuxVacos fresh water reservoir, Tea plantation field and the coloured valley)
5. Day 5 - Leisure day
6. Day 6 - Departure

Day 1  - We landed early morning and reached to our resort "The Long Beach." around 10 AM. Since there was still some time for check-in, they suggested have breakfast and hang around the resort until our rooms were ready. Just like any other 5 star hotels, the breakfast was filled with choice overload. There were multiple food choices and many live counters with different cousine like indian, continental, thai etc. After breakfast we started exploring the resort. The place was huge, with multiple restaurants and two massive pools, including awesome infinity pools facing the sea.We also discovered that there are multiple free activities like snorkeling, kayaking, paddleboarding, board surfing, and glass-bottom boat rides. We were planning to head to the beach and suddenly it got windy and cloudy, so we decided to relax in one of the beach shacks instead of going in the water. Afternoon we took a good nap and enjoyed dinner at restaurant called "Sapori".  

There were also multiple restaurants with delicious food, offering a variety of cuisines to satisfy our taste buds. Since we were on half board, we could choose any restaurant for dinner. They also gave is one complementary lunch couple which we can use on any day. 

 In the evening there was some live events and live music. In night we again went to the seashore and had a good walk. 

Pool -1

Pool-2 

The Evening vibes

Day 2 - It was day of city tour and cab were scheduled to come by 8.40 AM, we were ready on time but as soon as we started the trip, it began to rain. Our first stop was supposed to be a cloth factory, which was closed due to weather. Then the guide told we will go to Ship factory. Since Mauritius is an island, I assumed that it will be actual ship factory, but it turned out to be ship model and souvenir factory and then continued by shop where we could make purchases. This is one reason I don't like group tours and tour agents. Nevertheless, we bought one ship model for my son and souvenir for friends and families. From there, we visited fort Adelaide in port louis, a hilltop fort built by British to protect post louis from French and other invasions. The fort offers a 360-degree panoramic view of the city. Afterward, we explored Port Louis city center on our own and enjoyed a nice lunch with a beautiful view.

We returned around 5 PM and were very tired. The tour operator mentioned that we need to leave again at 8 AM tomorrow morning, which was a bit irritating as we came here to relax and don't appreciate being forced to wake up early. However, I am excited about day two, as it is full of activities and beach time without any city or market visits.

The Ship factory

Fort Adelaide

Fort Adelaide

Port Louis city center

Port Louis city center

Day 3 - It was day trip to island Ile Aux cerf. Once we reached to the port for the boat to the island, we were offered multiple activities to do before going there, like visiting to the waterfall, under water sea walking, parasailing and a bumpy ride. We chose to do all the activities. I have done parasailing twice in India but this experience was completely different, The turquoise color sea, beautiful mountains of Mauritius in the distance made it a unique experience. You can observe big fishes in the clear water as well. It took around three hours to finish all activities. By the time we reached Ile Aux island we were very hungry and the boat departure was in the next 1.5 hour. We quickly had pizza for lunch. then enjoyed clear turquoise sea for 15-20 min before it was time to go back. Although we had lot of water activities, we felt we could not enjoy the sea enough. So we decided not go to any tours next day, and we decided to relax and enjoy the sea and resort. As soon as we returned to resort, we head to the sea. 

Waterfall

Paragliding

Paragliding

Photo bombing fishes. :)

Sea walk

Bumpy ride

Day 4 - Aaah... finally the relax day. We spent first half mostly at pool or beach enjoying sun and sand.We did the glass bottom boat ride and snorkelling in the resort . The evening was also very nice, with awesome dinner and very beautiful and tasty desserts. Today's live performance was also very enjoyable. I was still worried and concern about my foot, and making sure I should not do anything stupid again but I could not control my dancing craving on the music they were playing 😀.

Just Chill chill

Kayaking

Day 5 - We woke up lazily today and had late breakfast. Today we planned to opt for the free lunch we got on the day of arrival. Since it was windy we planned to be at pool side instead of going to sea. We spent almost whole day drinking and soaking in the sun. Post lunch we did the free activities like kayaking and standup paddle. I wanted to go for snorkeling again but we already booked the nature walk organised by the resort so we skipped the second round of snorkeling. Whole evening we spent in the room dancing and having fun. We had to leave our room for dinner. Today, they had some local market stalls. I bought some beautiful bowls made of coconut shells and with sea-shell work.

Standup paddle

Nature Walk

We stayed there for 6 days but I could have spent another seven days without getting bored. I also read about multiple trekking options and we would have been done one of them, if my leg would have been fine. Anyways we discussed to come back again here so I can plan for trekking whenever I come back to Mauritius.

Thank you for reading. 💙