Extraordinary Africa > Mauritius > LUX Belle Mare
LUX Belle Mare is a 5* luxury hotel with a serious sense of fun. Combine all the polish you’d expect of one of the better hotels in Mauritius, with an outdoor cinema, telephone boxes where you can phone home to boast about your stay, and “messages in a bottle” scattered daily in the grounds. We’re not at all competitive, but the chance to win a spa treatment or a special dinner did have us searching the shrubbery a bit more closely than we might normally have done!
What’s LUX Belle Mare really like?
When LUX took over at Belle Mare Kelly Hoppen swept in to redecorate, giving all 174 suites a laid-back beach house vibe, in keeping with LUX Belle Mare’s effortlessly chic feel. Most of the rooms are Junior suites (you can choose to pay a little extra for one that’s quietly tucked away, or has an ocean or pool view) and some of them interconnect to make a family suite. If you fancy splashing out, the honeymoon and ocean suites are nearly 50% larger including a rather lovely private terrace. Personally, we’d pay extra for the honeymoon suite based on the lovely bathtub alone. There’s also the vast LUX Suite (complete with private solarium) and tucked away at one end of the resort, there are 12 rather gorgeous private villas, each with their own small pool.
As befits a resort on this scale, you have a fair few restaurants to choose from- as well as a pretty scrumptious buffet, there’s an incredibly elegant Chinese restaurant, one down on the beach, and a (very) fine-dining Indian restaurant. We also loved the rum shack here- it’d be very easy to spend many disgraceful hours sampling Mauritius’s finest here. And the morning after? Well, LUX has it’s own in-house coffee roaster which is the perfect kick-start to your morning. Our two top tips? First, if you have any restaurant preferences, please let us know so we can secure space for you in advance and secondly, men are also asked to wear trousers in the evening in most of the restaurants, so it’s worth packing a pair.
What can I do at LUX Belle Mare?
Beyond the main hotel there’s a lovely sweep of fairly shallow beach and a vast swimming pool for you to wallow in. There’s also a fabulous spa, for over 18’s only- but no need to worry, there’re two kids’ clubs for younger guests. One is for tiddlers aged 3-11 and the other for tweens aged 12-17. It looked pretty fun as an adult, but if you need further testimonial, our visit here was the only time we have ever seen children sprinting for the entrance of the kids’ club as soon as it opened. For something a little more active than a spa, LUX Belle Mare can offer waterskiing, snorkelling, kayaks, windsurfers, tennis courts, gym, beach volleyball and yoga. And for an extra fee there’s deep-sea fishing, diving, mountain biking and some excellent golf on Mauritius.
Giving back at LUX Belle Mare… Unusually for a Mauritian Hotel, Lux Belle Mare makes a big fuss about its commitment to sustainable travel, and offers all guests a chance to offset 100% of the carbon from their stay. It also offers education to staff and local school children, and works with Pack for a Purpose, so if you’d like to do your bit, just let us know and we can tell you what’s needed most.
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