With friends: rooms for three, evenings that last

A trip with friends is not planned like a honeymoon or a family holiday. The questions change: how many beds in a room, not merely how many people; what to do together during the day; how late the bar stays open, and whether there is somewhere else to go afterwards.

In Mauritius, most hotel rooms are designed for two adults, sometimes with a child. A few houses nonetheless have rooms that sleep three adults, apartments, plenty of twin beds and an evening life that does not end at dinner. Here are seven addresses where a small group will find its place.

The Mauricia has its feet in the lagoon and its head in the village: it stands in the heart of Grand Baie, next to the Grand Baie Yacht Club, and the shops, nightlife and casino of the town are all within walking distance. For a group, its accommodation goes beyond the usual for a four-star hotel: the thirty-eight-square-metre Superior room takes four people, while the two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment, the loft, the 160-square-metre villa and the one apartment with a pool each take five.

Water sports are included: water-skiing, wakeboarding, sailing, windsurfing, kayaking, paddleboarding. The Bay Watch Bar, open from 9am to 11pm, looks straight out over the bay. On the optional all-inclusive package, dinners can also be taken at the Shandrani, the Victoria or the Canonnier, three other Beachcomber hotels on the island.

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Ocean Villas

★★★Grand BaieSee the hotelBook on Booking.com →

Ocean Villas is a town hotel rather than a beach hotel, and that is what makes it a base for a group come to explore the north. Its thirty-eight rooms are contemporary in style; the Deluxe rooms, of twenty-seven to thirty square metres, come with a large bed or two twins, which makes life simpler for two friends sharing.

The roof does the rest. An infinity pool, a restaurant and a bar-lounge look out over the ocean and the mountains in the distance, and the bar is open from 7am to 11pm. In the evening, Manzu serves Asian teppanyaki cooked in front of diners, and Grand Baie is a short walk away.

At Bain Bœuf, facing the island of Coin de Mire, this three-star hotel of one hundred and twenty-two rooms has its own catamaran, the Attitude. It goes out for the day, from 10am to 4pm, with a snorkelling stop near Coin de Mire and a barbecue on board at extra cost; it sails again at sunset, for dinner, and even for nights on board. It is a way of spending a whole day together on the water without leaving the hotel.

The Deluxe rooms, of thirty-five square metres, sleep three adults, as do the forty-square-metre Deluxe Family rooms. Evenings are lively five times a week, with séga, live music, a DJ or open-air cinema, and a musical campfire, the boma, is held once a week. The beach lies on the other side of the coast road.

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Veranda Tamarin Hotel & Spa

★★★TamarinSee the hotelBook on Booking.com →

On Tamarin Bay, in the west, the Veranda Tamarin has designed twelve units that suit friends as much as families: thirty square metres, a single bed on a mezzanine, and room for three adults. Its Explorer programme is split between culture and discovery on one side and sport and adrenaline on the other: a surf school on site, dolphin watching, kayaking on the Rempart river, the Tamarin salt pans, kitesurfing at the Heritage C Beach Club.

At sunset, everything happens on the roof terrace, reserved for adults, with its bar and pool. Local music livens up the hotel every weekend.

A hundred and fifty metres from the beach at Trou aux Biches, Le Palmiste has a category that is rare for a group: the sixty-three-square-metre Superior Family room, which sleeps up to four adults. Together with the Superior room, it comes with free access to the sauna and hammam, which the other categories do not.

A hundred rooms spread over five wings, three pools, an outdoor hot tub and an exotic garden shape the life of the hotel around a central courtyard. Le Cateau Vert serves a different themed buffet every evening, and the week is punctuated by a séga show, a Mauritian cultural show, live music and a disco.

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Ambre Mauritius

★★★★Belle MareSee the hotelBook on Booking.com →

At Palmar, on the east coast, the Ambre is an adults-only all-inclusive, and it makes no secret of its evenings. The H&H Lounge Bar is open from 6pm to 2am, with sports matches and karaoke nights, drinks becoming chargeable after 11pm; the Ti-Bar serves the daily creations of a Mauritian mixologist, made with local spices and herbs; and the hotel has its own nightclub, Shakers.

The day is included too: golf at the Île aux Cerfs club, two floodlit tennis courts, a fitness centre, kayaking, Laser sailing, windsurfing and paddleboarding. Every category sleeps three adults except the simplest, the thirty-square-metre Superior Room: from the Deluxe Sea-Facing, with twin beds or a king, to the eighty-square-metre Ambre Suite.

On the south coast, at Bel Ombre, the Tamassa offers all-inclusive stays in two hundred and fourteen rooms, seventy of which have two separate beds. The forty-six-square-metre Superior rooms, the Beach rooms and the Ocean Superior rooms take three adults, and the Family suites, of up to eighty-six square metres with two connecting rooms, take six.

In the evening, local artists perform every day, and the Jalsa combines a nightclub and karaoke. Four pools, long gardens by the beach and a spa of fourteen double treatment rooms fill the days. In the end, these seven houses say the same thing: among friends, the room matters less than what happens around it, and what counts is being able to come home late without taking the road.