Honeymoon: eight hotels for starting out as two

A honeymoon does not necessarily call for an adults-only hotel. Above all it calls for somewhere to step aside: a terrace no one overlooks, a pool that belongs to you alone, a table laid for two. In Mauritius these attentions take very different forms, from a villa of more than three hundred square metres to the single suite of a hotel with sixteen rooms.

The eight hotels chosen here range from three stars to five, from the north coast to the west. Some name a Honeymoon suite outright, others set aside an entire wing for couples, others still make the private pool the rule. All of them allow a whole day to pass without meeting many people.

At Pointe aux Piments, on the shores of Turtle Bay, a protected marine park, the Oberoi houses every room under thatch, in a little over eight hectares of subtropical gardens. The villas with private pools keep their water at a regulated temperature through the cooler months, and many categories have a sunken marble bath and an open-air dining pavilion in their garden. The Premier Ocean View Villa is the closest to the shore, turned towards the Turtle Bay sunsets.

The spa, open only to hotel guests, has open-air treatment rooms for couples and offers Bubble and Bliss, a bath for two prepared in the room’s marble tub. For an evening apart, The Gunpowder Room, an eighteenth-century national monument with stone walls and floors, can be booked for a private dinner; the nights it opens vary.

AI-generated image

Maradiva Villas Resort & Spa

★★★★★Flic-en-FlacSee the hotelBook on Booking.com →

Sixty-four villas, all on one level, all with a heated private pool, across eleven hectares at Wolmar, in Flic en Flac: the Maradiva offers nothing else. The one-bedroom Luxury Suite Pool Villa measures 163 square metres, with a pool of fifteen square metres; the Exclusive Suite Pool Villa reaches 220 square metres, with a heated infinity pool of twenty-five square metres. In front of the estate, the beach runs for seven hundred and fifty metres, away from the crowds.

The spa, Ayurvedic in inspiration, has its own Ayurvedic doctor, who can follow the stay and have meals adapted. Butlers serve meals in the villas, and butler service can be requested in every villa.

In the sheltered cove of Turtle Bay, at Balaclava, thirty-four of the fifty-four suites have their own infinity pool, heated to twenty-eight degrees all year round and kept clean without chlorine. The three wellness sanctuaries, the Lily, the Orchid and the Rubia, are designed for two adults; the Orchid, at seventy-five square metres, adds a private garden, a hammam, an outdoor shower and a daybed under an awning.

There is no kids’ club, only a play corner: the house is turned towards couples and well-being. At Passion Creole the floor is sand and the bar stands in the water, and a dinner on the beach can be served by a dedicated butler.

The only Mauritian property in the Relais & Châteaux collection, which it joined in 2013, Maison 20 Degrés Sud has thirty-six rooms and suites on the Grand Baie lagoon, each laid out differently. Two categories speak directly to newlyweds. The Suite Secrète, the only one of its kind, rises over two levels, with a private pool beneath a majestic tree on the garden floor. The Suites Australes, of eighty to one hundred square metres, sit with their feet in the water, with a private terrace on the lagoon and either a hot tub or a private pool.

An offer pairs these two categories with dinner aboard the Lady Lisbeth, for stays of at least seven nights. The Secret Spa has three treatment rooms, one of them a double, intended for couples’ massages.

Le Méridien at Pointe aux Piments works as two houses. On one side, a family resort along a kilometre of white sand; on the other, Nirvana, a wing of fifty-one suites reserved for couples, with its own reception, infinity pool and pool bar, and a butler for every guest. Breakfast at Paparazzi, the Italian restaurant on the beachfront, is kept for them.

The sixteen Plunge Pool Hideaway suites, of 112 square metres, are on the ground floor in a private courtyard, with a plunge pool heated in winter and a large bath. The sixteen Romantic Allure rooms, on the first floor, have a panoramic view of the Indian Ocean.

At Calodyne, on the north coast, the Sea Diamond has only suites, seventy-three in all, in a tropical garden with direct access to the beach and a view of the northern islets. The Royal suites, of eighty to one hundred and four square metres, are the only ones with a private pool, and the house designed them for privacy. The Senior suites, of seventy-four square metres, can be taken on the beachfront, on the ground floor.

On some evenings, local musicians play at the pool bar, facing the lagoon, as the sun goes down, and the gourmet restaurant serves à la carte with a view of the ocean. The hotel also welcomes families.

Sixteen rooms in all, on the beach at Trou-aux-Biches, and among them a single Honeymoon suite: fifty-five square metres, an ocean view, a bath and direct access to the beach. The house, run by the Constance group under the name Constance Sakoa Boutik, has just one restaurant, Oak, which can set up a private dinner for a couple, with live music as an option.

The K Bar, on the beach, serves cocktails, rums and cigars, and it is from here that the sunset is watched. Treatments are taken at Constance Wellness, set at the edge of the beach.

AI-generated image

Hilton Mauritius Resort & Spa

★★★★★Flic-en-FlacSee the hotelBook on Booking.com →

At Wolmar, in Flic-en-Flac, the Hilton is first of all a family address, which is precisely what gives its Honeymoon category its value: just two suites, on the beachfront, of fifty-six square metres, with a king-size bed and a private terrace over the ocean. The infinity pool is for adults only, except in winter, when it is heated and opened to children as well.

Ginger Thai, the signature restaurant, serves Thai cooking among Thai works of art, and Coquillages lays dinner on the beach, under the stars. The Hibiscus Bar, beside the infinity pool, faces the sunset.

From one hotel to the next, it is often the room category, more than the house itself, that makes the honeymoon. So it is the first thing to choose, and early: several of these rooms exist in only one or two examples.