Originally Posted by
so3003
Thanks - 11 full days there, with travel on the adjacent days either end. We arrive on the Air France evening flight and return on the morning flight. I think we would plan to return to Reunion for at least one full day before travelling home to avoid stress, but not fixed on that.
It's safe indeed to return to RUN max the evening before. Knowing this and with a 8 y.o. kid, I would do 5 days in each, or 6 days Réunion / 4 days Mauritius. Of course, rental car is needed on both islands.
For accommodation, in Réunion, you could split your stay in 2 different places : one in/around St Denis and the other one in the south. In Mauritius, I have always stayed at Sofitel in Flic-en-Flac (west coast) and it was lovely. But there are tons of nice laces over there.