12 hrs in Mauritius ... What does one do ?
 

Hi All

I'll be in Mauritius this Dec and have roughly 12 hours to spare, so looking for some ideas on what i can do during this time ?

I know it's not a huge amount of time but hopefully i can squeeze some new experiences in :)

This is my first time there so all tips/ideas are welcome :D


Thanks !

So you bit the bullet and have gone to MRU. That's great!

Yeah been reading some of the TRs to MRU to prep myself :D

I will do the same in Feb but have extended my turnover time to 1,5 days to make use of a little beach stop (one-night stay) at near-airport resort Shandrani. Initially, I was looking for a day spa to spend my 12 hours but couldn't find anything nice within a short transfer time to/from airport.

Just returned from MRU last weekend. Will fly the inbound next year. Glad you got one of these before they were pulled.

How long did you stay ? :)


Been reading some TRs and just googling some places and the place is really beautiful .. Too bad i havent got time as would have liked to have spent a day or 2 before leaving ...

The island isn't huge. Rent a car and go driving? :)

Go offshore banking - from what i hear, definitely one of the most scenic places to visit your money ;)

Thanks for the replies guys , I'll update this thread with my experiences when I'm back :)

Cheers,

One more thing ... During my research online I read that accommodation should be booked prior to arriving ... as I'm there only for 12 hours would Immigrations create a problem for me ? If yes then i suppose I could just book a budget hotel ;)

I'm Back
 

What a trip ... We had a great time and managed to see almost all the places i wanted to see !

My experience was as follows:

Arriving into MRU is a huge problem ... It took us nearly 2 hours to get out of the airport . There are only 8 immigration desks and all of them are painfully slow .... even the lines for Mauritian citizens moved slowly and they had to fill an additional health form in addition to the Arrival cards. From what i read online - airlines give the pax the arrival card on the flight , This must have changed now as EK didnt do this and once we deplaned the immi guys were handing it out when we approached the counters and were lining up.

So an entire plane of people were filling the forms at the same time and then lining up ... i told my wife to stand in line while i filled in the cards to save a little time.

Once we were out we hopped into a pre-arranged taxi and went for a tour of the Island and managed to fit both the North and South in which was great !

We went to:
> Port Louis
> Pamplemousse Gardens
> Chamarel
> Black River Gorges National Park
>Moi Choisy beach and caught a nice festival there ( international fete i think)

On the way back to airport our driver invited us for dinner at his house too ...real nice guy and the same goes for all Mauritian people we met ... real friendly in a good way.The place is beautiful, but except for their white beaches I feel NZ is much more greener :D .... We weren't ready for the lower standard of living we saw there.

So there you have it, a very full 10 hrs and we could've fit more in but my wife was tired so just decided to come back to the airport .. the driver's house was a good detour as we saw a trio of Mayan pyramids on the other side of the airport en-route.

This did present a problem as they repeatedly asked me where we were staying even though we were departing the same day ... finally I provided the solution to them myself and said " We're in transit" to which they had no issue and stamped our passports :D :rolleyes:

Also they had a tough time understanding how/why we were leaving the same day so be prepared to say the same explanations repeatedly in a polite manner :)

We managed to see quite a lot in the 10 hours we had but it's best to stay for a night or 2 as the hotels give you massive duplex rooms for a relatively paltry sum as opposed to elsewhere in the world. :eek:

Great! And how was the Palm? :D

Absolutely wonderful ... was a bit worried from all the -ve reviews but WOW we had an awesome time ! ....
Aquaventure was great fun, Leap of faith was not that scary :D ... And the Aquarium was a brilliant .. Although when we went to Dubai Mall and saw their Aquarium ... Atlantis lost some ground & didnt come out on top ... Dubai Mall had plenty of sharks and was done better i reckon ...

My MRU & DXB Trip Report
 

Hi All

If anyone is interested , I've posted my TR in the Trip Reports forum :D

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...n-ek-gold.html