So Beach Villas — Hotel in Isle Mauritius

We stayed in Vila 1 and booked through Villanovo which calls this Nautilus 1 (not So Beach Villas - which is the actual name).||||Overall we had a wonderful holiday and really enjoyed the villa. I think it is important to understand where you are though - especially if you are a first timer to Mauritius like we were. You are on the east coast which has some real positives - it is much quieter than the west, it feels much cleaner (including the water) and the beaches (in my opinion) are prettier (including the one where this villa is located.||||There are a couple of things to be aware of though - you are isolated compared to the west so you really need a car. The island is much bigger than you think, so getting across to the restaurants in the west is about a 30 minute drive. There are not a lot of eating options in the area - while there are quite a few hotels with (apparently) very good restaurants, in busy periods (like Christmas when we went), they are not taking anyone from outside of the hotel. As we had young kids with us and didn't want to be doing a 30 minute drive each way to a restaurant, when ended up getting a private chef (who was excellent and affordable - see my review in the Mauritius forum). You can of course cook yourself as the villa has a fully equipped kitchen and BBQ - but we wanted the time off! The east also seems to get the worst of the weather - we had a fair bit of wind (when the west was very calm) and seaweed (but it is the ocean, so not much you can do about that). ||||In terms of the villa itself, it is much bigger than we expected. It was in good condition, kept very clean by the housekeeper Sarita who is a lovely lady. It is a very short walk to the beach so there is no reason to pay a premium to be any closer (unless you get one of the ones with the ocean views). One concern we had was that it was very close to the main road but that road is very quiet so we heard no noise from there. We had seen some reviews say that you need to get your own things like toilet paper, shower gel etc. as you get a small amount to start with and these are not replaced - this is true (but the supermarkets are not too far away). The pool is small but was perfect for our 5 and 1 year old (and it was warm) - only negative is that they need to clean it more than once per week as any bit of tropical rain (which is quite common) leaves it dirty again.||||Overall a great experience and I definitely preferred the east coast - with a couple of caveats to be aware of as...

Amazing stay. Was delighted to see the hospitality and the facilities. Steven the manager, introduced the apartment and facilities to us. They prepared Indian veg curry with rice as a one time meal which is customer delight.|Things to note:|Beautiful villa 3 bedroom, hall, kitchen, dining area and a pool.|Appliances like microwave, juicer, toaster, oven, coffee maker, dishwasher, iron and washing machine were provided.|Small but significant things like first aid box, board games, scented candles, kids cutlery, high chair were provided.|A pool of area 15ft x 8ft was part of the apartment which is cleaned every week and has moving water.|Many beach towels were in the drawer. |Barbecue grill was also in the apartment.|2 tv area. One at ground the other at level 1. Mostly French channels are shown.|The blankets were very soft made of Egyptian wool.|Super market is 5 minutes from car.|There are couple of restaurants.|You need to have a car to be mobile.|The beach has kayaks available.|Halls have Fans and ACs are only in bedrooms.|Everyday maid does the cleaning. Can optionally cook as well.|Overall, I would love to...

The villa is spacious, comfortable but not 5-star as Booking.com states! The positives are as follows: spacious bathrooms, nice showers, and lovely staff. The minor drawbacks: somewhat tired-looking furniture, upstairs tv did not work, narrow kitchen, floors were not mopped everyday, so not ideal with four young children, lack of thorough cleaning, towels not replaced, minimal breakfast (no variety), very small pool, rugged or lack of lawn, no outside dining facility other than a couple of cane furniture. Lina, Yaasin and Zennat were very nice. A lovely Mauritian lunch was prepared for us on our first day. The beach is truly out of this world, still virgin in many aspects. Beware occupiers of other villas in the vicinity claim that their patch of beach is private and force you away: there is no such thing...no beaches in Mauritius are private and they are accessible to all people, so don't let...