The lagoon is the whole point. Pick the right boat.
Which catamaran to Ile aux Cerfs actually feeds you. What the dolphin swim off Tamarin costs at dawn. Whether Le Morne is a hike or a climb. Reviews of every tour you can book in Mauritius.
Ile aux Cerfs, the dolphins at Tamarin, Le Morne, the Port Louis market.
The four bookings a first week in Mauritius is built around. What each one costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The lagoon dayIle Aux Cerfs Catamaran Trip w/ Lunch & TransferCatamaran across to Ile aux Cerfs with lunch grilled on board. The day everyone books first, and the one they talk about after.
02The dawn swimSnorkeling w/Dolphins Boat Tour & LunchOut of Tamarin before the wind, into the water with spinner dolphins, then lunch off Ile aux Benitiers.
03The mountainLe Morne Mountain Guided Sunrise Hike and ClimbUp Le Morne for sunrise with a guide, back down before the heat. The lagoon turns two shades of blue under you.
04The city, eatenStreet Food & City TourDholl puri, gateaux piments and the spice halls of Port Louis central market, with somebody who knows which stall.
Catamaran, speedboat or glass bottom: the Mauritian day out is a boat.
Every coast here sits inside a reef, so the sea is flat and the boats are small. Three kinds of day on the lagoon, what it costs to board each one, and which coast it sails from.
North for the boats, west for the dolphins, south for the mountains.
Mauritius is small enough to cross in two hours and slow enough that nobody does. Ile aux Cerfs and the east lagoon, the capital, the sheltered west coast, the sugar-cane south, Grand Baie and the northern isles. Six starting points, and the best day out in each.
Ile aux Cerfs is a sandbar with a queue. Time it properly.
The crossing from Trou d’Eau Douce takes twenty minutes and the island empties again by four. The good trips add the GRSE waterfall, a snorkel stop on the way over and a barbecue under the filaos, which is the difference between a boat ride and a day.
The most booked days out in Mauritius.
Every Mauritian tour we have reviewed →The tours more travellers take than anything else on the island, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Ile Aux Cerfs Catamaran Trip w/ Lunch & Transfer
Spend seven hours sailing from Trou D’Eau Douce on a 42-foot catamaran. Visit Grand River South East waterfall by speedboat, look for monkeys, snorkel in the lagoon, enjoy a halal 3-course barbecue lunch with drinks, then relax at Ile aux Cerfs. Hotel pickup, guides, and return transport are included.
From · $110
Read our review →
2
Full-Day Catamaran Cruise to the Northern Isles
from $82
3
Snorkeling w/Dolphins Boat Tour & Lunch
from $115
4
Private Southwest Chamarel Highlights Tour
5
Private South-West Nature & Viewpoints with Lunch
6
5 Island Adventure with BBQ & Snorkeling
from $100
7
Private South Tour with Pickup
8
Catamaran Cruise to Ile Aux Cerfs with BBQ Lunch
from $64
Le Morne: up at five, down before the island wakes.
Everything at Le Morne →
The basalt monolith on the south-west corner is a UNESCO site because runaway slaves sheltered on its summit. The guided hike starts in the dark, turns into a scramble near the top, and pays out over the reef pass where the underwater waterfall illusion sits.
- 1Le Morne Mountain Guided Sunrise Hike and Climbfrom $75
- 2Hiking Le Morne Brabantfrom $61
- 3Le Morne Mountain UNESCO Eco Hikefrom $82
Sunrise on the summit, with a guide
The trail is public to the shoulder and guided above it. Shoes with grip, two litres of water, and a head torch for the first hour.
Chamarel, the gorges, the coast road
Coloured earth, the rum distillery, Black River Gorges and a viewpoint over the whole south-west, usually in one car with a driver who stops where you ask.
Seven waterfalls above Henrietta
The Sept Cascades drop down one valley inland of Tamarin, with swimming holes between them and a scramble in the middle that needs a guide.
What a day out in Mauritius actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by what it costs. A morning on the water here still runs cheaper than dinner at the hotel.
Park entries, the glass-bottom boat at Blue Bay, market walks and the short hikes.
The standards: catamaran days to Ile aux Cerfs, dolphin mornings, Le Morne with a guide, the south by car.
Private drivers for a full day, chartered boats, seaplanes and the deep-sea boats.
The dolphins off Tamarin are a sunrise appointment.
Spinner pods come into the sheltered water off Tamarin and Black River to rest at first light, and move back out to the deep by mid-morning. Boats leave at six. Go with an operator that keeps its distance and drops you ahead of the pod rather than on top of it, then carries on to Ile aux Benitiers for lunch and Crystal Rock.
Every dolphin morning →
Port Louis is a working port that happens to be the capital.
The central market sells fruit upstairs and spices below, the street stalls do dholl puri faster than you can order, and the Caudan waterfront tidies all of it up for the evening. An hour in, the Chinatown lanes and the Champ de Mars racecourse make sense of how the island got built.
- 1Street Food & City Tourfrom $58
- 2Street Food & City Tourfrom $42
- 3Mont Choisy, Botanical Garden, and Church Tour
Three things that happen in Mauritius and nowhere else.
Lagoons and palm trees are the Indian Ocean’s standard issue. A hill of seven-coloured earth, an island of tortoises standing in for the dodo, and a sacred crater lake in the middle of a volcano are not.
The Seven Coloured Earths
Basalt weathered down into clay left mineral bands that will not blend back together, so the dunes at Chamarel stripe red, ochre, violet and blue and stay striped no matter how the rain runs over them. The same estate holds a rum distillery and a waterfall that drops a hundred metres in one go, which is why nobody comes here for only one thing.
- 1Private Southwest Chamarel Highlights Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 1,427 reviews
- 2Chamarel 7 Colours & Waterfalls, South-West Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 287 reviews
- 3Riambel: South Tour w/ Crocodile Park & Seven Colored Earth★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 204 reviews
Ile aux Aigrettes
A coral islet off Pointe Jerome carries the last stand of dry coastal ebony forest in the country, plus giant tortoises brought in to do the seed-spreading job the dodo used to do. The boat is small, the walk is guided, and the pink pigeon and the olive white-eye both nest here after being counted in single figures.
- 1Ile aux Aigrettes Nature Reserve with Boat Ride★★★★★★★★★★ 4.2 · 73 reviews
- 2Private Sunset Cruise Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 27 reviews
- 3Ile aux Aigrettes Reserve & Blue Bay Glass Bottom Boat★★★★★★★★★★ 3.9 · 24 reviews
Grand Bassin
A crater lake 550 metres up is the holiest Hindu site outside India, reached past a 33-metre Shiva at the gate. During Maha Shivaratri in February hundreds of thousands walk here from the coast, barefoot, pulling wooden kanwars. The rest of the year it is quiet, cool and usually in cloud.
- 1Dolphin Encounter, Trou aux Cerf and Grand Bassin★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 66 reviews
- 2Trou-aux-Cerfs – Grand Bassin – 7 Coloured Earth – Wild South Guided Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 47 reviews
- 3Trou-aux-Cerfs – Chamarel – Grand Bassin -Private Guided Tour (Min. 2 persons)★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 24 reviews
Off the beach, Mauritius turns into a mountain island.
Ten minutes from the sugar cane the road climbs into cloud forest, waterfalls stacked seven deep, and a crater you can walk the rim of. Book the hikes for early morning, before the cloud comes down on the plateau.
Four Mauritian bookings that will not wait.
Most of this island can be arranged the night before over a rum. These four run on boat capacity, tides, licences and a season that pays no attention to your flight.
- 01Ile aux Aigrettes Nature Reserve with Boat RideThe nature reserve caps visitor numbers and the boat across is tiny. Guided slots go days ahead in season.
- 02Le Morne Mountain Guided Sunrise Hike and ClimbGuided summit hikes leave before dawn in small groups, and the guides stop taking climbers once the sun is properly up.
- 03Dolphin Swim and Whale Watching by SpeedboatHumpbacks pass Mauritius between roughly July and October. Outside those months the boats sell dolphins, not whales.
- 04East Coast Mauritius Private Scenic Seaplane TourOne or two aircraft fly the lagoon, weather decides daily, and the morning light slots are spoken for first.
The east coast gets the wind. The west coast gets your morning.
The south-east trade wind runs hardest from June to September, and it lands first on the east: choppy crossings out of Trou d’Eau Douce, cancelled catamarans, a lagoon full of whitecaps. The sheltered side is the answer. Dolphins off Tamarin, waterfalls above Henrietta, the gorges, the coloured earth and the market halls all sit out of the wind.
By place - coasts, islands and the plateau
Grand Baie, Port Louis, Ile aux Cerfs, Le Morne: the week almost everybody does first.
The newest Mauritius tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
Whale & Dolphins Swimming – Private Speedboat Exclusive Tour
Read our review →
Walking under the sea in Mauritius with transfer
Read our review →
Tea Route: Lake, Forest, Tea Plantation & 3 Course Lunch
Read our review →
Vallé Advenature Park, Discovery Quad single 1hr
Read our review →
The Hidden Treasures of Mauritius, ALL INCLUSIVE Day Trip, Private SUV Car
Read our review →
The beautiful East of Mauritius:incl Blue-Bay Marine Park, Crocodile park &Lunch
Read our review →
The Wild East of Mauritius: Full-day tour including 2-hour Quad-Biking & Lunch
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The Gorgeous East: Bois Cheri Tea factory, Rhumerie St-Aubin, Mahebourg & Lunch
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The East Discovery Tour: Bois-Cheri Tea Factory, Blue-Bay Marine Park & Lunch
Read our review →