If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.
Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (EUR177.39), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.
If sun, sea and spa sounds like your dream holiday trinity, make Lux Belle Mare your next Mauritius stay. The Indian Ocean paradise is on the island’s east coast, just back from the several-kilometre stretch of sugar-white sand that is Belle Mare Beach. As with all self-respecting resorts of note, there are some seriously slick restaurants on-site, including Amari by Vineet (as in two-Michelin-star-toting Vineet Bhatia) and Duck Laundry for Peking-duck perfection. There’s also a buffet (no need to gasp), with live-cooking stations from every corner of the globe, from Lebanon to Naples.
Double rooms from £175.00 (€204), including tax at 15 per cent. Please note the hotel charges an additional resort fee of €1.00 per room per night on check-out.
More details
Rates usually include breakfast. A four-night minimum stay applies for bookings from 28 December 2023 and 27 December 2024.
Also
Two Junior Suites at Lux Belle Mar are adapted for guests with mobility issues – each has ramps, grab rails in the bathroom and wide bathroom doors.
At the hotel
Free WiFi throughout, two tennis courts, ice-cream parlour, kids’ club, boat house and Padi dive centre, photography studio, upcycled-art gallery, gym, tea house, and coffee shop. In rooms: organic bath products, tea- and coffee-making kit (with Lux capsules), and 55-inch TV.
Our favourite rooms
For direct access to the beach and a soundtrack of crashing waves to help lull you to sleep, book an Ocean View or Beachfront Villa. Jean-Marc Tang's interiors include some shades-of-cream options to soothe neutrals-lovers, too.
Poolside
The main pool at Lux Belle Mare is one of the biggest on the island, with sections for children and another for lap swimming. It’s open (and manned by a lifeguard) from 9am till 6pm.
Spa
The Lux Me spa has an apothecary with the hotel brand’s line of organic products (which includes ranges for men and children, too). There’s a hair salon, nail bar, sauna, hammam, heated (adults-only) outdoor pool with a Jacuzzi, plus a Wim Hof-pleasing cold pool. There’s a tea house for tea tastings, stone Buddhas keeping it calm and two rooms for traditional Chinese treatments, where the whole room can be heated and herbs are burned to help balance your body temperature.
Packing tips
A suitcase full of swimwear and rash vests ready to spend the majority of your stay waist-high in water.
Also
If you’re feeling homesick, locate one of the classic red British phone boxes, which allow guests to channel ET and phone home.
Children
All ages are welcome and there’s lots to keep kids entertained.
Sustainability efforts
There’s a huge hydroponic farm over the road, growing the hotel’s vegetables, salads and herbs. An apiary is in the making, which will supply the breakfasts with eucalyptus honey. The Lux bathroom amenities are all eco-friendly and vegan. Endemic plants were used in the landscaping and all furniture was made by local manufacturers. Lux has an environmental project, Tread Lightly, that contributes to renewable energy and biodiversity conservation projects – and for a Euro a night, guests are promised a carbon-free stay. A solar project has been implemented in Mauritius, too.
Duck Laundry and Amari by Vineet are the most formal restaurants at the resort.
Hotel restaurant
There are plenty of places to eat and drink at Lux Belle Mar, including Mondo, which circumnavigates the globe via Chinese, Indian and Lebanese cooking stations, a Neapolitan pizza oven, a deli room, an ice-cream bar, and a kids-only station overflowing with things like popcorn and marshmallows. Duck Laundry is a traditional Chinese restaurant, open for Peking-duck and dim-sum dinners every evening. Another signature restaurant is Amari by Vineet, with a star Indian chef at the helm and a ceiling painted by a local artist. Down by the shore, Beach Rouge is a beach club on a deck above the sand with DJ sets and a mini fish market to choose your catch from. For something altogether more casual, Royce Street is a street-food truck attached to a vintage Rolls-Royce dispensing swift dinners.
Hotel bar
Maison Lux is where to head for coffee and pastries, and it doesn't have to be morning (it’s open until 10pm). Aperitivo serves shots of a different kind on your way to breakfast (usually featuring ginger), but if you stick around long enough, its drinks selection gets harder. Amari by Vineet has an impressive list of single-malt whiskies and the resort has a wine cave with 300 bins, too. At Mixologist, you can drink craft beers and various smoked or infused cocktails as you admire the pool and the lagoon.
Last orders
Mondo is open for breakfast. Lunch hours at Beach Rouge are 12.30pm to 3.30pm; dinner service is 7 pm to 10.30 pm. Duck Laundry opens for families from 6.30pm and is couples-only from 8.30pm–10.30pm. Amari by Vineet open for dinner (7pm to 10.30pm).
As the name suggests, Lux Belle Mare is on the namesake beach, a kilometre-long stretch of sand on the east coast of Mauritius.
Planes
The hotel is a 50-minute drive from the island’s international airport. Guests can book the transfer service (which costs from MUR16,000 each way and must be booked in advance) or a taxi (from MUR4,000 each way).
Automobiles
There’s free valet parking for guests and a car will come in handy for exploring the rest of the island, but you won’t need one if your itinerary consists mostly of flying and flopping.
Other
Helicopters can land at a helipad 10 minutes away from the resort with advance warning.
Worth getting out of bed for
At the holiday playground that is Lux Belle Mar, the Indian Ocean is likely to form the backdrop to your daily activities, whether you set up on the white sands of Belle Mar Beach and stay put or head to the boat house in search of watersports equipment. Kayaking, laser sailing, snorkelling, glass-bottom-boat trips and water-skiing are all free for guests. The resort also has its own PADI dive centre, with 12 dive sites within easy reach. Guests can also sign up for yoga, tai chi and tennis on either of the two courts.
Local restaurants
You can eat your way around the world within the resort, but if you do fancy leaving the perimeters of paradise in search of further fine-dining, Café des Arts, a 12-minute drive away, is set in an old sugar mill and curated by an art lover.
Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this luxury resort hotel in the Indian Ocean and unpacked their bikinis and board shorts, a full account of their island break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Lux Belle Mare in Mauritius…
Mauritius doesn’t have to try very hard to be heavenly, but things peak at Lux Belle Mare along the island’s east coast, which is as close to paradise perfection as it’s possible for a resort to be. Amid its tropical fronds and vast pool (one of the biggest on the island no less), the hotel has clubs for kids of all ages (equipped with everything from sand pits to PlayStations), several bars and restaurants (spanning an Indian fine-dining concept by twice-Michelin-starred Vineet Bhatia to a casual food truck at the back of the vintage Rolls-Royce), and a spa with treatment rooms dedicated to Chinese therapies. Down at Belle Mare Beach, there’s a host of free watersports for whiling away your days in the Indian Ocean, including glass-bottom-boat trips for keen snorkellers who are otherwise mildly fish-phobic. You’ll hardly need assistance for further relaxation, but if you haven’t quite reached peak chill, simply head to the super spa for a siesta in the outdoor relaxation space, doffing your cap to Buddha as you go.
