We got married and had reception next door, as they had lovely wooden jetty, unfortunately unavailable at Hilton at that time and stayed for our first night in one of the most beautiful places we heave ever been to.
The hotel itself has ben probably established some time ago, as the gardens are well matured and therefore making lovely suroundings for photo session.
Staff extremely well trained, we have been greeted on arrival with tasty fruit coctails, our room was decorated with with flowers and leaves, our inclusive dinner was buffet style, in our room we have found the menu describing what kind of menu was being served at given day.
If you wanted table service dinner they had second restaurant with waited tables.
I'm sometimes picky about my food but as I was spoilt for choice with their buffet I couldn't complain at all.
I.e. however it was a counter service, fishes were grilled on your eyes by chefs standing by.
There was list of event going on in a hotel through the week provided in your room, so you could plan your time around those if needed.
There is a taxi rank at the gate or you can get it arranged at the reception.
Free of charge car park at the front with 24 hours security.
There is a small shop with essentials and souvenirs, however slightly more expensive than downtown.
Good quality mattress and bedsheets, you don't feel hot in them in this climate.
Separate walk-in shower and bath-tube, very good lighting in the bath room(make-up and all these vanity things, you know).
Reassuming- good value for money and Mauritian hospitality on the menu.

There is just something missing ……. staff are friendly, rooms are comfortable, the gardens are well maintained and lead to the beach ….. ought to be paradise but ……. check in is hopelessly slow, surely they realise that after a 12-hour flight guests really need to get their rooms promptly. We only managed to get ours by kicking up a fuss (after 40 minutes). It wasn’t that the room wasn’t ready just that nobody seemed to be in a hurry. Waiting 20 minutes for a gin & tonic before dinner at the bar because ‘ they had a problem with the tonic?’ seems a bit ridiculous – and service in both bars and the restaurant is definitely ‘hit & miss’. We were disappointed that the main dining room is buffet style. The food is OK, not brilliant and dishes were often not replenished quickly. We would have liked to see hand sanitizing stations as there were a lot of people handling a lot of utensils then cutting loaves of bread etc and as on cruise liners, it would be reassuring to know they were taking steps to avoid cross contamination. We were there for New Years Eve and this was a magical evening, tables set on the beach and lots of barbecued/freshly cooked fish/meat and the fireworks were amazing. However, be warned – the cost of drinks here is extortionate – the carafes of house wine with dinner were the best bet. Despite this it was extremely difficult to get the attention of staff in the restaurant to order drinks and as mentioned previously, service in both bars is very slow. Would we go back? To Mauritius yes but to the Hilton, probably no – as we said on our feedback form left with the hotel, it feels as if it needs the management to sort out those issues that are letting this hotel down in order to entice guests to return.

We've spent two weeks in the Hilton Mauritius. Usually I never post comments on sites like this, but this time I find it necessary to help other travellers. For your information, I spend cca 70-80 nights with the Hilton on an annual basis and I have become pretty much a Hilton fan in the last 10 years. Most of it is business outside the US (mainly Europe) and some of it is leisure travel. I appreciate the Hilton standards and I receive good value for the money I give them.

We were thinking a great deal where to go and finally decided to visit Mauritius which was partly due to the very positive comments I read here and partly due to my preliminary impressions I got from photos of the island.

First of all, if you are super-rich and you don't care how much you spend at all, then please stop reading this comment now. If you feel that parity in value and service is important for you then I can try and give you some ideas.

The hotel was built in the year 2000 and since then it's been untouched. Although it is easy to tell that this place is not brand new it's still quite well kept and you should not be concerned that it is shabby. The hotel rooms and the hotel amenities are not compacted into one big building but stretched over a pretty large territory (cca 5-7 minute to walk from one side to the other) for they wanted to provide more privacy for guests. However, I did not really feel the advantage of this. Most of the rooms don't have ocean view or it is very limited, but all the rooms have a terrace (overlooking a part of the internal garden). We got a deluxe room on a later day which was literally 10 feet from the ocean, I guess that was one of their best rooms and it was nice.

The gardens are okay but not beautiful, the grass is rather weed and some places the grass is blighted. The beach front is very narrow and that was basicly one of my biggest disappointments. Expect a very regular beach full of trees (some sort of pine that is pelting small cones), banal grey sand (absolutely zero white), lots of seaweed and sunbeds densely located one next to the other. You also have to be an early bird if you want to have a decent place on the beach, most of the good spots are taken by 7.00 a.m. (they put towels on the sunbeds to show it is reserved). If you stroll 300 meters to the neighbourhood you will see how much difference there is e.g. at the Sofitel hotel. Much larger beach that is not overpopulated, looks really like a five star place.

One other thing is the wheather. After being a number of times at resorts around the world I can confirm that the climate of Mauritius is not exactly a nice tropical one where you get the breezy wheather with come – and – go showers, but mostly sunshine. We had one or two days of the 14 when it was really sunny, but the remaining 13 were overcast with little sunshine and very strong, disturbing wind. Be careful though, you could still get sunburned very easily despite cloudy skies. This was also one of my disappointments (obviously not the hotel’s fault, but did not make the vacation any better… Later I found out that it is pretty much like this all year round.)

You have free sporting activities at the hotel: kayaking and pedaloing, well, they are boring but you can go and try them once. They take you free of charge with the glass bottom boat and there is also a trip to see the dolphins, although both of them are extremely wheather dependent and you have to be very lucky to be able to go outside the lagoon or to see some dolphins. Unfortunately we could not, however we tried 3-4 times to re-book, re-arrange, etc. We saw nothing.

Dining is a little bit interesting. If you are half board and you paid for breakfast and dinner obviously you don’t have a choice and you just go with the flow. We did not have half board. Breakfast I would say is okay, they have the usual selection a Hilton hotel anywhere in the world would offer supplemented with local stuff, e.g. fruits or smoked marlin, etc. No complaints except for the flies, which are unbelievably annoying. Breakfast area is an outside place so flies and birds have free access. I like birds so they did not disturb me, but I can imagine that not everyone is like that. But flies on the other hand… sometimes there are only few but some days they come and strike you in a warlike manner. It was not seldom that we had to brush them off constantly with one hand which left us the other hand to finish our breakfast. It was indeed that bad. They cover the food on the buffet with small cages to keep them at bay. I would change this fashion and have the guests catered in an inside place or somehow create a fly-free place.

Dinner is MUR 1400 + 15% VAT (buffet) that is cca MUR 1 600 per person per night (cca EUR 45 or using hilton’s exchange rate is EUR 50 or USD 65). I find it way too expensive considering that it is a buffet and it is like any regular good buffet in the US (which you get for 20 USD). Quality is average, nothing outstanding. We tried it the first couple of nights then decided to eat somewhere else, but be prepared that the other restaurants they have around are even more expensive. The Thai is cca 20-30% more expensive than the buffet. Eating at the beach bars: pizza 20 eur, a mineral water 3-4 eur. Going outside: Flic en Flac is not much of a city, rather a collection of raunchy houses and some restaurants. Expect little India. Flic en Flac is not walking distance, cca 40-50 minutes or EUR 10 for a return taxi ride (MUR 400). It is not worth it.

Overall I find that the place is more about riping off tourists than to give them real value for the money they spend. Therefore we decided to spend the least amount possible. The readiness of the staff at the Hilton was quite ambivalent too. Some of the staff members did not give a thing about you and seemed very bored/reluctant, others were nice and always at your service. It could have been better, too, knowing how Hiltons operate outside Mauritius.

On the beach you will see merchants selling cashmere shawls and other stuff. Funny story: I asked the lady: how much the shawl was? She said 1200 MUR. I said I would rather buy something for 500-600. Then she gives me the shawl she was offering for 1200 a minute ago and goes: you can have this for 600. I did not understand this. If 1200 is her price and I bargain then she might say 1000 and she’s happy - I am happy. But giving it for half price instead made me believe that these guys really think we are stupid tourists with whom they can do anything they want. I can though recommend you Paul who sells pearls on the beach. He is very reliable, sells real stuff and we bought some necklaces and bracelets from him. A nice lady in our neighbourhood knew something about pearls and she also bought some of his products. But with others you’d better be careful.

Overall this place is no comparison to the Caribbean, Seychelles or other exotic resorts. I would rate it a fair average and I find that the hype around it is bigger than should. I would not call our vacation worthless, but I will never have the slightest idea re-visiting Mauritius.

We Stayed Here For New Years in December 2011-2012

Excellent Juniour Suite Rooms, Big & Spacious Room.

But Hotel Really Expensive, Charges Even For Nespresso Capsules in High Category Suites, Was Amazed!! No one Does for Capsules!!

Really Expensive New Year Eve Package! After Charging A Bomb No Alcholhol Was Included in Package, Atleast House Wine Could Have Been included

Room Service and Quality Of Food was Pathetic whether in-room or any of restuarants is concerned! In Room Order takes more than 1hour for food to arrive that too also absolutely cold! They even charge you for squeezed lemon ( MRU RS. 500) I was Shocked!!

I would not want to stay back in this property ever, even though rooms were good but how can one survive if foods in terms of quality and choices are limited? Plus the hotel is just not value for money!! One would rather stay at a Leading Hotels Of the World in Mauritius and then pay, atleast you know they deserve it by their star michellen ratings!!

Thank you