We are a family of four with two teenage kids (14 and 16) who are non-sporty and rarely emerge from their bedrooms at home other than to eat and defecate. We chose Mauritius for a pleasant (rather than scorchingly hot) climate and Club Med Albion Villas for luxury and the range of activities available. In summary, as the title suggests, this was an extremely enjoyable and luxurious holiday. The villa The villa surpassed our expectations – the photos don’t do them justice. Huge, spotlessly clean, decent wifi, enormous comfortable beds, great showers (including an enclosed but roofless outdoor shower room which I loved) and, of course, the butler service (more on this later). The welcome from the team was a real 5 Star event and we felt like VIPs from the moment we arrived. Thank you for this. The grounds to each villa are extensive and beautifully stocked and maintained. The huge swing bed in the garden room was lovely. Our pool was very cold. I think this was down to where it was and lots of shade. The resort The resort is beautifully landscaped and there are stunning views wherever you are along the seafront. The staff are exceptionally polite from the management team down to the grounds staff. The guests were primarily French (or at least French Speaking) although there was an influx of South Africans later in our stay. If your idea of a holiday is eating omelette and chips with a pint down Ye English Pub watching the Premier league and comparing tattoos then this holiday is not for you. Guests seem to be upper middle class, elegant, well-dressed and extremely well mannered. Everyone you pass wishes you a bon jour or a bon soir. If you behaved like this in Surrey you would be carted off in a white van. The food was very good – but, inevitably, after 10 days we were getting a little tired of the main buffet restaurant. This may well have been the result of simply eating so much more food than we would normally eat at home. You can have too much of a good thing. The “a la carte” restaurant is more refined, and waiter served, but you have to book in advance for evening meal and the choice is rather limited. It was unfortunate that the two evenings we ate there, the choices were almost identical. The night that you dine under the stars is a truly memorable event and the food seems a little more special. A huge thank you to the staff for this as it must be a lot of hard work to set up and take down. Entertainment Our 16 year old son thoroughly enjoyed the entertainment although generally, we chose to give it a miss. Note that any commentaries are going to be in French. As a general comment, you will get more out of this holiday if you take the time to brush up on your French before you climb aboard your Air Mauritius flight. Wildlife A few mixed comments on wildlife in other reviews so here is my take Mosquitoes – we never saw or heard one. (August 2022) Dogs – a few stubby tailed dogs roaming the grounds – they are not aggressive and like to be petted. Think of them as therapy dogs. Cats – somewhat annoying. They congregate around restaurant tables and will jump up on the table when you vacate it so make sure you don’t walk away from any food you intend to eat. Bats – lots of flying foxes/fruit bats around in the early evening. This was a point of interest and didn’t bother us. Frogs – take a night walk onto the bridge across the lake and if it is the right time of the month, you will hear these little frogs croaking away. The sound is unbelievable – almost deafening. Birds – a few beautiful exotic birds around including the incredibly exotic “Common Sparrow”. The sparrows like to hang out at the a la carte restaurant in the mornings and will descend, en masse, on your bread basket the moment you get up from your table. Lizards – quite small and lightning quick - you might have one or two in your villa so you can pretend you are in an episode of Death in Paradise. Dolphins – a guaranteed spot if you book yourself on a snorkel trip. Smallish and they tend not to interact with the boat but still cool to see. Whales – we saw one baby (don’t know what type) on the same snorkel trip. We were able to get within 100 meters. Activities These are listed on the website but I must mention the trapeze. Although we didn’t try it, I was hugely impressed with the professionalism of this team. Our one disappointment is that we did not manage to book on the complementary 30 minute sailing lesson. If you want to do this, get down to the beach early in the morning to book your slot. They go quickly and you can only book on the day. The diving was OK – not the best place I have dived but at least you don’t arrive at a dive site to find that a double decker boatload of coral kickers got there before you. Niggles – just two, but they were significant Diving We booked and paid for our dive package in advance of the holiday but this was not communicated by Club Med to the Dive School. It took a great deal out of the first two days of the holiday to resolve this which created some unwelcome stress. I don’t know if we were just unlucky or if Club Med need to improve their systems. The Butler Service. This is very much the corner stone of the Club Med Villa experience. However, our French speaking amounts to little more than talking loudly in English and pointing and our butler, who was lovely, and so wanted to help us, had limited English. It took us a couple of days to realise that much of what we had said to her had not been fully understood and from that point on, we tended to sort things out for ourselves. Also, because we preferred to take breakfast in the restaurants and didn’t want afternoon tea, the service was rather wasted on us. Please note that this is not a criticism of the butler, just an expression of what we wanted from the holiday. We would have preferred an hour a day maid service so that the villa became our private reserve. I felt so sorry for our butler who spent much of the day cooped up in the utility room waiting and wanting to be useful to us. We rarely felt that we needed her services and, in the end, we started telling her there was no need to stay in the villa and she could finish early. I know a lot of people rave about the butler service, but it wasn’t for us. Just a little too colonial for our taste. My recommendation to Club Med is that they put more thought into matching the linguistic ability of butler to guest. If we had been able to develop a meaningful relationship with our Butler, we probably would have got more out of the holiday. Please don’t let these gripes put you off. This was a very special experience and I hope that we visit a Club Med site again as soon as we can save up the pennies.…
This response is the subjective opinion of the management representative and not of Tripadvisor LLC.