Snorkelling in Mauritius

Most day tours include hotel pick-up, and for a one-week stay that is usually enough. A car pays off if you want to stop where you like — the island is only 65 km top to bottom, and the drive north to south takes about an hour and twenty minutes. Note that Mauritius drives on the left, and the Metro Express light rail only runs Port Louis to Curepipe, so it is no help in reaching the beaches.

Spinner dolphins rest in Tamarin Bay most mornings, and operators report encounters on the large majority of trips — but they are wild animals and nobody can guarantee one. The boats leave around sunrise for a reason: by mid-morning the pods move offshore and the bay fills with boats. If a sighting matters more than a lie-in, take the earliest departure offered.

No — and that is worth knowing before you pay for a flight. It is an optical illusion: currents drag sand and silt off the shallow shelf towards deep water, and from above the moving sediment looks like a cascade. It only reads as a waterfall from the air, so a helicopter or seaplane is the only way to see it in person. The free version is the satellite layer of any mapping app, which is where the famous image comes from.

January to March is the wet and cyclone season; February is the wettest month, averaging around 253 mm of rain. A direct hit from a strong cyclone is rare — roughly once every five to seven years — but heavy afternoon downpours in that window are normal, and boat trips get cancelled. May to December is the reliable stretch. Whatever the month, the west coast stays drier than the east, so a wet forecast does not necessarily mean a lost day.

Across the 347 tours we track, the median is €90 and the cheapest entry is €10. A full-day catamaran with lunch runs €48 to €85; the Chamarel Seven Coloured Earth entrance ticket alone is €17.43. If your hotel desk quotes notably more than the online price for the same boat, it is the same boat — the difference is the desk’s margin.

No active volcano: Trou aux Cerfs is a long-extinct crater, and the live one in this region is on Réunion, a separate island and a separate flight. No big-game safari either — Casela and La Vanille are well-run parks, not the African bush. Big-game fishing exists but is thin, with only a handful of offers in our list. And the lagoon that makes the water so calm also means there is little surf: Tamarin and Le Morne are the exceptions, and they are for experienced kitesurfers.