Royal Palm Beachcomber Luxury

Pirogues and yachts swing at anchor in the lagoon at Grand Baie, on the north coast of Mauritius, and the suites of Royal Palm Beachcomber Luxury face them across a strip of white sand. The hotel opened in 1985 and has been the flagship of the Beachcomber group ever since, the house where the company sets the standard for its other resorts on the island.

History

Beachcomber is a Mauritian company, founded in the early 1950s, and it grew alongside tourism on the island. Royal Palm was its response to a new kind of traveller in the 1980s: a hotel made up only of suites, small enough to keep a high ratio of staff to guests. It has been renovated several times since, without changing its scale or its place on the bay, and many of its guests return year after year.

Architecture and design

The buildings are low and white, set back behind palms, with thatch and dark timber in the public spaces and wide terraces facing the lagoon. Interiors are calm and light, built on wood, linen and pale stone, with the sea as the main decoration. Gardens of palms and flowering shrubs separate the wings and keep the scale domestic.

Rooms and suites

All 69 units are suites, and every one faces the sea, each with a terrace or balcony over the lagoon. The largest have several rooms and private pools, and suit families or couples who want more space.

Dining

La Goélette, the main restaurant, faces the bay and serves French cooking with island produce. Le Bar Plage, on the sand, handles lunch and relaxed evenings, and La Brasserie offers a third choice. Mauritian cooking, with its Indian, Creole, Chinese and French roots, appears on the menus alongside European dishes, and fish comes from boats working the north coast.

Wellness

The spa works with Clarins and has treatment rooms and a fitness area. Tennis courts and water sports from the beach complete the facilities, and the lagoon, protected by the reef, is calm enough for swimming most of the year.

Weddings and events

Weddings are a regular part of life at Royal Palm, as they are across Mauritius, where civil ceremonies for foreign couples are simple to arrange. Ceremonies take place on the beach and in the gardens, and private dinners can be set up on the sand. The hotel also hosts small meetings and incentive groups.

Location

Grand Baie is the busiest resort town on the north coast, with restaurants, shops, boat trips and a sheltered anchorage. Catamarans leave for the northern islets, among them Coin de Mire, Île Plate and Île Gabriel, and the reefs around them are popular with divers. Pamplemousses, home of the Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam Botanical Garden, laid out in the eighteenth century and known for its giant water lilies, is about 20 minutes inland. Port Louis, the capital, with its central market and the Aapravasi Ghat World Heritage Site, is around 30 minutes to the south by road. Closer to the hotel, the beaches of Pereybère and Trou aux Biches lie along the same coast, and at Cap Malheureux, the northern tip of the island, the red-roofed church of Notre-Dame Auxiliatrice looks out to Coin de Mire.

Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam International Airport is in the south-east of the island, about an hour or more by car. The north coast is drier and calmer than the east in the southern winter, when the trade winds blow. For a luxury resort on Mauritius, the position is unusual in putting a lively town within reach of the beach.