Constance Belle Mare Plage Review: The East Coast Benchmark, Honestly Assessed
The east coast of Mauritius does not announce itself. The road from the airport runs south before cutting east through sugarcane fields and small towns, and the approach to Belle Mare is quiet enough that the resort’s entrance — a gate, a driveway, a sudden expansiveness of tropical garden — arrives with a slight sense of surprise. Then the beach opens ahead of you: two kilometres of pale sand curving along a sheltered bay, the lagoon translucent over its coral floor, the outer reef a darker line where the Indian Ocean begins in earnest. The Constance Belle Mare Plage has been here, in various iterations, since 1972. It knows what it has, and it has stopped needing to impress anyone with it.
That confidence is both the property’s greatest quality and its only potential liability. A resort this established, this consistently praised, and this comfortable with its own reputation has less incentive to push itself than a newer property building its name. What keeps the Constance honest is its competition — the Mauritian east coast has become genuinely competitive at the luxury level — and what keeps it ahead of that competition is a combination of scale, staffing, and food quality that newer properties have not yet matched.
The Property
The estate is large — 278 rooms across prestige rooms, junior suites, deluxe suites, eighteen private villas, and a presidential villa that operates in a category of its own. The villas sit in a quieter corner of the estate, closer to the golf courses and spa than to the main pool, with their own check-in process and private heated pools. For families or guests who want genuine separation from the resort’s more social areas, the villas represent a meaningfully different experience from the standard room categories rather than merely a larger version of the same thing.
The four pools are differentiated by character: a main pool with a swim-up bar and a wooden bridge leading to a sandy island, smaller garden pools with sun loungers set in the water, and a wading pool near the lobby with hammocks skimming the surface. The design avoids the single-pool resort’s problem of everyone converging on the same space at the same time. In practice, the estate is large enough that crowds are rare even at capacity — the serenity zones, where noise is genuinely managed, are a design decision that larger properties often discuss and rarely enforce. Here, it holds.
One structural caveat worth knowing before you book: there are no elevators. For guests with mobility considerations, ground-floor accommodation should be requested at the time of booking rather than on arrival, when the options will be limited.
What the All-Inclusive Covers — and What It Does Not
The Constance all-inclusive structure is generous but not unconditional, and the distinction matters on the ground. What is included: breakfast, lunch, and dinner at selected restaurants; afternoon tea at La Kaze; selected cocktails, the Constance signature beverage menu, premium branded spirits, international wine and beer, and selected sparkling wines across all restaurants, bars, the beach, and both golf courses; a daily restocked minibar with soft drinks, water, wine, beer, and snacks; one three-course à la carte dinner at La Spiaggia or Deer Hunter for every seven nights stayed; complimentary green fees and golf carts on both championship courses; and non-motorised water sports.
What requires a separate decision: spa treatments, motorised water sports, and dining at the à la carte restaurants beyond the included weekly dinner. The all-inclusive rate does provide a credit of Rs1,200 per person per day toward à la carte dining, which partially offsets the cost of an evening at La Spiaggia or the Blue Penny Cellar — but partially is the operative word. A bill for four people at La Spiaggia, without the credit, has been reported running above £650. The credit softens this; it does not eliminate it. Guests who expect every meal at every restaurant to be covered within the rate will be surprised, and that surprise is worth preventing before arrival.
One practical note confirmed by multiple guests: in the à la carte restaurants, servers will present the standard menu rather than the all-inclusive menu unless you ask directly. Ask directly.
The Restaurants
Seven restaurants across the estate, of which the all-inclusive rate fully covers La Citronelle and lunch at Indigo and La Kaze. La Citronelle is the main buffet — and the word buffet undersells what is actually available. The choice is extensive, the quality consistent, and the kitchen’s engagement with Mauritian creole tradition genuine rather than decorative: rougaille prepared with conviction, seafood that reflects the ocean’s proximity, Indian-influenced dishes that acknowledge the island’s demographic history rather than reducing it to a garnish. For guests who eat every dinner at La Citronelle, the all-inclusive is as comprehensive as anywhere in the Indian Ocean luxury tier.
La Spiaggia is the property’s most atmospheric restaurant — positioned above the beach at the villa end of the estate, romantically isolated, with a rack of lamb carved tableside that guests return to describe with the specificity usually reserved for significant meals. Book it on arrival. It fills. The Blue Penny Cellar, underground, wine-focused, tapas and steaks served by the 100g, is for guests who know what they want from a wine list and are willing to pay for it — the bottles reach beyond any reasonable all-inclusive budget. The weekly included dinner at Deer Hunter, attached to the Legends golf course clubhouse, is a worthy use of the credit and a natural end to a day on the course.
The Golf
Two eighteen-hole championship courses — Legends and Links — located five to ten minutes from the resort by complimentary shuttle. Both courses have their own clubhouses, pro shops, driving ranges, and restaurants. Green fees and golf carts are included in the all-inclusive rate on both courses, which at Mauritius golf prices represents a significant element of the package’s value. Tee times fill quickly; book through the resort before arrival rather than on the morning you want to play.
The Beach and Water
The two kilometres of private beach are the property’s most straightforward asset and its most honest. The sand is fine, the lagoon calm, the sun loungers abundant enough that competition for them is not the east coast ritual it becomes at smaller properties. The snorkelling, however, requires an honest note: the reef here is not the marine spectacle of Mauritius’s northern lagoon. The coral in the immediate bay is modest. For serious snorkellers or divers, the property organises excursions to better sites — included equipment, charged boat trips. Non-motorised water sports, including kayaking and windsurfing, are covered in the all-inclusive rate.
The beach entry has rock formations at the waterline in certain sections. Beach shoes are advisable, particularly for children. This is a minor inconvenience rather than a significant problem, but it is consistently mentioned by guests who were not expecting it, which suggests it is worth knowing.
The Spa and Wellness
The Constance Spa occupies a quiet corner of the estate, separated from the main resort energy in a way that allows it to function properly rather than merely existing as a branded annexe. Treatments include massage, Ayurvedic therapies, body scrubs, and facials — none of these are included in the all-inclusive rate, which is standard practice at this level of the Mauritian market. The quality is consistently reported as high. Guests on honeymoon packages receive a spa discount voucher; the discount percentage varies by season and should be confirmed at booking.
The Children’s Programme
The Constance Kids Club operates for children aged four to eleven, with supervised activities across the day. Families consistently rate the programme positively for younger children. The honest caveat, offered by a returning guest on TripAdvisor and worth repeating here: children over ten or eleven may begin to find the kids club insufficiently engaging. The resort’s facilities — pools, beach, water sports — remain excellent for older children, but the structured programme is calibrated toward the younger end of the range. Families with teenagers should note this and plan accordingly.
Who This Resort Is For — and Who Should Look Elsewhere
The Constance Belle Mare Plage works best for couples who want genuine breadth — golf, spa, beach, serious dining — without having to leave the property to find it. For honeymooners, the combination of scale and intimacy (the villa option, La Spiaggia, the beach’s quiet hours) is unusual at this size. For families with children between four and twelve, it is one of the strongest all-inclusive propositions on the Mauritius east coast. For golfers, it is close to irreplaceable — the combination of two championship courses, complimentary green fees, and a serious resort on the same estate does not exist elsewhere on the island at this quality level.
Guests who want a boutique experience — a property small enough that the staff know everyone by name within a day — will find that the Constance’s 278 rooms make this impossible in the way that smaller properties achieve it naturally. The service is excellent; the personalisation operates at a different scale from a property with thirty rooms. Guests who want the Indian Ocean’s most spectacular snorkelling should look at the northern resorts or the Maldives. Guests who want maximum seclusion from the island’s civilian life will find Belle Mare’s quietness a strength, but should know that the tourist centre of Grand Baie is fifty minutes away — which is either irrelevant or important depending entirely on whether they plan to leave the resort at all.
The rate is significant. It is, at the properties that earn it, justified. At the Constance Belle Mare Plage, over a week that takes full advantage of what the all-inclusive structure actually covers — the golf, the dining credits, the beach, the evening at La Spiaggia — it is earned.
The Practical Details
Check-in is at 14:00; check-out at 12:00. The airport transfer takes approximately sixty-five to seventy minutes by road. From October 2025, the Mauritian government charges a tourist fee of €3 per person per night, payable directly at the hotel on check-in; children under twelve are exempt. Restaurant reservations at the à la carte outlets — particularly La Spiaggia — should be made at check-in or ideally before arrival. The all-inclusive minibar is restocked once daily. Golf tee times should be arranged before arrival during peak season.
Single supplement policy: the Constance Belle Mare Plage rates are based on two sharing. Solo travellers should contact the property directly for single-occupancy pricing, which is available but carries a supplement. Confirm current policy at the time of booking.
