LUX Grand Gaube Review: Three Beaches and the Northern Character
The northern tip of Mauritius — the coast above the capital Port Louis where the island’s landscape is less developed than the east and south’s concentrated resort corridors, where the sugar cane runs to within sight of the beach and the fishing villages still conduct the daily activity that the tourist infrastructure of the south has displaced from the coastline — is the coast that the LUX Grand Gaube occupies on its six hectares above Grand Gaube Bay. Three natural beaches. Three distinct water characters.
The western beach’s calmer lagoon for the early morning swimming before the trade wind builds. The main beach’s wider sand for the afternoon. The eastern beach’s more exposed water for the kayaking and the kiteboarding instruction that the wind that the northern coast receives from the northeast trade makes consistently reliable.
The LUX brand is Mauritius’s own — the island-based hospitality company that has been developing and managing properties in the Indian Ocean since the 1970s, whose understanding of the Mauritian resort market reflects an institutional knowledge of the island’s culture, its agricultural supply chains, its fishing economy, and the specific character of its people that the international brand managing its properties from Singapore or London cannot replicate from a distance. The Grand Gaube property is the most successful expression of the LUX brand’s philosophy in Mauritius: a resort that is genuinely rooted in the island rather than placed on it, whose relationships with the surrounding communities are functional rather than ceremonial, and whose food programme uses the northern coast’s fishing and agricultural production at the level of genuine sourcing rather than token local menu items.
The Peter Kiewit Observatory
The Peter Kiewit Observatory — the on-site astronomical installation that the LUX Grand Gaube maintains in partnership with the University of Mauritius — is the most specifically unusual amenity at any Mauritius resort: a professional-grade telescope operated by a resident astronomer, available to guests on clear nights for the guided sky-watching sessions that the Indian Ocean’s latitude and the northern coast’s low light pollution produce at a quality level that no urban astronomical experience replicates. The southern sky’s specific presentation from this latitude — the Southern Cross visible, the Milky Way’s galactic centre accessible in the summer months, and the planetary conjunctions that the equatorial sky’s full access to both hemispheres provides — is explained by the astronomer whose knowledge of the specific sky above this specific location contextualises the observation rather than leaving the guest looking at an unidentified brightness and guessing.
The All-Inclusive Configuration
The LUX Grand Gaube’s all-inclusive rates — available as a supplement to the room-only rate rather than as the only format — cover the meals across the three restaurants, the premium beverages, and the water sports and activities that the three beaches’ range supports. The all-inclusive format at a property of this standard and this specific northern coast location produces a different calculation than the Dominican Republic or Mexican all-inclusive: the flat rate covers a resort whose surrounding landscape includes the fishing villages, the sugar cane coast, and the accessible cultural life of the northern Mauritius community, and the guest who uses the all-inclusive’s flat-rate structure as a reason to stay within the resort’s perimeter is choosing not to use what the island provides beyond it. The all-inclusive is the correct booking for guests whose week is organised primarily around the three beaches and the resort’s own programme. The room-only rate with the restaurant expenses planned separately is the correct booking for the guest who will spend three or four evenings in the northern coast’s independent restaurants.
The Northern Coast Character
The market town of Grand Baie fifteen minutes west — the northern coast’s commercial centre, with the island’s most active nightlife, the fishing harbour, and the restaurants serving the specific Mauritian Creole cooking that the tourist-facing restaurant menus simplify into dholl puri and chicken rougaille — is the cultural resource that the LUX Grand Gaube’s location provides as an alternative to the Belle Mare east coast’s more resort-dense environment. The Cap Malheureux church on the northern tip — the red-roofed colonial chapel above the bay whose view across to Coin de Mire island provides the most photographed religious building in Mauritius — is ten minutes north. The sugar cane processing at the Laura distillery on the plateau above the coast, where the island’s agricultural heritage is most accessibly explained, is twenty minutes. These are the specific things the northern coast’s character provides and that the south’s resort corridor does not.
Practical Details
174 rooms and suites. Room-only and all-inclusive rates. Mauritius SSR International Airport approximately 35 minutes north (the northern coast’s proximity to the airport is a significant advantage over the east and south coast properties’ 45-60 minute transfers). Rates from approximately $400-$600 per night room-only.
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Book LUX Grand Gaube direct — Mauritius’s northern coast finest resort, with three natural beaches and the island’s only hotel observatory.
