We just came back from a 4 night stay at La Pirogue which was marked by very strong points but also disappointing aspects.

Strong points:
Beautiful gardens, well taken care of grounds and paths, pleasant bungalows and a wide beach with a beautiful perspective. Sunsets are especially striking on the West Coast. Pleasant evening entertainment and very tasty cocktails at the bar. Our lunches at the Magenta beach bar were lovely with a special thank you to Jean-Luc for a warm service. At dinner, we fled from the disappointing buffet at the main restaurant and ate 3 wonderful meals in a row at the Coconut Café where Dylan went above and beyond our expectations with great service. We wrote a separate review for the Café, it deserved it!

Room for improvement:
The scope of the hotel makes it impersonal and the main restaurant really enhances this "factory" feel. If you are looking for a charming atmosphere pick a smaller hotel. The welcome by our hostess at Reception was friendly but the quality of information transmitted was poor. I strongly advise reception staff to spend a bit more time explaining the facilities of the hotel and especially dinner options for half board to clients. For example we were not told that Sugar beach restaurants could be booked. Perhaps you could have a brochure of sorts prepared with a little map of the hotel. Staff at the main restaurant seemed very tense and have a hard time keeping up with the clearing of tables whether at breakfast or dinner. We were there on a special Indian night, but having lived in India a few years and loving the cuisine, I was very disappointed in the quality and slection of the dishes and the atmosphere. The dress code, imposing pants for men, seems out of place when linked to the quality of the food. I believe in a tropical paradise like Mauritius, dress codes should be reserved for fine dining, a la carte, experiences and definitely not for this type of mainstream buffet. Finally, the staff who was handling access to the changing rooms the day we left, was very unfriendly. And, there was a mix up as 2 bottles of water bought on the beach in the morning were not put on the bill at the time we checked out at noon. However, reception staff came to us 5 minutes before we had to leave to the airport at 7 pm (though we had been in the reception area for an hour already waiting for the changing room). It was stressful, and seemed silly to have to make a separate credit card transaction for an amount of 150 rupees. It came out as a cheap move, the hotel could have just offered the water given it was there mistake the morning transaction was not logged into the system in time.

Overall we are thankful we stayed only 4 nights. We fell in love with Mauritius as a destination but we will definitely explore other hotels during our next trip.

Our stay at the La Pirogue was awesome! I definetely do recommend this hotel to all couples who want to have a great time in Mauritius.

Location:
+ Located on the westside on a big premise which was very well maintained one had the perfect view to experience great sundowners.
The premise is very accurately maintained with a lot of effort and staff to have everything nice and clean. Great gardens, great palms, great beach and a very wide premise gives you the feeling of privacy even in such a big hotel with more then 200 rooms.

Beach and ocean:
+ The beach is very tidy and rather wide. In comparism to the next door located Sugar Beach Hotel one has like 25m width of sandy beach. The length of the beach is several hundred meters.
+ The water is very clean and the lagoon give you exciting possibilities for water activities.
- Unfortunately in comparism to the Sugar beach hotel next door, the beach chairs are sometimes rather dirty due to the many birds that are living in the palms and on the premise. We would suggest to clean them more often. Nevertheless you will always find a nice beach chair to spend your day on.

Rooms:
+ The view from the room is just great. You wake up in the morning by the sound of birds, open the curtain and see chrystal clear ocean, palms and birds. Its like waking up in paradise. The bed is very comfortable, the rooms have new TVs, the shower is very spacious and the bathroom has two sinks.
+ The cleaning staff is very nice and makes an effort to give you a nice time.
- We would suggest to not leave the doors open for so long during the room service because there will be quite a lot of mosquitos entering your room. We had this situation when we arrived. However after chatting with the room service this was no problem. We neverthelss would recommend to sensibilize the staff about this.

Food and drinks:
+ The food is of a very high standard. We ate everything without any fear of food poising. The food is of European Standard also the bottled water is very well drinkable and there is a wide range of restaurants, cafés, drinks and food that you can experience.
+ The cocktails are mixed with alcohol of premium brands and there are a lot of different cocktails available also for all in clusive.
- The birds are giving you a really nice time especially in the morning when having your breakfast outside. Nevertheless we would recommend to put more food in boxes on the buffet that have lids because of the birds.

Staff:
+ There was a lot of staff available on the premise for any kind of questions or service.
+ The staff was in generel very well trained.
+ We would like to thank some of the staff very much for their outstanding service. Our time in the hotel was nice, but with some of staff it went to being awesome.
Goodeo really made a difference in the le morne beach bar. As a manager there he really took care of the guests and always had a chat with us and personally cared for us having the best drinks! Thank you very much for the awesome pancakes, rock shandy and customized cocktails! Also his staff especially Pamela, Jacques, James, Jean-Luc, Tyson and Yash really were taking their job seriouslly and personally took care of us having a great time!

Summary:
+ We definetely enjoyed our time at the La Pirogue Resort and do recommend this to anybody without hesitation.
+ For a 4 star Hotel it is of a very high standard and there is almost no difference to be noticed in comparism to the five star Sugar Beach hotel.
+ It was nice to also have the possiblity to go the restaurants in the sugar beach hotel (with upcharge).
+ One could get the freshest coconuts in the world: directly harvested from the palms on site.
+ The beach and the sundowner at the La Pirogue may be one of the bests in whole Mauritius.
+ The lagoon, the premise and the rooms make a great athmosphere which will give you instand relaxation.