A dream come true!! The boat was super comfortable!! The crew super nice!!! Know all the informations about the dolphins and I learn so much. With their help I could swim just really close to dolphins! They were amazing and always concerned with us, if everything went ok. Recommend!
Great crew & excursion! Saw a lot of dolphins on this trip! You can either snorkel with them or watch them from the boat.
Booked at the boat house at sugar beach/La pirogue. There are loads of trips offered for dolphin swims at various price tags from every angle you can think of. We chose to go with hotels boat house as we liked the way they ran the water sports for the hotels. We were glad we did, our boat only had 6 people on it and the 2 guys crewing it were really responsible and respectful of the dolphins and us. The morning dolphin experience is a busy commercialised daily event in Mauritius. We chose not to swim with them but to watch which was lovely to see but some of the boats were very over crowded and not sure what we think about the whole thing now if we are honest. If you choose to do the dolphins experience we would recommend this company for both respect to the dolphins and value for money.
Let me start of by saying this is a very fun trip if you have been diving/snorkelling before and have good experience of open water swimming. We booked our trip through trip advisor and showed up on the day to the meeting point. We were 5-10 mins early and the boat left about 15 minutes after the agreed start time. There is a toilet at the dock to use before if needed. You shall be back on time as another batch of people shall leave directly behind you. We went at 7am, I think this was a good time otherwise the dolphins would be quite far out. What to expect: A fast boat ride to where the dolphins are. Handed fins and snorkels and instructed to jump in as fast as possible to see the dolphins swim underneath you. A race with the 10-20 other boats to where the dolphins have swam to. Breaks slammed on and told to jump in immediately again. This shall happen approx 15 times. Good points: The staff are friendly and will let you know if the dolphin types you are going to see. They are very well versed in where the dolphins are and we were often the first boat in the water with the dolphins. You may see whales. We were very lucky to see a few, very close to the boat. Bad points: No life vests are offered or appear to be on the boat. No instruction on how to use the snorkel if you have never done so before. Told to jump in the water fast now now now! Your snorkel and sometimes mask both fill with water. A lot of choking involved! Unsure if this is because I had never done snorkelling before. We are both confident swimmers but the amount of current created by the vast amount of boats leaves you very open to the current. If your boat has drifted or indeed if you swim far with the dolphins you can find yourself quite far from the boat with no floatation device or other support. This would be very overwhelming if not a confident/strong swimmer. It doesn’t take much for the water to over top your head. I hadn’t been on a speed boat before and luckily I loved it. However the very fast drive back to shore was surprisingly more choppy than you would think for such calm waters.
We booked from the water sports area within our hotel at Luxe Le Morne. We were lucky enough to see both a whale and swim with dolpins. My main concern is safety - or lack of. Le Morne is protected by a coral reef which makes for a safe shallow, swimming area. To see dolphins you need to travel across this reef. This is explained before you your leave. The reality though is not. It's really hairy with boats all lined up ready for a "calmer" wave. Our 12 year old (and indeed the whole family) was petrified. Boats are racing everywhere, the sea is rough and nobody is wearing life jackets. It's an accident waiting to happen. The journey back is calmer but even then in the shallow areas we were travelling at speed and hit coral which knocked everyone in the boat around. Swimming with Dolphins was a great experience. The boat trip wasn't. Improvements are needed before something bad happens.