Saturday – April 18, 2026 – Port Louis
The featured photo for today is of a model of a sugar factory in Mauritius. I couldn’t read the description in the lower right of the photo because it is written in French. Now that I look at it, I wonder if the model was made from white sugar! Perhaps if I had been closer to the guide, she would have answered that question.
I included a screenshot in today’s gallery that shows the location of Mauritius relative to Seychelles and Madagascar. Click this link for some basic information about Mauritius. We will spend 2 days in Port Louis so we should have enough time to get a “feel” for the area. Our arrival was to sunny skies and pleasant temperatures. There is a time lapse of our arrival if you wish to view it. Today we have 2 activities planned – an excursion and shopping for a suitcase.
The excursion for the day is one of the 15 that came with the cruise. Many times these excursions are what they call “city tours” where you travel around in a bus (in the port city) and are shown point of interest with a couple stops to exit and explore. This tour would be like that but without the emphasis on touring the city. We will be going to a sugar plantation and a botanical garden.
Sugar was, and still is, important to the economy of Mauritius. Our first stop was at Le Chateau de Labourdonnais – a sugar plantation now a museum. We walked a short distance from the parking area to the plantation home through an area that reminded me of the driveway to a plantation in the Southern United States – stately trees on each side shading the driveway. Once at the plantation home we were escorted by a guide who took us through the home and described what it was like to live in that building and on those grounds. The home reminded me of Tara used in the movie Gone With The Wind (but without the grand staircase). All the interior rooms had high ceilings and plenty of windows which contributed to the “natural” air conditioning.
Following the tour of the home we were taken to an area where we could sample rum. As you may know, sugarcane is one of the sources from which rum can be distilled. It was a “natural” for a sugar plantation to use some of the harvest to distill rum and this plantation was no exception. Unlike Grenada, we did not purchase any rum at this stop. That reminds me – we still have a bottle of passion fruit rum we must empty before we disembark in Genoa – time for another get-together of our breakfast group!
Our second, and last, stop of this excursion was at the oldest botanic garden in the Southern hemisphere – SSR Botanic Garden. SSR is much easier to type than Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam (I cut and pasted which wasn’t very difficult). You’ll see a sign for the garden in the gallery. Other gardens we visited this trip and last year had more flowering plants – this garden was heavy with larger specimens – trees. However, this garden did have the largest water lilies I’ve ever seem – large enough for birds to land on and stand on them! We weren’t given enough time to visit the entire garden but the time we did spend there was pleasant and provided shade from the increasingly warm sun.
Unlike Gilligan’s Island, this 3-hour tour did not end with a shipwreck on a deserted island – it ended with a bus ride back to the port. Along the way, as with many of the cities we have visited, we saw reminders of home – here it was KFC and McDonalds (photos also in the gallery).
Now that we had completed our first activity, we set out to find a suitcase and shop for souvenirs. We walked from the pier area to one of the main shopping areas of Port Louis. We were approached by taxi drivers asking what we wanted to do. We talked with a driver who said he could take us to a shop with reasonable prices on luggage and to an area where we could find t-shirts. After some haggling over the price for the fare, we jumped in and away we went. Along the way he also was our tour guide for the areas of Port Louis through which we passed (we had not received this information on our bus excursion).
We stopped at a store with 2 adjacent areas that was packed with luggage of all types. He told us that travelers from India and Malaysia all came here to buy bags and that the owner had reasonable prices. I had done some checking online before we arrived in Port Louis so had an idea what other vendors would charge for what we wanted (26” hard-side bag that meets airline size limits). After looking at several bags we settled on a royal blue suitcase with a red zipper. We chose that one because it should be easier to pick out at baggage claim. The price was reasonable. Our driver loaded the bag in his vehicle and we set off for souvenirs.
He took us to a shopping area that was next to a casino. This area had many “name brand” stores and restaurants. The store that carried t-shirts with Mauritius labeling was named Quicksilver. Jan and I found t-shirts but Kelsey came up empty. They had a special if you purchased 3 shirts so we agreed to share a third shirt (actually, I’m not going to wear it – it will be Jan’s only). For the purchase of 3 we received a 5000-mA charge bank with an image of a Dodo bird on it. Whoopee! We found our way back to our driver, entered the vehicle and returned to the dock. He gave us his card in the event we wanted to travel tomorrow (or one of our friends needed transport).
The entertainment this evening was a local band and dancers who performed on deck 13. Some of their musical instruments looked strange – like drumsticks that looked like human leg bones. The music was fast-paced and happy. Following the performance Kelsey got her evening hug from Sonia and we headed for our cabin and sleep.
Here is the media from our first day at Port Louis.