‘All-inclusive’ holidays are nothing to sneer at
• Despite initial misgivings, Patrick Bulger embraces the Club Med ‘secret’ and manages to get in a round of golf
Reality trumped fantasy for me recently when I was invited to stay at a Club Med resort, to luxuriate for a short while in la vie en rose, for four days and five nights. Sent with a brief to “play golf in Mauritius’’, it was my undeserved good fortune to accompany five fellow journalists as guests of Club Med Plantation d’Albion, one of the group’s two premier resorts on the island.
Some years ago, holiday resorts in general had a bad name, and that’s the image I had of them in the gloomy recesses of my brain, unaccustomed as I am to holidays in the sense of getting away from it all. To reinforce this stereotype, often resorts were located in banana republics, in regions of unspoilt beauty and the luxury was obscenely mocking of the poverty all around. I’m happy to be able to report that Club Med Plantation d’Albion is in a class apart, and exhibited none of the negative traits which might deter the ethical holidaymaker. If anything, the opposite was true, down to its ban on singleuse plastics, enlightened staff policies and environmentfriendly practices.
With its open, democratic system of government and freemarket economy, the Republic of Mauritius is an ideal setting for an undertaking that requires stability for a large investment. It’s become something of a beacon for other, far better endowed but less successful countries in Africa.
Once it was really just a big British sugarcane field. But since independence in 1968 the island has diversified into tourism, textiles, tech and industry and enjoys a modest but rising standard of living. The ostentation we’re used to here is perhaps better disguised in Mauritius. Similarly, Club Med runs its operations, insofar as staff are concerned, in a manner that suggests a sense of equality and sustainability. So the “secret’’ of Club Med has as much to do with its people as it has the trademark “allinclusive” luxury on offer.
The greeting, bonjour and bonsoir et al, by staff is just the start of one’s introduction to a style of civility, French perhaps, that somehow makes the fact that legions of eager people are at one’s command 24/7 devoid of any sense of the dreaded hauteur. To say that Club Med employees are expected to be spontaneously cordial to guests is to put it mildly. The interaction between GOs or Gracious Organisers as they are known, who tend to be the senior staff heading up a particular facility or section of the resort, and guests, who are known as Gracious Members (GMs), is a defining element of the Club Med chemistry.
It’s not unusual to find a GO asking if he or she can join your drinks table for a chat, for example. The number 45 is Club Med’s signature number, so it’s quite common to see GMs dressed in T-shirts sporting the number 45. It sounds quite cultish but it really just promotes a sense of togetherness, a meeting of party minds perhaps. It’s not obligatory, either, but it’s a big part of the Club Med fun experience. It’s not for loners, admittedly.
Club Med sells itself as an “all-inclusive’’ holiday resort. This means all your food, drinks and snacks are free. And the buffet offering is expansive, with a wide range of dishes prepared in front of you by chefs in white hats and uniforms. Your activities from snorkelling to sailing, tennis, archery and much more, to an embarrassing debut on a professionally appointed high-wire trapeze, are free. So too your sauna, hammam and other pampering, and your entertainment are all free.
They’re part of the price you pay when you book. Especially if you’re a family, with children under 12 staying free, it makes all the difference not to have to keep dishing the currency. For seven nights at the resort, in a luxury apartment with a bottomless bar fridge, you’ll be paying R25,384 a person, which includes five-star dining and drinks and all activities free too.
The originator of the Club Med concept was a Belgian, Gerard Blitz, a former water polo champion. Starting in 1950, he based his Club Med concept on the idealised Olympic villages he knew from his Olympic playing years. The first camp was a “low-priced colony of tents” on the Spanish island of Majorca, but Club Med soon became a popular holiday concept, with its all-inclusive offering extending beyond bar and buffet to a wide range of sporting and outdoor activities.
The absence of money, albeit often among people who at least had some, had the French magazine Paris Match gushing in 1956: “In these villages, money has no value. We are all billionaires. We live in a perfectly socialist economy, where everything is free for everyone”.
I asked Olivier PerillatPiratoine, MD of Club Med Southern Africa, why a South African would choose a Club Med holiday in Mauritius, and he referred to the “Mauritian authenticity, where all South Africans will feel welcomed thanks to the kindness and attentiveness of our international staff, the unique Club Med experience and allinclusive formula.
“The peace of mind and freedom that comes along with an all-inclusive Club Med holiday is another thing that travellers from SA will love about this resort. Between intimate coves, lush gardens and picture-perfect sea views, our guests will get to discover new passions and enjoy fantastic entertainment in an upscale atmosphere,” he said.
BEYOND EXQUISITE
We stayed a short distance away from the very private and wellappointed chalets in the core of the village, in two of 40 freestanding “villas”. To sweep open the expanse of sliding glass separating one from the outside, and to walk out on one’s first morning, from air-conditioned comfort into the spicy and warm Mauritius morning is an experience beyond exquisite. It’s not cheap at R44,677 per person sharing for seven nights, but you’ll have the villa to yourself, and you’ll know you’ve been on a holiday to remember.
Also ideal for groups, a villa has two, three or four bedrooms, all en suite, connected to each other by a central lounge and entrance area and with a state-of-the-art smart TV and Bose sound system. There’s also a kitchen, equipped with a neat coffee maker and a refrigerator filled with soft drinks, beers, champagne, juices, yoghurts, cheeses. You don’t have to worry: you can eat it all if you want, and have it refilled as you like. Needless to say, your life is made all the easier by top-ofthe-range fittings and lighting all round as well as quality furnishings and huge beds.
Outside, you have your own garden and views to gaze into. You also have a spacious external living area with its own lounge suite and coffee table, a suspended lounging double bed and a dining area, all under cover. Just in front is your own dark-mosaic saltwater pool. To accompany all this, each villa is assigned a butler, who arrives in the morning to offer coffee, breakfast, drinks as you like. In our case, we had a wonderful woman I know only as Daisy, who’d smile always and ask, “Coffee, Mr Patrick? Ashtray?’’
Daisy fixed me an early breakfast ahead of my golfing encounter at the Tamarina Golf Club, an outing for which I’d prepared by visiting the Club Med golf centre the day before where I was helped most graciously by Chef de Sport Abdoulaye Fiaye.
To practise, he’d given me two clubs and a long sleeve of balls. On the artificial golf mats at a short driving range guarded by a tall fence, I nonetheless struck a pitching-wedge shot so high that it cleared the fence by many metres. I waited in trepidation, and for some time, to hear a stricken French scream of “Zut alors!”, but mercifully there was only silence, and I trust that was a good sign.
On the appointed day I was driven to Tamarina Golf Club, which is a work of art set within a greater work of art that includes the iconic Mauritian landmarks of La Tourelle and the Trois Mamelles peaks. Someone famous said golf is a good walk ruined, and on this occasion I rather wished the avaricious monkeys they warn one about had swooped from a flame tree and snatched my clubs away. Alas, that was not to be, though I managed a par on the hardest hole, the stroke one La Rempart. It should have been easy with a cart equipped with a cool box and a GPS-generated map of each hole. But that’s golf for you. Incidentally, Club Med offers unlimited free rounds of golf at Tamarina for holidays booked between September 1 and January 31, available Monday to Friday.
There are many beautiful golf courses in Mauritius, some of them designed and inspired by the world’s best players, coaches and designers, among them our own Ernie Els. Nor, incidentally, is Mauritius a novice in the business of golf.
The Gymkhana Club in Vacoas in the more temperate centre of the island is the fourth-oldest golf club in the world. It was created in 1844 by British Royal Navy officers. We passed it on the tour bus during an excursion. I thought about those sailors of old with their mashies and niblicks and persimmon woods.
The going may have been tougher back then, but the cursing was presumably of the highest rank.
SO THE ‘SECRET’ OF CLUB MED HAS AS MUCH TO DO WITH ITS PEOPLE AS IT HAS THE TRADEMARK ‘ALL-INCLUSIVE’ LUXURY ON OFFER
Bulger was a guest of Club Med La Plantation d’Albion resort
TO ACCOMPANY ALL THIS, EACH VILLA IS ASSIGNED A BUTLER, WHO ARRIVES IN THE MORNING TO OFFER COFFEE, BREAKFAST, DRINKS AS YOU LIKE
Rates: From R25,384 per person. Kids under 12 stay free. Rate excludes flights/transfers. Prices are correct at time of publishing and are subject to change. When booking a stay at Club Med La Plantation d’Albion resort, green fees are included in the package. Ts&Cs apply.