We stayed for 7 days at Domain for the second week of our honey moon (first week L’Archipel Praslin, 3rd week Bird Island – see separate reviews) Whilst we enjoyed our stay on La Digue I don’t think Domain is the best place to stay – I wish I could compare it to others on La Digue but we only visited Domain.

Location is great – we were picked up from the ferry by a golf buggy and taken to Domain it only took 5 mins. We were welcomed with coconut milk and relaxed in the shade, we were shortly shown to our villa. Each villa is semi detached has a large garden area and a large wooden deck. The deck has a sun lounger (white but with black mould all over it) & table and chairs for dinner and breakfast. On arrival at the villa it looks stunning, very pretty with flowers on the bed and tables and we were very pleased. The problem is the villa was like a show home – NOTHING WORKED! It was meant to be self catering – but I guess no one has ever made dinner here!
Our first night we made a basic stir fry – as there was only 2 rings 2 pans and 1 microwave so you were very limited to what you could actually cook.

The lights bulbs were out in the kitchen
When we went to serve dinner on the terrace the outside lights did not work – it was pitch black by this time
There were no plugs in the sinks
There was no washing up liquid
You had the same tea towel for a week
And this was just the kitchen…………………..

The living room had extremely uncomfortable wooden pews with the dirtiest white cushions on – see picture attached.
The worst of Domain was the aircon. La Digue was unbearably hot, some of the hottest weather I have ever experienced. (Apparently even the locals said it was hotter than usual) The aircon is above the bed and it broke down our first night, we awoke to a soaking wet bed and water dripping all over us! So at 2am we were mopping up and taking bedding off the bed and turning over the mattress. The rest of the night was completely sleepless due to the heat.
This happened a further two times in the middle of the night! Each time we rang to complain and get someone to fix it there was never an apology just “ok we send someone” In the end we snapped and asked to be moved to La Digue Island Lodge but Domain wouldn’t cancel our booking and would charge a large cancellation fee, we complained strongly to the manager and he tried to put things right by offering us a bottle of cheap sparkling wine and getting a proper aircon engineer in to fix the problem instead of the local handy man that mended it the first three times and told us it only worked on fan!
There is also a building site next to Domain that starts at about 7.30am – we are early risers so didn’t cause too many problems, the afternoon we spent at the villa was very noisy though.

All in all we would never go back nor recommend it to anyone else.

La Digue Island was great and we got around the island on bikes all week. There is an excellent supermarket for food and drinks. Whilst we were on La Digue there had been very high tides so a lot of coral had been deposited on the beaches – you’ll need water shoes on every beach on La Digue due rocks and coral.
We visited – Grand Anse which had huge waves and no swimming but was very beautiful, Petit Anse, again stunning but too dangerous to swim. Anse Coco s a real hike over hills and rocks but worth it – I loved it here we had a great picnic that my husband carted over the hills! (Actually this is one thing Domain did a great job of the picnic lunch was fantastic) When we got there we were very surprised to see naked people on the beach! But hey each to their own – it was very quiet and a large beach so there was plenty of room for everyone. The bike ride to these beaches is about 20-25mins and steep in some places but it’s very pretty and well worth it.

The beach near to Domain is just a 4-5 min bike ride and is ok – got quite busy and when the tide goes out the water is only a couple of inches deep so to swim you had to go out about 100 meters and it’s over coral so you must have water shoes.

Anse Source De Argent beach was so disappointing! It’s in a National Park so you have to pay $10.00 per person just to enter the park on your bike. There had been very high tides and bad weather so the already tiny beaches were covered in seaweed and coral – I was expecting great things from this beach with all the famous pictures that come from here. The beaches on Praslin are far superior to all the beaches on La Digue.

We did a full days trip to Coco Island for snorkelling and was really fantasic! Only 8 others on the boat so not crowded. We went to 4 islands altogether and had a beach BBQ on Sister Island the food was seriously great! At €85.00 per person this was a great day out. The crew on the boat and guy that cooked the food were great and really made a fun trip.

In hindsight I would have spent only 3-4 days on La Digue rather than a week – 3-4 days is plenty of time to see everything.

Please feel free to ask any questions.