Hotel where Michaela killed is voted best for honeymoons

The hotel where Michaela McAreavey was brutally murdered has been voted the best honeymoon destination in Mauritius.

Michaela, 27, daughter of Tyrone GAA manager Mickey Harte, was found strangled in the bathroom of her suite at the five-star Legends Hotel in the resort of Grand Gaube in Mauritius three years ago.

About two years ago, resort chiefs made efforts to distance themselves from the tragedy by rebranding the hotel the Lux Grand Gaube, after the idyllic coastal village in the north of the Indian Ocean island where it is based.

Now, the premises has once again been ranked the best hotel in the resort — just as it was last year — on TripAdvisor, the leading travel review website.

Over the past 12 months, the number of holidaymakers — mostly newlywed couples — who have given the hotel a flawless review has almost doubled.

Of the 1,426 reviews of the hotel posted on the site, 1,044 rate it as “excellent”, while 254 describe it as “very good” — a figure which is again over twice as many as last year’s. Just 83 holidaymakers said their experience was “average”, while 33 said it was “poor”. Only 12, just five more than last year, recalled their stay as “terrible”.

It appears holidaymakers who travelled there over the past 12 months are either oblivious to Mrs McAreavey’s murder or have refused to let it put them off staying at the hotel.

Typical of the upbeat comments are one from last November, in which a newlywed gushed: “I could not think of a better place to spend my honeymoon.”

Another London-based honeymooner said: “This hotel was the first of our three honeymoon hotels and it was the perfect beginning.”

Mrs McAreavey, a former beauty queen, was found strangled in the bathroom of her luxury hotel suite on Jan 10, 2011.

She had returned to her room to fetch biscuits to share with her new husband, John McAreavey, when she was fatally attacked. She had only been married for 11 days when her devastated husband discovered her body in the bathtub of her suite.

Mauritian police have not looked at the murder case in more than a year, according to a recent report.

Two hotel employees were acquitted of murder charges in a lengthy trial in Mauritius, which ended in Jul 2012.

However, a second inquiry into the teacher’s killing reportedly ended in Dec 2012 after reportedly failing to make any new inroads.