We were two adults and our 19 year old daughter. We had two Ocean Villas. The accommodation was wonderful.
General:
The island has white sand, and beautiful pale blue sea extending for several hundred metres over the shallow waters, surround by a darker blue sea as the deep ocean takes over. Picture postcard views (if you remember what they were), in every direction.
There’s a network of pathways across and round the island, so no restaurant/bar or facility is more than a few minutes walk away. The staff are happy to take you anywhere on buggies, which we did on a couple of occasions when we did have to be at the dive centre by a certain time or one restaurant where it was important to arrive on time. You could walk round the island in 15 minutes.
Something we didn’t appreciate till we arrived (by seaplane - which was really cool), was there is a large pool with a bar on the island near our Ocean Villa.
Accommodation (Ocean Villas):
A generous sized bedroom with a very comfortable bed and very good quality linen. The windows/doors at the foot of the bed face directly across the ocean.
The only niggle we had was there was limited hanging space in the wardrobe for my wife’s extensive holiday clothing. Half of the wardrobe was only half-height, but we managed!
There’s a large very comfortable couch/daybed in the bedroom if you wanted to retreat into the bedroom to cool down.
The balcony has another large couch/daybed, table, two chairs, two sun loungers and steps directly into the sea. You can find shade if you need it (I do) or stay in the sun all day (my wife does).
TV:
Has limited channels, but enough if you wanted to stay in touch, although we turned it on only once.
Bluetooth speaker: Marshall Bluetooth speaker to stream your music soundtrack.
Air conditioning: very good air conditioning and a fan in the room, meant you could dial any temp you wanted.
Nespresso machine and tea making facilities. Plenty of bottled water and everything in the mini-bar was free and replenished daily. Everything was recognised international brands. Even Lindt chocolate in the fridge.
Butler service:
The quote from our butler was “Your happiness is my priority!” And they mean it.
Bathroom:
It was a generous bathroom, luxury bath with unhindered view of the ocean. The shower was very good and the sanitary ware was all of very high quality. Twin sinks (albeit small) and a large mirror is always a plus.
WiFi:
Exceptionally good so you could stream YouTube all day. Virtually universal coverage across the island. If you had a CPN to clone UK IP addresses, you can stream most services you have at home.
Electrical Plugs:
UK British plugs fit! The sockets have the facility to take some two pin plugs too.
Food and Beverage:
There are 11 restaurants and bars and when they say all-inclusive, that’s what they mean. There are only a limited number of items you can pay extra for.
We ate twice at a very intimate (12 seat) restaurant which was extra for a theatrical culinary experience.
The quality of food is exceptional and the selections of wines, spirits and cocktails is incredible.
There are too many restaurants and bars to list, but we typically had a drink at the SkyBar for sunset, then a really lovely, unhurried meal with good wines, excellent food and first class service at any one of the really good restaurants. What a wonderful end to a day in paradise.
Medi-spa: the treatments booklet is 54 pages long and covers almost anything you might wish from a traditional spa, plus Botox,
Micro-needle treatment etc. The facilities compare with the best in London.
Gym: The gym is superbly equipped and air conditioned.
PADI 5 star diving:
Not cheap, but they offer a 5 star service and we had a few really enjoyable dives on the coral walls of neighbouring islands. No technical diving facilities, but really good dive masters with excellent language and knowledge. I’m not used to someone even cleaning my mask for me and lifting the high quality “Aqualung” brand kit out of the water for me! Real luxury service and really lovely people to dive with. The Dive master even transferred some Go-Pro video (I’d forgotten mine), onto my phone at the end of the day. My highlight was finding an octopus in it’s day lair, but there were Manta, Turtles, Sharks etc…
Would we go again? You bet! We’re looking at a two story Ocean Suites next time, which has an added advantage of a plunge pool, an exclusive restaurant and a large pool on the pontoon. My daughter is already talking about dates with our travel agent!
