How luxury resorts have ruined me

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This was published 8 years ago

How luxury resorts have ruined me

By Lee Tulloch
Aman resorts' Amanoi overlooks fishing villages of Vinh Hy Bay, Vietnam.

Aman resorts' Amanoi overlooks fishing villages of Vinh Hy Bay, Vietnam.

I really am a bit of a sucker for a tropical cocktail, the kind that is the colour of the sunset, decorated with paper umbrellas and plastic mermaids and which come with a handful of nuts served in half a coconut.

Once upon a time, if you said "resort" to me, I'd think of a colourful cocktail or two sipped under a shaded sun lounge by a pool that had a few square metres clear for me and my own bungalow with sea breezes. That seemed like utter luxury. It still sounds pretty nice. But these days a resort has to be many more things than this.

Over the past decade, as more couples and families, aided by cheaper airfares and package deals, chose international beach and ski resorts for their holidays the competition for the holidaymaker dollar has become fiercer.

The Aman resorts' Amanoi is set in 29,000 hectares of coastal forest.

The Aman resorts' Amanoi is set in 29,000 hectares of coastal forest.

A seafood buffet and a beach massage was once considered pretty swish but now resort-goers demand to be entertained beyond the sun lounge with tennis lessons for toddlers, surfing lessons for teens, fine dining for kids as well as adults, mother and daughter spa treatments and master chef cooking classes. Resorts are vying for guests with the big cruise ships, which offer multiple destinations, non-stop entertainment, excursions and celebrity-fuelled events.

But at the very high end, luxury resorts are offering the kind of experience that is not defined by blingy decor, musical extravaganzas or how much you can crowd into a day. It's all about a sense of space, a place of escape and wellbeing, where whims are catered to and exclusive experiences are created just for you. In many ways these retreats offer the sensation of being returned to the cradle, of being cossetted and taken away from the troubles of the everyday world, at least if you turn off the high-speed internet for a while.

In these hallowed places you stay in pavilions, not rooms or suites; you dine on degustation menus created from ingredients grown in the resort's own organic garden; you sleep between Frette sheets and bathe in giant bathtubs hewn from a single piece of stone; your pavilion has its own plunge pool and hot tub, usually with views across a mountain or bay; you have a golf buggy on call to drive you to few metres to the cliff-top restaurant or beach; the gym, which few guests use, is as large as city block and the spa treatment rooms are built into an aquarium where you are surrounded by fish, or in pods like bird's nests on the shores of a lagoon; you take your morning Pilates class with the instructor of a friend of Gwyneth Paltrow.

Cult resort brands such as Aman, Como, Anantara, Six Senses and Alila can be like religious retreats with whisper-quiet, white-clad staff, unseen people filling your bedroom at night with fragrant candles, personalised wellness goals and menus, activities that are good for the soul as well as the body, and many private rock platforms and pagodas for sitting on cross-legged and communing with nature. These resorts tend to practise a high level of environmental sustainability, so happily they're good for the conscience too.

It's blindingly obvious they're not for party animals or indeed anyone on a strict budget. It's the environment of tranquility that you're paying for as much as it is the beautiful accommodations or staff at your beck and call.

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Last month I found myself at Aman resorts' Amanoi, on the south-east coast of Vietnam, which is set in 29,000 hectares of coastal forest overlooking the fishing villages of Vinh Hy Bay. I slept in a vast, airy pavilion; my shower opened up onto a terrace with a glorious vista of the sea; there was morning yoga in a floating pavilion in a lake; buggies were on call to drive me to the spa and Beach Club or the two infinity pools; I could take meditative walks in the national park and see not another soul for hours; when I was feeling poorly a rotation of lovely people in white linen brought me fresh ginger tea. It was as serene as a sanatorium, but with fine French wines on the menu.

So now I've been ruined. Sharing a pool is not on. If the bath is smaller than a small ship I won't get into it. And a Mai Tai with a paper umbrella is no longer enough. Bring on the Lemongrass Mojito.

Lee Tulloch was a guest of Amanoi.

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