Hit the website for coming-soon The Tanai resort on Turks and Caicos and you'll hear that chilly haunting music that really seems to be doing the rounds of resort websites at the moment.
The only reason we can live with it is that the photos of the region are pretty spectacular and have definitely piqued our interest in The Tanai, even though it's not due to open until 2010. They just broke ground to start construction last week.
The Grace Bay Club at Providenciales on Turks and Caicos isn't scrimping on things: they even have a hotel school set up for their employees to learn the skills of the trade. Since tourism is the fastest growing industry on the island, Grace Bay takes the view that to get good staff, it should be giving them extensive training themselves, and that seems to be helping.
Recent guests give plenty of compliments to the staff, with the only complaint being that they move a bit more slowly than some people might be used to--but that's the whole point of being away from the hustle and bustle of normal life.
If you're an expert on spa treatments and fantastic exfoliators--or if you just feel like you want to spoil yourself--the Regent Palms Turks and Caicos think they have something special for you. They've just opened their new Regent Spa and are featuring a special Mother of Pearl Body Exfoliation treatment. Come on, you want it; you just didn't know until now.
Apparently the conch shell is the number one export of Turks and Caicos, and the Regent Palms is taking advantage of that by tying the conch shell into this new spa treatment. The exfoliation treatment uses a blend of hand-crushed, queen conch shells to scrub off all that dead skin. We presume they add a few nice smells and crush those shells finely enough that it doesn't feel just like sandpaper.
The Regent Spa then offers you a rain shower plus a bunch of aromatherapy oils (your choice) to finish off the treatment--all that costs $85 for 30 minutes, which isn't too exorbitant. Whether or not you get the promised "younger-looking you" probably depends on the quality of the conch shell, right? Let us know if you try it out yourself.
The name Amanda Bynes conjures our childhood days when a fun Saturday night consisted of watching a cute (though slightly annoying) little girl jump around All That and The Amanda Show between shots of the Big Orange Couch on Nickelodeon's Snick lineup.
Fast-forward a decade or so, and all the Hairspray must have gone to her head. Page Six reports Bynes pulled a diva act while staying at the The Sands at Grace Bay Resort during the Turks and Caicos Film Festival last week. Festival organizers claim Bynes demanded four first-class plane tickets, two double hotel suites and failed to show up to events to which she'd committed.
But the star's reps insist Bynes behaved.
"It's absolutely not true," said her rep, Leslie Sloane Zelnick. "She is the nicest girl, she makes no demands, she was offered those tickets and her rooms by the festival. She even paid for all her own meals."
No one ever praises our kindness when we pay for the food we eat. Though I guess they would if we'd been rehearsing sketches in Universal Studios in 1992 instead of playing pretend hotelier with our Barbie Dream House.
When we started to read about the coming-soon Ritz-Carlton West Caicos Reserve our environmentally conscious radar went up: West Caicos on the western end of the Turks and Caicos archipelago is a virtually uninhabited island. Why spoil it with a fancy hotel? But Ritz-Carlton are very careful to point out that the proposed 75 island villas are part of a very environmentally responsible development that included extensive consultations with an eco-tourism expert.
So then we relaxed and decided it sounded like a wonderful place. West Caicos is apparently the home to the Molasses Reef which is not only one of the world's best diving spots, it's also rumored that Columbus' ship Pinta sank here--that makes us dream of buried treasure.
The Ritz-Carlton development will be at the high end of the luxury scale, centered on the north shore of the island; most of the island will remain "forever" undeveloped, they say. The villas will be built using the varying architectural influences of the Caribbean and in a low-density, low-impact style. At the moment the scheduled opening is late 2008 and we'll let you know when they firm that up--and how much you have to pay to stay on a nearly uninhabited island.
The Alexandra Resort hopes to house some of the attendees coming down to the Turks and Caicos Islandsfor the third annual Turks & Caicos International Film Festival this October 16th to the 21st. The TCIFF package gives guests a seven-night stay for the price of five nights, the hotel says. Guests can also stay for five nights with one night free. Though created to coincide with the festival, the deal is around from now until Nov. 15th.
The film festival's mission is to honor "filmmakers and musically infused movies" such as J. Lo and Marc Anthony's El Cantante, along with others such as The Hottest State (directed by Ethan Hawke) and Something the Lord Made plus many international films. Access Hollywood is even hosting the festival's Sal Del Mar Awards Presentation where Amanda Bynes will be presented with Rising Star of the Year.
To book the package visit the hotel's website or call 1-800-284-0699 and ask for the booking code “FILM”.
Dellis Cay, the Turks & Caicos luxury hotel and residences to open on John Dellis's Caribbean island, may not be scheduled to open until 2009, but hotel hype can never start early enough.
Greek shipping god John Dellis developed a thriving sponge trading center at this particular cay towards the end of the 19th century (what is it with these Greek shipping guys?), and today the island is set to be the site of Mandarin Oriental Dellis Cay, designed by Shigeru Ban, David Chipperfiled, Carl Ettensperger, Zaha Hadid, Kengo Kuma, and Piero Lissoni.
Construction will begin this spring on turning 35 island acres with a beachfront access into the Mandarin Oriental hotel and residences. There will be 25 suites in the hotel to add to the residences offered for rental (a smattering of villas and condos). The residences will feature large terraces and balconies, there will be four restaurants, infinity-edge pools, tennis courts, a beach club and shops. The spa will be built suspended over a lake, and it will have an outdoor pool for water massage treatments.
Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones are already rumored to have snagged a pre-construction villa here.
If you are looking to buy, it will cost you $1.2 million to $6 million and if you are looking to holiday on Dellis Cay, stay tuned for room prices as they become available.
A Turks & Caicos resort is about to bring the heat with the extreme sport that will knock you out while at the same time giving you the most intense rush you have ever experienced...eXtreme Croquet. Yes, you read us right, croquet.
The Somerset on Grace Bay, a luxury beachfront resort, is bringing their eXtreme croquet to guests in March. What's involved?
"Somerset eXtreme Croquet" is played on a six-wicket beach course, a terrain that poses much more difficulty in navigating than croquet's traditionally tightly manicured lawns. The course is laid out in a figure-eight pattern with all wickets being turn wickets, making the passage space for a ball much smaller than a regular wicket. The basic rules and point system of croquet will apply to "Somerset eXtreme Croquet" with extreme variations.
For you croquet fiends we've posted the extreme variations after the jump, but we just thought you should know that an arm wrestling match between team captains is needed to determine who starts the game.
If you are interested in reserving some play time at the Somerset, you can do so through the resort's concierge or by calling the hotel directly. Don't worry, if you're newbie to the sport, the hotel will provide all equipment and a rules book, along with a course diagram.
And if you get sick of eXtreme croquet and need to give your brain and body a break from the intense game high, then kick back and relax on the resort's 4.6 acres of pristine beachfront property, with 54 guest suites complete with fully stocked gourmet kitches and infinity-edge and cross-current music pools. Also feel free to chill out at the resort's very own Somerset Sandcastle University before hitting up the eXtreme course again.
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by amandak
