HotelChatter

What You Get
Make a list of the features in your ultimate fantasy hotel: Indoor and outdoor hot tubs, a private pool, mini ice rink, free bar, dedicated gourmet chef, unlimited champagne, 40-inch plasma screen TVs, pool tables, egg-shaped baths with designer rubber ducks, spectacular views.

The Lodge has them all and more (although we hear that a new chalet built at the same time as the Lodge has stolen the previously spectacular view from the lounge....) There are nine rooms sleeping 18 adults in total, plus a 6-bed bunkroom for kids and ten staff at your beck and call. All transfers, arrangements, ski-hire, blah blah....sorted out with a nod from you and a flash of your credit card.

Branson's Babes
As you know, it's the staff that make the difference between a truly luxury hotel and a five-star nothing. Branson's babes at The Lodge are a couple of experienced Virgin hotel staff, a Dutch chef who worked with Raymond Blanc, and a large dog called Bam-Bam. Demanding guests take facilities, good food, free champagne etc for granted - it's the personal touch that's important.

We can't help feeling, though, that all the pampering is aimed at rich-kids and fur-coaters with too much money to spend and no brains to spend it with. The website, for instance, gives useful 'travel tips' for guests - including that you should wear warm clothes in winter and light clothes in summer. Under 'Appetite', the only advice is: "The food at The Lodge will be sensational so you'll always want to leave room for dessert." Er, thanks.

Verbier: Fancy a $8,430 Après-Ski Cocktail?
The Lodge is a three-minute walk from the main ski-lift of the Verbier resort, which is rapidly becoming the most over-priced ponce-market in the skiing world. Latest news is the $8,430 après-ski cocktail (yes, that's $8,430), which you can enjoy in the Coco Club in town. It's called a Chalet, comes served in a hand-carved ice sculpture in the shape of a, er, chalet, and is brought to you by a Coco Snow Bird. We'll leave it to your imagination what she looks like.

It Figures
Branson's accounts work exactly according to the economic model - the hotel's pretty much 100% booked out over the 2007/2008 season (don't expect any last-minute cut-price deals) so he's shooting up his prices for next year. The cheapest week for exclusive use of the chalet and staff is $83,000, but this becomes $140,000 over the New Year.

Even if you get 17 of your best friends together to share the cost, that's nearly $7,800 a head. Clearly, Branson don't want no riff-raff.

The website gives details for those arriving by private plane as if that were the norm. Oh, let us dream.

Branson's Other Hotel Ventures
Branson ain't a baby in the world of luxury hotels. He's got one in Morocco, another in London, a game reserve in South Africa, a house in Mallorca, and a scuba base in the British Virgin Islands.

He may conceivably get a pad set up in Space (Stephen Hawking's already booked his suite).

Branson's most famous hotel, however, is located on his private Necker Island, also in the British Virgin Islands. We can't beat HotelChatter reviewer Annie 007's closing comment on the place:

"Seriously, though. You haven't had luxury until you've sat on the loo, in the raw, looking out over your own private patch of cerulean Caribbean Sea. It's bare-bottom bliss at a top-dollar price."