ROOMY ENOUGH FOR YOU? Banyan Tree's DoublePool Villas sit amid lavish grounds
If a sumptuous villa with a private pool pretty much fits your definition of a luxury holiday, you clearly haven't lived — or been to the Banyan Tree Phuket. The five-star Thai resort offers 22 villas that come not with one pool each but two.
The first thing that strikes you about the DoublePool Villas, as they're called, is their jaw-dropping footprint: including grounds, they occupy between 16,460 sq. ft. (1,530 sq m) and 23,520 sq. ft. (2,185 sq m). Nestled amid each oasis is an infinity-edged pool, surrounded by a vast shady lawn and overlooking a central lagoon. The second pool is a wading pool that wraps around the glass-enclosed bedroom — all you need to do to enjoy your morning dip is roll over in bed.
The villas, naturally, are designed for high-seclusion romance. You can't see or hear your neighbors and can rest assured that your dedicated "villa host," or butler, only appears when you dial for him (his telephone number is saved in a cell phone presented to you upon check in).
Couples will love little touches like the nightly rituals based on Loy Krathong and Comb Loy. These festivals both occur in the twelfth month of the lunar year, but at the Banyan Tree Phuket they are celebrated every night — by making wishes and floating candles down the lagoon (a practice during Loy Krathong), or by writing a wish on paper, tying it to a giant lantern and watching it go up into the starlit sky (as the Thais do during Comb Loy). You'll head back to your villa afterward to find that the staff haven't left chocolates on the bed — which would be rather infra dig, one suspects, for a place like the Banyan Tree — but silk pajamas. The next morning holds nothing more stressful than deciding which of your two pools you will be basking beside.
See www.banyantree.com for more details.