POOL PARTY
Pool Party - Luxury Travel Magazine
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Pool Party | |||||
| By Hilary Doling, Issue 30 - Autumn 2007 | |||||
| (Port Douglas, NSW, Australia) | |||||
| PORT DOUGLAS HAS A SHINY NEW IMAGE AND A HOST OF TRENDY BARS AND RESTAURANTS TO TEMPT THE INDULGENT TRAVELLER. | |||||
| They still hold cane toad races at the Iron Bar on the main strip, and the old pubs such as Central Hotel and Court House Hotel still have boozers and dogs spilling out into the street on warm nights, but in the last five years Port Douglas has been made-over in a serious way. Of course Port Douglas has had a certain sense of bling ever since Christopher Skase came to town 30 years ago, but the speed of change is now Lear-jet propelled. The main street is a mix of bijou boutiques and fashionably expensive restaurants. The town is awash with holiday apartments and motels with manicured lawns, blocks of units (which are now called ‘condominiums’), private golf courses, lavish tennis courts, and fashionably expensive restaurants, and every conceivable tour of the Great Barrier Reef. But the biggest change is in the accommodation. For a long time only the Skase-built Sheraton Mirage, the Queen of Port Douglas, offered a five star experience. Now there are a select group of other elegant offerings snapping at her heels hoping to steal the crown. Sea Temple Resort & Spa only opened last year, but already it has made a big impression on luxury-loving visitors. The designer lobby, with its high ceiling and views through to the pool, definitely has what style gurus like to call ‘the wow factor’. This innovative Asian-inspired design runs through the whole resort. Its apartments are spacious and beautifully fitted out, its restaurant serves wonderful food and is a magical place to sit in the evening when the flame torches light up the pool, and the staff are genuinely friendly but seamlessly efficient. Add to this an 18-hole golf course and a luxurious spa with eight treatment rooms and Elemis therapy products, and you have a winning combination. Our favourite rooms are the swim-in swim-out villas where you can step straight off your verandah into the turquoise water that laps around the whole resort. Although luxury-seekers will also like the penthouses with their own private rooftop plunge pools: choices, and choices. So how is the resort that started it all faring? Pretty well, actually. Sheraton Mirage Port Douglas celebrates its 30th birthday this year – and its vast marbled lobbies, brass stair rails and oversized urns do smack of eighties excess. Americans still love the property and you can see why. Big is definitely better here – something that would appeal to those from the land of bucket- sized cookies and monster fries. Of course space is also a plus and the resort’s expansive 130 hectares (321 acres) of grounds are something that all the other upstart pretenders to the throne just can’t compete with. The resort sprawls along the pristine Four Mile beach. And is so large that families love to ride their bikes (hired at the resort) around its tropical gardens and two hectares of lagoon pools. Looking out of my ground floor lagoon-view window, I feel as if I’m on a tropical island rather than in a resort since the hotel complex is so well hidden behind the foliage and has so many man-made ‘beaches’ scattered about, that it is easy to find a secret spot to sunbathe or swim. Once upon a time the rooms had a relentlessly tropical décor but those that have been refurbished now have pleasing nautical blue stripes on the chairs and mercifully plain bedspreads. Best of all are the manicured greens of the golf course, which is why Sheraton Mirage Port Douglas was voted Best Resort Golf Course in our Luxury Travel Magazine Gold List 2006 readers poll. Those looking for added luxury can now book into one of the villas overlooking the course, or the new Beachfront Mirage. In view of the new competition from resorts like Sea Temple and the new gleaming white Outrigger Beach Club, soon to be re-branded as Peppers Beach Club, the older established properties are sharpening up their act. Mantra Treetops Resort & Spa doesn’t pretend to be a five star stay, but its new Treetops Life Spa definitely deserves a few stars. Nine treatment rooms are nestled in tree houses linked by covered walkways. You feel suspended above the ground so your treatment is a heavenly experience in more ways than one. The natural wood and sandstone create a calming nurturing space. There are two Vichy spa rooms and a range of pampering treatments including a seashell rejuvenation, which promises to harness the benefits of the ocean. There are a lot of people willing to invest in this new ‘designer’ Port Douglas. As you drive along the main road into town, wind your window down and you become aware of tropical breezes, palm groves and, building. Everywhere you look it seems designer resorts and apartment blocks are springing up. It is clearly party time for property developers. Investment units and villas in Sea Temple are selling from $975,000 to $2.45million. Juniper, the developers who built Sea Temple, are set to open Coconut Grove (another up-market resort complex) by the end of this year. Then there is Pool, a range of villas created by Melbourne’s Carr design. One of the most unmarked and stylish of all is the Bale’ group tropical pavilions now for sale from a cool 1.2million up… and up. Real Estate agents say buyers for these resort developments are mainly from Melbourne and Sydney who want to invest in a pineapple-slice of tropical luxury. | |||||
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