Amanyara in Turks & Caicos Wants You to Relax

by  James Sturz | Jan 5, 2011
Amanyara Resort
Amanyara Resort / Photo courtesy of the property

This deal has expired, but be sure to check out our Top 25 deals of the week for savings on trips to destinations around the globe.

When Amanyara opened in Turks and Caicos in 2006, its goal was to be different from everywhere else. Amanresorts’ first – and only – Caribbean property foreswore Providenciale’s 12-mile-long Grace Bay Beach, and built instead on 99 acres off Northwest Point, alongside an 18,000-acre nature preserve and comparatively modest half-mile beach. On the one hand, this spared its guests the Grace Bay commotion (think: a nearly endless coastline flanked by a nearly endless string of luxury resorts). On the other, this left Amanyara’s guests just a five-minute boat ride from Northwest Point Marine National Park, one of the best places to scuba dive in the entire 40-island archipelago, where getting stuck inside a spiral of 60 horse-eye jacks along the 7,000-foot-deep coral wall while Caribbean reef sharks fin past is fairly typical. Guests at other hotels can expect an hour-long ride each way to those same dive sites.

This is important, because once you spend any time at Amanyara you’ll understand how seriously it takes the goal of making sure you relax. Maybe it’s the Zen-like calm you’ll feel after a night’s sleep in a king-sized platform bed under a 20-foot timber ceiling, where the sweeping views from the towering glass doors around each pavilion will make waking up feel like you’re already floating. Or maybe it’s the fact that if you make it outside, you won’t need to go farther than your own three private sundecks, where you’ll easily find enough daybeds and couches to try a new spot every few hours. If that effort exhausts you, then you can stroll past the resort’s reflecting pools and restaurant for the chance to collapse into a 164-foot black volcanic stone pool (or into the king-sized teak chaises perched around it, where bottles of Evian arrive as unbidden as the breeze). Amanyara’s mussel-shell bar may also catch your eye, along with its soaring, fanned ceiling and ring of daybeds, where no one will force you to drink upright. After additional resting, you can even amble past the wild sea grape and locust berry to the beach. Or visit the 13,000-square-foot spa.

Of course, all that assumes you’ve come as a couple. But if you’re daring to relax with a half-dozen or more family or friends in tow, Amanyara also has three-, four-, and five-pavilion villas, each with its own black stone pools, fleets of golf carts, private dining rooms/living rooms, private staff, and private chefs. If you can’t imagine ever heading home after such professional resting, you can buy one of the few remaining villas for about $12 million, and then not have to. But most of the villas are part of a rental pool, so you can also take your relaxing seriously for just a few nights. This might not come cheap – expect to pay upwards of $6,000 per day – but you can also expect the team of full-time attendants to make sure everything meets your wildest dreams. But be warned: if you eventually wake up and venture into that dreamy and enchanting ocean, the fish have a mind of their own. www.amanresorts.com

Use our Travel Search price comparison tool to find the lowest rates and travel deals on flights to Turks and Caicos.

Up next...

$119+: Weekdays at Sonoma County Hotel This Winter

Vino Bello Resort
Find The Best Cruises
Find a cruise

Find the best deals!

Click on multiple sites to get the lowest prices

Click on multiple sites to get the lowest prices