Melia Hotels opens wellness property on Phuket, Thailand
A Spanish hotel company is stepping up its presence with the December opening of a wellness-focused resort on Phuket.
Melia Phuket Mai Khao
Thailand
Spanish company Melia Hotels International is stepping up its presence in Thailand with the December opening of a wellness focused resort on Phuket and a new hotel with dramatic rooftop bar debuting in Chiang Mai next month.
Nestled on 3ha on the northwest coast fronting the island’s longest and prettiest beach, Melia Phuket Mai Khao opened its sleek new doors before Christmas with 30 suites and 70 pool villas.
Along with a pared-back, Mediterranean-inspired design aesthetic, the resort has a strong wellness focus, with 15 villas dedicated to a more comprehensive spa experience. Think ultrasonic oil diffusers, air purifiers, a healthy minibar and special showers with vitamin C added to the water. Apparently, this delivers soapier soap and softer skin. Guests of the wellness villas also enjoy a daily
60-minute massage.
Suites and villas are arranged in gleaming white clusters amid plenty of greenery and embrace seamless indoor/outdoor living with al fresco bathtubs, open-air showers and private terraces. Suites have cabanas, perfect for reading or dozing, villas have the bonus of a private plunge pool. All rooms include a large satellite television, Bluetooth speaker, coffee pod machine and light and airy interiors in a soothing palette with pops of blue from cushions and pools.
Tucked away behind the resort lobby, the day spa features five large treatment rooms, but staff also offer in-villa and poolside treatments.
Alongside a fitness centre, large central pool and children’s club, guests have access to a range of offsite activities including horse riding on the beach, scuba diving and golf.
Culinary director Luca Mancini oversees four restaurants, including a swim-up bar and the bright and breezy Gaia Beach Club with huge open kitchen. Adjacent to the beach pool and set about with natty cabanas and comfy sun lounges, the club provides a Spanish spin on Thai cuisine, such as gazpacho with Mai Khao sand crabs, and jamon with Thai papaya instead of melon.
The all-day SASA specialises in Thai and international fare as well as healthy breakfasts, if you’re sticking to that wellness plan.
Rooms from 6000 baht ($248) including breakfast; wellness pool villas from 13,000 baht ($537).
melia.com
CHRISTINE McCABE
Forward planner
Like many cruise operators during the pandemic, SeaDream Yacht Club didn’t spend the past two years resting on its laurels. Instead, it spent $US10m ($13.7m) upgrading facilities on its two ships, SeaDream I and II.
The line recommenced sailing in September last year, and both 112-passenger vessels are looking spick and span in a contemporary palette of blue and grey. Staterooms have fresh hard and soft furnishings, 55-inch TVs and USB charging stations, while bathrooms have been decked out in Italian stone and have rain showers installed. Public areas were also given special treatment, with new umbrellas, hammocks and sun lounges plus two couples’ Jacuzzis taking pride of place on the sixth deck.
SeaDream sails predominantly in the Caribbean and Mediterranean, with most voyages ranging from seven to 12 days. A 10-day roundtrip from Rome with a strong wine focus visits northern Italy and the French Riviera. It calls at the likes of Sanary-sur-Mer, near Bandol, which has some of the oldest vines in France, the island of Elba, St-Tropez and Portofino. From $US8599 a person,
twin-share.
PENNY HUNTER
Book club
TWO GENTS IN ITALY
Anthony R. Wildman
A journey through Italian history and culture is the stated theme but do not expect a dry, academic tome. Wildman is the author of two Italy-based “fictionalised histories”: What News on the Rialto? (2019), summoning an imaginary trip by Shakespeare to Verona, and The Diplomat of Florence, based on Machiavelli and the Borgias (2020). The gents of this 2021 title are Melbourne-based Wildman and his partner, Robert, and the narrative is based on a sojourn from 2017-20. The tour had originally been planned as a gap year between the end of busy careers and the prospect of retirement. Instead, for those three years, the couple set up for weeks at a time in their favourite cities and towns (including a farmhouse in Volterra owned by Australian friends) and radiate through each region. So it’s not a superficial skim but something altogether more satisfying.
The title, Wildman explains, is “an ironic riff” on Shakespeare’s The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Prepare for musings on food, naturally, and the ways in which Italy handles (and complicates) matters such as bureaucracy. Plus there’s the emotional attachment to football, music and excitable conversation. It’s clear Wildman is passionate about Italy, fostered from his first visit in 1990 with Robert and a new Italian friend who acted as guide. There were lessons learned on that inaugural foray about the locals’ gusto for life and wry humour, especially when Wildman left their rental car overnight in an open-air “public carpark” that turned out, next morning, to be a market and the vehicle was at its centre, surrounded by stalls. Some jokester had placed a For Sale sign on its windscreen and much humour ensued while locals helped clear off (and presumably threw away) the parking tickets under the wipers and guided the car outwards and onwards.
There are touches throughout of the wry humour of British writer Tim Parks, whose narratives on expatriate life in Italy have won wide acclaim. Wildman’s dissertations on art are scholarly but accessible (the essay on Caravaggio, an obsession of mine, is particularly illuminating) and they sit comfortably alongside more of a guidebook approach to, say, Turin’s Museo Nazionale del Cinema, and touring the Italian Riviera. Each chapter is self-contained, made for dipping and delving. So, fire up Ennio Morricone’s soundtrack of Cinema Paradiso, and break out the Campari.
SUSAN KUROSAWA
