If your idea of a winter vacation means trading snowmen for sand castles, it’s time to make your Caribbean escape. From Anguilla to Turks and Caicos, new hotels have sprung up across the region, including an off-the-grid, eco-chic hideaway, a getaway beside one of the largest reef systems in the world, and a resort steps from what’s being billed as “the first world-class theme park in the Caribbean.” Some properties are even offering opening discounts. So book a flight and grab a swimsuit. Whether you want to pile your plate high at an all-inclusive resort or spring for a suite in St. Barts, these seven destinations aim to ensure that the only thing frozen this winter will be the cocktail in your hand.
Anguilla
Aurora Anguilla Resort & Golf Club
Overlooking the white sands of Rendezvous Bay, the Aurora Anguilla Resort & Golf Club has hundreds of acres to explore. On them you’ll find a farm with ebb and flow hydroponics that can grow dozens of varieties of vegetables (indoor tours of the hydroponic space are available); a 27,000-square-foot spa offering massages, body treatments, facials, and manicures and pedicures; and a new nine-hole short golf course by Greg Norman, who also designed the resort’s 18-hole championship course with views of St. Maarten and the Caribbean Sea. When not on the green or swimming in the turquoise water, you can go hiking, try kitesurfing, take a steel pan class, or swing by the fitness studio for a guided meditation. Lest you get bored, the resort is also planning to open a water park and a 500-seat amphitheater for live entertainment. When at last you climb into bed, choose from one of 178 suites, be it a room with a wraparound terrace and private Jacuzzi, a multi-bedroom villa, or an “estate home” with a private pool and butler.
The property (formerly the CuisinArt Golf Resort & Spa and its sister hotel, the Reef by CuisinArt on Merrywing Bay) is being managed by Salamander Hotels & Resorts and recently announced that it will stay open year-round, including in the fall when other resorts on the island typically close. Rates in December, from $544 a night. Traveling from New York? On Dec. 22 the resort will begin offering charter flights to Anguilla from Westchester County Airport in White Plains. (Rooms and flights can be booked through the resort’s website.)
Belize
Alaia Belize, Autograph Collection
A lodestone for scuba divers, including Jacques-Yves Cousteau, Belize is home to the Belize Barrier Reef Reserve…
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