Robinsonade with a view from the box: The Como Laucala Island Resort gives its guests the beautiful illusion that the world was created just for them.
Image: Como Laucala Island Resort
For once in our lives we wanted to know what it feels like when money is no object – and took a beach vacation among billionaires at the Como Laucala Island Resort, one of the ten most expensive hotels in the world.
We thought we were very close to happiness, we couldn’t help it, even though a human question was haunting our heads unanswered. A private plane had taken us to our private villa on this private island, and the sun had just set on our private beach all to ourselves in the South Pacific Ocean. As if by magic, the torches in our private Garden of Eden were lit and, as if by magic, the champagne supplies were replenished day by day, no matter how much of the fine rosé from the Duval-Leroy house we drank.
Our beach was a hundred meters wide, beautifully decorated with coconut palms and dilos, the Fijian trees of a thousand virtues, with a yoga desk and love bed, palm straw pavilion and canopy loungers. And we didn’t have to share all this with a soul, like Adam and Eve you could spend your entire vacation here. The pool, unlike most luxury resorts, wasn’t an alibi paddling pool, but a veritable swimming pool with a pebble mosaic so beautiful it looked as if it had been designed by David Hockney. The villa, in front of which our own golf cart waited, was twice the size of our apartment at home, the mirror in the boudoir alone was five square meters, and the bathtub must have weighed a ton because it was a giant chunk of lava that had been hollowed out and polished. And all this abundance inevitably led us to the all-important question: Can happiness be bought?