Jade Mountain, on the south-west coast of St Lucia, has 29 rooms, and none of them has a front wall. Each room opens straight onto a view of the Pitons, and in most of them a private infinity pool is set where the wall would be. Sharing a room that open with someone met only a few months earlier is a real test of a new relationship. In a 2019 OnePoll survey of 2,000 American adults, commissioned by Visit Anaheim, 37% said they fell in love on their first trip with a partner, and 23% said the trip ended the relationship.
Jade Mountain, St Lucia
The hotel calls its rooms sanctuaries. All of them have a four-poster bed and a bathroom with a sunken bath behind a half-wall, and the open side faces the two Pitons and the Caribbean Sea. The Sky Suites at the top of the building have 15-foot ceilings and a bath for two in place of a pool. Every guest is assigned a personal butler. Jade Mountain shares a black-sand beach and a scuba school with Anse Chastanet, its sister resort a short way down the hill. A quieter second beach, with its own bar and grill, is a short walk around the headland, a useful escape when a couple wants a change from the room. Further afield, the Sulphur Springs near Soufrière and the trails up the Pitons offer a day away from the resort.
Rosewood Mayakoba, Mexico
Rosewood Mayakoba is inside the private Mayakoba development on the edge of Playa del Carmen, on the Riviera Maya, and all 129 of its rooms are suites. Many are set around the resort’s lagoon and have a private boat deck, while the beachfront suites open directly onto the sand. Most suites come with a private plunge pool and a rooftop sundeck. The Deluxe Overwater Lagoon Suites go further. They have 788 square feet inside and a 1,016-square-foot terrace over the lagoon with a heated plunge pool. Butler service and in-room dining at any hour are included, and each overwater suite takes a maximum of two guests. In February 2026 they were listed at about US$3,059 a night. For two people who have not yet travelled together, the size of the suites is the main advantage, since each person has room to sleep late or take a call without crowding the other.
Las Ventanas al Paraíso, Los Cabos
Las Ventanas opened in July 1997 near San José del Cabo, at the southern end of the Baja California peninsula. Every suite has its own telescope, and several categories have a rooftop terrace. The resort is a Five Diamond property, and its largest accommodation is the Ty Warner Mansion, a 28,000-square-foot residence. The resort’s Sleeping under the Stars package sets up a bed on a couple’s private terrace for the night. An evening spent looking at the sky needs little conversation, which helps when the relationship is recent. New relationships start in many ways, from an introduction by friends to a holiday romance that lasted, or a sugar baby who has begun seeing an older man. Between December and March, the same telescopes pick out whales breaching close to shore.
Soneva Jani, Maldives
Soneva Jani opened in late 2016 on Medhufaru, one island in an uninhabited cluster of five in the Noonu Atoll. Its villas are built over a 5.6-kilometre lagoon. Every water villa has a private pool and its own access to the water, and some have a slide from the upper deck straight into the lagoon. The roof above the main bedroom slides back at the press of a button, so guests can look at the stars from bed, and the founder Sonu Shivdasani has said it closes by itself if it rains. Guests have five restaurants to choose from, along with rooms of cheese and chocolate that cost nothing extra. The resort also has an observatory and an outdoor cinema where films play through Bluetooth headphones so the sound does not disturb the wildlife. Even the villa pools use seawater cleaned by ultraviolet filters.
Four Seasons Resort Bora Bora, French Polynesia
The resort is on a motu, a small sandy islet on the barrier reef that encloses Bora Bora’s lagoon. Most guests stay in overwater bungalows with thatched roofs of pandanus leaf, many with a plunge pool and a view across the water to Mount Otemanu, and there are seven beachfront villas on the sand. The Ruahatu Lagoon Sanctuary, an inner lagoon within the resort’s grounds that is home to more than 100 species of marine life, is where guests snorkel among reef fish and help resident marine biologists with coral grafting. A morning spent that way comes with plenty to look at, and an expert does most of the talking.
COMO Parrot Cay, Turks and Caicos
Parrot Cay is a private island in the Turks and Caicos, an archipelago of eight principal islands about 925 kilometres south-east of Miami. Guests reach it with a 15-minute drive to Leeward Marina and a 35-minute boat ride, roughly 50 minutes from the airport on Providenciales. COMO describes the island as ultra-private, and light pollution is low enough that a full moon lights up the island at night. Dining is split between two restaurants, Lotus and Terrace. The COMO Shambhala Retreat has nine treatment rooms and Japanese baths, with yoga and Pilates studios beside them. Butler service comes with the Beach Houses and the larger residences, and a manager is on duty 24 hours a day.
Cap Juluca, Anguilla
Cap Juluca reopened for the new season on 10 October 2026 on Maundays Bay. According to the Michelin Guide, every accommodation has a sea view and a private terrace, and some have a private pool. The resort closes from mid-August to early October, the peak of the hurricane season. October is also the cheapest month to stay, with average rates of about US$1,545 a night, against about US$2,806 in March. Belmond lists new-season rates from US$1,095. The airport is about 10 minutes away, and American Airlines flies there nonstop from Miami in about three hours. Chef Gregory Gourdet, a 2023 James Beard Award winner, takes over the kitchens from 17 to 19 December 2026. The Guerlain spa, which opened in 2024, has seven treatment rooms and its own infinity pool.
Timing the First Trip
The Visit Anaheim survey also asked about the best time for a first vacation together, and 88% of respondents called their own first trip a success. Couples who had been together for at least 10 months reported the smoothest holidays, and the destination was the most common thing they argued about, named by 32%. Choosing the resort is the first joint decision of the trip, and the one most worth making slowly. When respondents ranked what made a first holiday succeed, the right destination came top, at 69%.
