Luxury Hotel Spotlight: The Brando, a private island resort

Stay on a private island near Tahiti on a week-long business trip? Yes, please! Sometimes I really love my job…  I just returned from a Classic Vacations meeting for their President’s Circle travel agencies (of which Andavo Travel is a proud member), held at The Brando.

The Brando is Marlon Brando’s luxury resort on French Polynesia’s beautiful private island of Tetiaroa (30 miles from Tahiti), which is surrounded by a sparkling lagoon. You can only access the island by private plane, and we arrived by Air Tetiaroa, an 8-passenger plane.  We were greeted by Polynesian singers, and escorted via golf cart to registration.

Clearly this property is private, very secluded and remote. It is a destination property, as there are no services on Tetiaroa except for The Brando. The resort features 35 villas (30 one-bedroom villas, 4 two-bedroom villas, and 1 three-bedroom villa) on white-sand beaches which you’ll often share with sea turtles, manta rays and exotic birds. The villas are nicely spaced, so you feel very private, and even with 100% occupancy it still feels very much like your own island.

Each villa has a bike for each guest, and children’s bikes can be requested. If you are not interested in riding a bike to get from your villa to the restaurant, a golf cart will come to pick you up.

While The Brando caters to adults, there are children’s activities as well – like tie-dying pareu on the beach. They have paddle boards, kayaks, outriggers and snorkel equipment. It is all-inclusive, including one activity per day, and one spa treatment for one person, per villa, per day.

I found the service to be very good. Not “island time” at all, as they were very responsive. Room service can be set up in the villa or outside on the patio, and outside clean-up is done almost without you knowing they’re there. The food service was excellent as well, the staff was there filling juice, coffee, drinks before your glass was empty. The only place where I saw it falter a bit was at the pool. It didn’t seem to be consistently serviced. One day towels were on each chair, the next day there were no towels. But the staff were all very friendly and eager to serve.

The Brando is a great destination for any traveler wanting privacy and seclusion. It would be a fantastic honeymoon location. The only 3-bedroom villa is next to a 2-bedroom villa, so you could also accommodate a large family gathering within the same area. Additionally, they do have one boardroom and can handle groups, so this could be a great location for a company incentive group.