I got back from Necker Island last week and wanted to write up a big trip report. I’ve intentionally left out a lot of pictures so that if you do decide to go, you can see it for yourself. Feel free to ask questions and I’ll update this post with the answers.
Getting to Necker
Necker isn’t easy to get to. You have to fly into VIJ or EIS and they’ll pick you up from the airport and then boat transfer you to Necker. We took an overnight due to being on the West Coast to San Juan, Puerto Rico (got in around 2PM,) spent a day there and then took the noon flight from SJU to EIS. That ~30 minute flight was about ~$400 a person, which reminded me of the prop planes to get to the Maldives or Bora Bora.
A month out
About a month out, you’ll get a guest survey form that asks you about your flights, allergies, special requests, etc. I think most people are modest and don’t ask for too much. I know one person just wrote they loved lobster, and while we did have lobster 3 times in our week, they went home before the lobster portions. I wrote that my wife and I loved Japanese whiskey and one night at cocktail hour, we saw a brand new bottle of Hibiki Harmony Master’s Select. I asked them if that was for us, and the bartender went, “Yup, we had a staff member flying back from the UK, and they picked one up for you.” WOW! One person said they loved Dr Pepper, and sure enough, they bought a case for them. We also wrote we loved passion fruit, and by day 3, we had a handful of passion fruit for breakfast! They said they randomly get shipments of them in. Moral here – don’t be shy!
Planned itinerary
About a week before your trip, you’ll get emailed a daily itinerary for the trip. This is good because I usually like things planned out. But you were under no obligation to follow the itinerary. If you wanted to do lemur feedings 5 days a week, then so be it. Want to just drink on the beach all week? Go for it. Just had a kite surfing lesson at 10am and want another one at 2pm? OKAY! They are VERY FLEXIBLE, and I don’t think I heard one “NO” while I was there except for when the weather didn’t look like it’d hold up.
Hurricane damage
For the most part, about 75% of the island has been rebuilt. They were in the midst of building Richard’s new house. Once that happens, they’ll turn his current house into additional guest rooms. They are building a large community area next to that as well. The “Bali High’ and “Bali Cliff’ houses were still in early reconstruction, but they believe everything would be done by summer 2020. I don’t think there were any other plans after that; the other side of the island was a bit too “rocky,” and they don’t think they’ll be expanding over there. Richard said he thinks max capacity would be around 50 once everything was done (current capacity is now 30.)
Animals
One of the first things you notice when you get to the island is that there are quite a lot of animals on the island. On the buggy ride to the main “Great House,” you’ll see lemurs, mini horses, chickens, ducks, and lots of iguanas. They feed the lemurs every day and you can join them, which I highly recommend. There are also about 5 pretty massive land turtles on one beach, and every morning, you’ll see some small turtles walking around in the “Great House” during breakfast, trying to find food.
Water Activities
Water activities is definitely what they are known for. Everything is free of course:
- you can dive if you’re certified (edit – heard it was better than the Maldives)
- kite surfing (this seemed to be the most popular; I didn’t do this, but the wife took like 5 lessons)
- kayaking
- water ski
- subwing (?)
- ringo watersport (this was the first time I did this and it was FUN! I had a smile and laughing the entire time…even after I flipped over and fell into the water.)
- paddle boarding
- sailing (I guess they could teach you) – there was one planned sailing activity
- snorkeling (they’ll take you out to other spots)
- there wasn’t regular surfing because the waves weren’t high enough
- there’s no fishing due to BVI being strict about fishing, but they can help charter you a trip.
- there is a planned “boat tour” of BVI, which i would recommend. They’ll take you to do some swimming, snorkeling, as well as take you to a lunch spot that serves a 3 pound lobster!!! And of course they picked up the tab.
- I’m sure there are lots more, but those are the ones I can remember
Food
I heard that the chefs had worked at Michelin star restaurants before. The food was definitely above expectations. Almost all of the lunches were family style dining. Some dinners were buffet style. Every day, the location of the lunch and dinner would change, which I liked since going to the same location every time would be mundane. Most dinners started at 7pm with cocktail hour. Then at 8pm, you’d get a menu with an appetizer and your choice(s) of mains – you can get 2 or all 3 mains if you wanted. Dessert would then be served last. Of course all the wine and alcohol is FREE. The champagne is a special Necker Island champagne; it wasn’t bad tasting at all. I think most wines were around the $30-$50 price range.
I think the first night we had a halibut that I thought was cooked perfectly. On the second night, they had a tenderloin that was one of the best I’ve ever had in my life (and I rarely say that.) One night, they grilled massive prawns during cocktail hour. Each guest was being modest and ate two. And it looked like they ran out, but then someone asked for another BOWL. Sure enough, minutes later, a whole bowl was brought to our table. Remember – there is no “NO” in their vocabulary.
Speaking of which, one night for dessert, they had banana fritters as the dessert. One guest thought it was banana foster, you know the one that comes out ‘on fire.’ So the guest asks the waitress if they could light the banana fritters on fire, who of course laughed at him, but said, “Okay, I’ll go ask the chef…” Minutes later, here comes the head chef and an assistant chef with a small cast iron pan, 2 banana fritters, a bottle of alcohol and a lighter. The chef pours the alcohol into the pan, lights it on fire and the fire got to be a bit too big and almost burns the hand of the assistant.
On the 2nd night’s dinner, they had pho as a side bowl, which shocked me. I think they served it because a) someone wrote they loved Asian noodles and b) one of the chefs is Filipino. Anyway, I thought it’d be nasty, but it was pretty legit. It was so legit that we asked them to make a bowl for us EVERY MORNING from then point on (I didn’t want to eat the same American breakfast every morning.) Breakfast was one of the weak points since it is the SAME EXACT menu every morning.
By the way, the dress code for lunch AND dinner is pretty casual. Most men wore shorts and a polo or even a tshirt. So don’t feel as if you need to get decked out.
Other guests
We started out with 18 guests, but 4 left after a couple of days, and one showed up later, so for the most part, we had 15 adults and 4 babies for most of the trip. There were 4 couples on points including us, 1 couple from Portugal who won a charity auction, 2 couples from the UK who were siblings (one of which was on their honeymoon and got upgraded to the master suite for free,) and the last person was an oddball musician who came alone from Finland. The 4 that left early – one of them worked at a luxury travel agency so she was there on a scouting trip and brought along her sister (they only stayed for 3 nights) and the other couple was parents of a staff member.
There is a set time for lunch and it’s at a huge communal table, so you can’t really avoid the other people. For breakfast, you can eat on your own time, but we all ate at around the same time for the most part. Dinners would be communal except for 2 private dining nights. If you really hated the other guests, you could easily ask for private dining all the time I bet.
Of course you’ll see them if you’re doing the same activity together or hanging out by the pool. We didn’t see the Portuguese couple that often; they seemed to just hang out by the pool and beach. We saw a lot of the UK folks at the pool hanging out with their kids.
From what I hear it varies to which group you’ll get. The Portuguese couple told me their friend told them that they had a rowdy bunch that stayed up till 1AM drinking every night. Our group mostly ate dinner and called it a night, so you never know until you get there what kind of group you’ll get.
Attention to detail
One of the first things you’ll notice is that by the first dinner, you’ll show up at cocktail hour and the person manning the bar will say, “What would you like to drink Vinh?” And I had never seen her before! Almost all of the staff (especially the wait staff) have memorized everyone’s names. They’ll remember what you ordered and will make you the same drink. “Another passion fruit mojito Vinh?” “Another strawberry daiquiri Vinh?” Other examples:
- If they give you a buggy to drive and you park it at say the pool for the day, then when you come back to the buggy at night, you’ll notice that they reversed it for you and have also cleaned it [from the sand.]
- They use paper and bamboo straws.
- The public bathrooms are always super clean and the cloth towels are always restocked
- They usually have 2 wait staff at every meal, always refilling your drink so you never have to ask or see an empty glass.
- I know there are more examples, but I can’t think of it right now.
- Oh they do your laundry for FREE every day, so no need to overpack!
The last memory I have at Necker is when we were departing the island, a lot of the staff came to see us off. Then they were all waiving at us from the pier while we were leaving. You’d assume after being a football field away, they’d just go back to work, but they kept standing there and waiving! Two football fields away…still there. Three football fields….still there. It was almost embarrassingly awkward like you wanted to tell them to go back to work. We never saw them left the pier; we just couldn’t see them anymore because we were so far away. Just thinking about that moment makes me emotional because you do bond with all the staff after a week and for them to stay there until you’re gone is truly going above and beyond.
Interactions with Branson
We didn’t see Branson until the 2nd lunch when he came down for the sushi boat lunch. Of course everyone acted cool and didn’t swarm him. And to be honest, I was sort of trying to avoid talking to him, but I was grabbing my food and he turned to me and introduced himself, so I was forced to talk to him. He asked me where I was from; I said, “Seattle, but originally Vietnam.” Then he said it was a beautiful country that he had visited before; then he mentioned how tragic the war was. Then he was sort of looking into the distance thinking and that’s when I sort of slid my way out of there (hopefully he wasn’t thinking of another question to ask me.)
After that, at every subsequent lunch, he’d be the first one at the big communal lunch tables. Thus, if you got there early, then you could sit next to him and ask him questions and also be able to hear what he was saying. If you sat 3 seats away, forget being able to hear him, so that’s one tip for you. He usually would get lunch first and when he was done, he’d just get up and leave the table while you were waiting for your dessert. That might be because no one had follow up questions for him or anything. At the last lunch, a guest challenged him to a game of chess and he happily stayed back to play 2 games with him; the 2nd game went so long that everyone had their dessert and left. So if you play chess, this would be a good way to interact with him. The guest won the 2nd game and was only the 3rd person ever to have beat him on the island (the 2nd one was one of the employees and not sure who the first was.) Ironically, the guest was just a “novice” player and they both made some mistakes at the end, so it could have just been a fluke.
He didn’t show up for any dinners except for the last night, which was the ‘white party.’ He showed us a video he made about Virgin Galactic and brought along a note pad to see who wanted to sign up. Haha. He made the guy who beat him at chess put his name down (and because he seemed the most interested.) I think he usually sticks around on the last dinner though, but it was the night before his birthday and he had to leave at 5am the next morning; plus his wife had made him a meal at home (she always cooks for them instead of having the chefs cook the same meal.)
He also plays tennis 2 times a day with his coach, but if you’re good enough, then he’ll gladly play against you. He asked me the first time I saw him on the court and I said, “Oh no no, I haven’t played since high school, so I’ll just play against the ball machine.” He goes, “Okay maybe tomorrow then.” YIKES! Luckily I didn’t have to play him cuz he’s actually pretty good. I heard Djokovic and Nadal have been to Necker and I’m sure they’ve hit against him before. I think if you played competitive high school and/or college tennis and regularly play, then I think you could compete against him.
He also bikes up this pretty big hill on another island 2 times a week. You can join him if you want. A few guests went with him the first time, and one of the guests came back and said, “Oh man, you guys should warn people ahead of time. That wasn’t a leisurely bike ride. My heart rate peaked at 199 and averaged 180.” He did beat Branson up the hill though and while he was in good shape, he wasn’t ultra-fit. Another guest got up to the hill 20 minutes later. Branson joked, “Oh we were about to leave until someone mentioned we had 1 more person.” Haha. Another guest a few days later give up half way. I think they have 2 support cars driving along the way – one behind Richard and the other one behind the slowest guest, so if you are super slow, you can give up and ride the support car back.
I think for the most part, people left him alone. No one asked him any questions that seemed to offend him. We sort of asked him about the island mostly. I did ask him if he was going to back on Shark Tank, and he goes, “I don’t think so after I poured water over [Cuban’s] head.” Another day, I asked him if he thought Musk was going to get to Mars. He said, “I don’t think he personally wants to go, but I think we’ll get there in this lifetime.”
The Finnish musician seemed to be the only person pitching him on stuff – he brought some kind of vitamins in vials that you’re supposed to shoot up or something?!? Another day, he asked Branson at lunch if he could put on his music, and Branson obliged. Another day, he asked to play some live music for him on an electric piano, and Branson told everyone to gather around and obliged him.
I remember one story he told at lunch how people accuse him of name dropping a lot and so he goes, “When I talked to the Queen last week, she said I name dropped a lot.” This is ironic since he just literally name dropped the Queen. Haha.
Necker is his “home” when he’s not traveling for work. I think he spends about 60% of his time on Necker. He’s a very friendly, funny and nice guy with great stories. I think if you went to Necker and he wasn’t there, you’ll be missing out on a bit of the charm. It’d be like going to Jiro’s Sushi and not seeing Jiro there. While everything else is the same, you won’t get the full magical experience.
Was it worth 1.2 million points?
Easily. Everyone who went agreed it was the best vacation they had ever been on and would come back. My wife’s favorite trip before this was our safari trip, but she said this blows it away. Even the other guests commented, “Where do you go after this?”
I don’t think it’s an every year thing, but every 2-3 years would be fun (assuming it was still an option with points.) I’m already planning on returning in 2021.
Another thing – tipping isn’t mandatory and no one left a tip to the wait staff when we left. Everything on the island is included except for the spa services.