What’s the vibe?
Sugar Beach (home of the Rainforest Spa) is a lush, flower-strewn hotel, spanning 130 butler-serviced rooms set over 100 acres. Each room is slightly different, but all boast a private plunge pool and four-poster beds that feel like a crisp, cool cloud. It’s the peak of opulence, placed right by the azure Caribbean sea. A magnet for celebrities (a certain ex-One Direction-er was there at the same time as me), the resort is one of one in the area.
The spa is really more of an Eden-esque sanctuary, teeming with life and the smell of dense, glorious wood. To visit the spa, though, is to feel like you’re in on a secret. Rarely will you see another guest, though each treehouse is busily engaged in one of the massages, facials and body wraps on offer. You might run into a soon-to-be friend in the meditation area—a suspended, open platform with a thatched roof. Here, there are herbal teas, crystal therapy, PEMF seats and heated, massaging eye masks on offer. Even if you never venture beyond the meditation space, you’ll leave feeling renewed. “The design of the spa makes it feel like you’re nestled among the leafy canopy,” Julie De Brito, the director of spa and wellness at Sugar Beach, a Viceroy Resort, tells me. “And the design of the treehouse is drawn from the Arawak huts of the ancient Carib Indians, thoughtfully reimagined to reflect both the island’s heritage and a sense of understated luxury.” She’s bang on—you feel at once swallowed by nature and also within a finger’s reach of anything you could possibly want. Wander up a set of stone steps, and you’ll happen upon the spa’s temazcal-inspired steam dome—a stone-shaped steam room that, again, feels like it was carved from the surroundings rather than plonked on top.
Photo: Courtesy of Sugar Beach, A Viceroy Resort
The history?
The Rainforest Spa opened at the end of 2010, when the resort became Viceroy Sugar Beach, transforming from the former hotel, Jalousie Plantation. Then, in 2021, during a refurbishment, the spa was expanded to open additional treatment rooms. In late 2025, the spa partnered with skin-care brand Augustinus Bader, offering a range of facials using the patented TFC8 products and protocols.
Photo: Courtesy of Sugar Beach, A Viceroy Resort
