Introduction

Over the past few years Highlife Destinations has come out with a series of very popular resort concepts including Las Vegas, New York and Ibiza. Their Summer 2023 offering is the Balinese-themed Timor Isles.

Timor Isles actually existed before, in 2020.  A visit to the 2020 Timor Isles in fact gave me the prompt to start this blog.  I couldn’t travel in RL during COVID, realised I could do it here instead, and started documenting my visits, which turned into SL’s only dedicated hotel review blog.  

Of course since then, Aria has come with me on most of the visits, bringing different resorts to life with her fantastic pictures.  That was the case here at Timor Isles, which we visited along with our friends (and Aria’s fellow owners at Pemberley), Natalia and Jude Mortensen.

All photos by Aria Christen - rights reserved.

Overall

As with all of their previous destinations, the Highlife team continues to set the SL Hotels and Resort bar very high.  We were here for three days and it wasn’t nearly enough time to see and do everything.  Highly recommended.

Website (this is a private resort, you need to pre-book)

Look and feel

I mentioned that Timor Isles has existed before, but this is basically a brand new resort, I recognised very little from the original place.

As you’d expect from the name, the resort has a tropical feel. Check-in is via an airport terminal, after which you’re given information such as a HUD map that shows different places in the resort, and an LM to your villa.

The resort itself is spread over four sims, everything is connected by rezzable boats and bridges.  There’s a central area where you have many of the amenities such as the restaurant, and the accommodation.

Like other Highlife resorts, it’s really well designed and landscaped and there is a lot to do.

Overall - 4.5 / 5

The rooms

The villas and suites range in price from 2000-3500L, which is more than reasonable given what you get.

We stayed in one of the larger properties, the Sunset Villa.  Rather than a villa, this is more like a private resort compound spread across two buildings with three bedrooms, an open kitchen and dining area as well as a pool at both the front and back. This costs 3500L and is suitable for groups (as was the case with us).

The lower priced (2000L) suites are more geared towards couples, and are arranged around the pool.  They offer a bedroom and living room.  There’s a jacuzzi and both indoor and outdoor dining options.

One thing we did like is that the beds now have a menu giving you a choice of engine. As in most resorts, Ruckus is offered (we hear from resort owners that it’s the most popular request), but now there are other options including ‘cummin soon’, which is in fact what we have at home, as well as Lalon.

Overall - 4.5 / 5

The facilities

• These include:

• Snorkeling (free scuba, basic swim HUD)

• Swimming with dolphins

• Paddle board

• Bumper boats

• Bungee jumping

• Zip Lining

• Mini golf

• Hand gliding

• Breakfast - RP

• Private dinners 

We also had dinner in the restaurant.  If you’ve ever watched Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, you’ll see him haranguing hapless restaurant owners for having a long and complicated menu, and when out to dinner we’ve seen plenty of SL restaurants do this as well.

Happily, Timor Isles does not do this.  The menu has about 3-4 choices for each course, which is how it should be. The food looks realistic and the service was fast.

The spa was able to accommodate all four of us at once, and the whole session was around 90 minutes.  As well as actually looking like a high end RL spa, we were more than happy with the RP experience.

Other considerations

Rooms start at 2000L

Check in is at 4pm SLT, though if you ask beforehand they may be able to let you in earlier (they did for us)

This is an adult resort, so there is no family RP

There was a little bit of lag for me. I’m a Mac user, which always makes things a bit more challenging in SL. However, Aria was able to take all these pictures in black dragon without too many issues.

This is a private resort, you get a temporary group membership at check in for your stay

Overall

There are a lot of tropical beach resorts in SL. Many offer much the same in terms of layout and services.

But so far none have been able to match what’s on offer here (perhaps with the exception of Bonaire YanuYanu, which is also excellent). This place looks and feels different and is really immersive.

As a result, if you are looking for a sun and beach themed vacation in a well designed resort with lots to do, you really can’t go wrong here.  Highly recommended.

Website for bookings and more information