Tucked into a hidden cove in Grenada, Laluna is a 16-cottage hideaway you can book on points — and almost no one realizes it belongs to Marriott Bonvoy.
Here’s a little secret, and I’m almost reluctant to share it.
There’s a beach in Grenada we daydream about — a soft stretch of golden sand tucked into a cove so quiet you can hear the waves talking to each other. And the hotel sitting on it might be the most romantic place in the whole Caribbean you’ve never heard of.
It’s called Laluna, and it’s home to 16 Balinese cottages, some with private plunge pools, an Italian kitchen right on the sand — and a secret hiding in plain sight (along with some beautiful villas, too).
Because here’s the part that made me sit up: Laluna is a Marriott.
Not a Marriott in the way you’re picturing — no soaring atrium, no conference signage, no breakfast buffet under fluorescent light. Laluna is a Member of Design Hotels, the cult collection of independent boutique properties that quietly became part of the Marriott Bonvoy universe.
You can book it on marriott.com, you can earn and burn your Bonvoy points here, and you can do it all while feeling like you’ve stumbled onto a barefoot Italian-Balinese fantasy that has nothing to do with a loyalty program. I love a secret like that, the kind where your points work in a place that looks like it belongs in a glossy magazine spread.
Let me set the scene, because the setting is the whole story. Laluna sits in Portici Bay, a hushed little cove on Grenada’s southwestern coast, just two bays south of the famous Grand Anse Beach and about 15 minutes from the capital at St. George’s.
The road in is bumpy and a touch wild, and I mean that as the highest compliment. That rough little track is the velvet rope, the thing that keeps the crowds away and leaves the beach to you, the snorkeling fish, and whoever you were lucky enough to bring.
The property unfurls across more than 30 acres of hillside that tumbles down to the sand. Sixteen cottages, painted in spicy shades of cinnamon and sienna and sun-warmed yellow, step down the slope toward the Caribbean Sea like something out of a dream you half-remember.
The man behind it all is a Calabrian former fashion insider, and you feel Italy in every corner. The designer, Gabriella Giuntoli, has built villas for Giorgio Armani and Sting, and she teamed with Carmelina Santoro to create something that blends three worlds at once.
Walk into your cottage and you’ll see what I mean. There are four-poster Balinese beds swathed in white and dressed in Bellora Italian linen, with Indonesian teak furniture, Vietnamese thatch overhead and little Grenadian touches — carved coconut shells, paintings by the late island artist Canute Calliste — woven through the whole thing.
Each cottage has its own private plunge pool. Each has an open-air bathroom where you shower under the sky, which sounds like a gimmick until you’ve done it at sunrise with the birds going wild in the trees.
The cottages are intimate, around 1,000 square feet, and most open onto a private veranda with a Balinese daybed made for doing absolutely nothing. The Beach Cottage Deluxe is the prize, the only one set directly on the sand, with French doors that swing open onto a plunge pool a few steps from the water’s edge.
And then there’s the food, which is where my heart truly belongs to this place.
The Laluna Restaurant sits right on the beach under a hand-woven thatched roof held up by rough-hewn tree-trunk beams. The kitchen is unapologetically Italian — the owner imports wine and olives and prosciutto and pasta from home — and it threads the island’s bounty through with bright Caribbean flavors.
Picture a long lunch of grilled tuna and a glass of crisp Italian white, your toes in the sand, the sea doing its thing a few feet away. Picture an espresso martini at the Sunset Bar, a chilled Balinese-style living room of daybeds and low sofas, as the sky goes pink over the water.
That, by the way, is how the place got its name. As the sun drops, you watch the silver moon rise into a cobalt sky — la luna — and the whole thing clicks into place.
The spirit here is slow and unhurried and grown-up. There are no children under 12, which means the soundtrack is waves and birdsong and the occasional clink of glasses rather than splashing and squealing.
You can fill your days as gently or as actively as you like. There’s an Asian spa with Balinese therapists and a beachside yoga pavilion, and there’s snorkeling right off the cove, plus diving, kayaking, golf and tennis if you want to earn your aperitivo.
Or you can do what I’d do, which is nothing at all. A massage, a swim, a nap on a daybed, a long dinner, repeated until you’ve happily lost track of what day it is.
Now, back to the secret, because it really is the best part. Most travelers who book Laluna have no idea they’re inside the Marriott ecosystem, and most Bonvoy loyalists have no idea this little Grenadian hideaway is even on the menu.
That’s the magic of the Design Hotels collection. It’s the soft, design-forward side of Marriott Bonvoy, full of one-of-a-kind independent properties that never feel like chain hotels — and Laluna might be the dreamiest of them all.
Do keep in mind that Design Hotels properties don’t always honor every elite perk the way a standard Marriott would, so it’s worth reading the fine print before you book. But you can earn points on your stay, you can redeem them here, and you can fold a barefoot-luxury Caribbean escape into the very same account you use for your dullest work trips.
A few things to know before you go. The closest airport is Maurice Bishop International, a quick ride away, and Laluna can arrange a transfer — there’s even a VIP option that whisks you off in a luxury golf cart with rum punch already in hand.
Grenada itself, the Spice Isle, is one of the most beautiful and least spoiled islands in the region, all rainforest and waterfalls and nutmeg in the air. Laluna is the kind of place that makes you want to keep the whole island to yourself.
I almost didn’t write this one up, if I’m being honest, because some secrets you want to hoard. But a 16-cottage Balinese-Italian hideaway on one of the Caribbean’s loveliest beaches, where your Marriott Bonvoy points quietly do their thing — that’s far too good not to share.
So what about rates? I found prices for just $352 right now on Google Hotels — a pretty compelling reason to come here in its own right.
Getting to Grenada is easier than its hideaway reputation suggests, and fares are gentle right now — Google Flights shows round-trips from New York starting at around $405, with one-way seats out of the city dipping near $160.
Nonstops land at Maurice Bishop International Airport, a quick 15-minute drive from the south-coast beaches and cottages like Laluna. JetBlue flies year-round from New York JFK, American connects year-round from Miami and seasonally from Charlotte, and Delta runs a year-round nonstop from Atlanta. Caribbean Airlines adds seasonal service from New York JFK.
Coming from Canada, Air Canada flies year-round from Toronto, with WestJet and Caribbean Airlines adding seasonal Toronto nonstops. From across the Atlantic, British Airways serves Grenada from London in a little under 11 hours with one short stop, while Virgin Atlantic routes in through Barbados.
Karen Udler
2026-06-18 16:26:00