Clockwise from top:
So much excitement
at Catch Junior; rosé
on ice at Catch
Beach Club; Catch
Junior has face-
painting and free-
flow ice-cream.TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM 29
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flower for our room, (sandalwood; night
jasmine), we are led by our personal
butler (Tee) to our 212-square-meter
penthouse (No. 303), which has views
of the property’s stunning triangular
pool, the grand, old pine trees on the
beach, Kamala Bay, and somewhere in
the glare, the faraway horizon. After a
tour of our suite, which, in Tee’s words,
is “shaped like a zero,” with living room
leading to bathroom, leading to
bedroom, leading back to living room,
forming a potential running track for
small humans, I unlock the door to the
rooftop. “Do you want to see the pool?”
There’s a not-insignificant thrill in
delighting your child, particularly when
most of the time you’re saying “no” to
them. It’s an almost selfish act, then, to
bring them joy, given how intensely
their emotions flow back to you. This
weekend I get to double-dip in good
feelings, because if I’m excited about
having a rooftop pool, she is practically
rendered speechless by the sight of it,
sparkling blue and clear in the
afternoon sun.
Unsurprisingly, over the course of
our three-day stay, we spend at least 10
hours in our pool. It becomes our
living-room sofa, our place to hang out,
buoyed both by the ease of our
schedule-free time and by an inflatable
unicorn we brought specifically for the
purpose. It is here we watch the people
and dogs and boats on and off Kamala
Beach, and here we pretend to bemermaids and queens, being as splashy
and silly as we want.
When the pool eventually gets cold,
we move to our second-favorite place:
the bathtub, which seems only slightly
smaller. After that, our favorite place is
the actual living-room sofa, where we
watch bits of Moana and The Lego
Movie 2 from MontAzure’s collection of
movies-on-demand. It’s plush enough
to sleep on, and we might be tempted
to, if not for our next-favorite place, the
bed—an immense, fluffy crash pad
where we cocoon ourselves in duvets
for nine blessed hours each night.
There’s not much reason to leave the
penthouse, with its luxurious
amenities, kitchen full of cold drinks,
coffee and alcohol, and butler service
bringing food from beachfront
restaurant Shimmer. But a major reasonfor choosing MontAzure is a quick
15-minute drive up the road: the made-
for-kids (and easy-for-parents) Catch
Junior kids’ club.
On day two we hop into the
complimentary shuttle that does the
rounds of Twinpalms outlets: Wagyu
Steakhouse and Twinpalms Phuket
resort at Surin Beach, Palm Seaside
restaurant and bar at Choeng Talay, and
Catch Beach Club and Catch Junior at
Bang Tao. We arrive at the club in no
time, and as we walk through the
entrance, there’s an upwelling of
breathy excitement upon seeing the
big-kids pool, into which curls a
waterslide. There’s also a toddler splash
pool and other fun things that get but a
cursory glance (a huge “jumping pillow”
with a 15-kid capacity; sand toys; water
guns; floaties; a mini ropes course; a