Opening 2029 (earlier reporting floated 2027)

Soneva

Soneva Okinawa

Name: Soneva Okinawa
Address: Gushikawa Island, Okinawa, Japan

Soneva's first property in Japan, on the uninhabited Gushikawa Island in Okinawa Prefecture

Gushikawa Island, Okinawa, Japan

Get notified when it opens

The day it opens + our first honest verdict. No paid placements. Joins the Fat Voyage list — leave any time.

First look

Soneva is heading to Japan for the first time, and it has picked an unusual address: Gushikawa, an uninhabited island in Okinawa Prefecture sitting between Iheya and Izena. The working-name project is announced and under development, with the opening reported for 2029 (earlier reporting floated 2027, so we will take the timeline as a moving target until the brand commits). The plan on paper runs to roughly 129 keys, split between about 106 low-rise land rooms and around 23 overwater villas, for something like 500 guests at capacity.

What we will be watching for is whether Soneva carries its barefoot, slow-luxury template into a Japanese setting rather than a Maldivian one, and how the overwater villas read in Okinawa's waters versus the Indian Ocean originals. There is no dedicated official page yet, so the room split and timing could still shift. Reporting comes from Nikkei Asia, the Skift Daily Lodging Report and regional Okinawa outlets; once Soneva publishes a property page we will firm up the details.

Not yet scored. We publish a Fat Score only once a hotel is open and real guests have stayed and written about it — this is a first look, not a verdict.

Sofie, who runs the Fat Voyage booking desk with Nicolas

Want us to get you in when it opens?

Nothing to book yet — rates usually load a few months out. We're Sofie and Nicolas; tell us roughly what you're after and we'll come back the moment Soneva Okinawa is bookable, with rates, what the rooms are actually like, and whether we'd go in the first season.

You'll be dealing with the two of us the whole way through, which is why we only take on a handful of trips at a time — if we're full, we'll say so. We reply by email, usually within one working day. The hotel pays us, not you: your rate is the same as booking direct, and the perks come on top.

Open now

What you can book today

Soneva Okinawa is still under wraps. Here's what's already open and scored in our collection — more from Soneva, and nearby in Japan.

Fat Legend

Soneva

Soneva Fushi

Baa Atoll, Maldives

Soneva Fushi is the original barefoot luxury island, and thirty years on it still argues its case better than almost anywhere else in the Maldives. You check your shoes in at the dock, get handed a bicycle, and that's the whole trip: sandy jungle paths, a house reef with reef sharks and turtles, and a Barefoot Butler who does the kind of thing you don't ask for twice. One family's butler, Miqdad, arranged a coconut-planting for their anniversary and quietly set up a birthday surprise for friends on the last night. Another guest's butler, Choco, ran their entire evening dining schedule and kept cocktails arriving all day. The food backs it up: multiple standalone restaurants rather than one buffet trying to do everything, a genuinely generous half-board structure at most outlets, and an ice cream room that's apparently no small part of why people rebook. None of that means it's flawless. A longtime repeat guest, back for the seventh or eighth time, noted the jungle getting visibly thinner under newer management, in-villa amenities disappearing, and a spa therapist bench that's lost some depth. Weather is the other honest caveat: this is a monsoon-exposed atoll, and an October or September booking can mean wind, chop, and a house reef you can't actually get into, which knocked one family's trip down hard even though their kids still begged to return. And the two-bedroom villas have real sound-insulation issues if you're not travelling as a couple. Book it for the island itself and the food, in the June-to-April window if you can manage it, and go into it accepting that the "rustic" in rustic luxury is sometimes literal. Families do exceptionally well here, especially multi-generational groups; if what you actually want is a more polished, traditional five-star experience with fewer bugs and less jungle, Four Seasons Landaa Giraavaru is the nearby alternative worth pricing against it. For everyone else, Soneva Fushi at its best is still the one people come home from and start planning their return before they've unpacked.

Fat Favorite

Soneva

Soneva Jani

Noonu Atoll, Maldives

A one-bedroom water retreat here runs well over $3,000 a night before you touch the extras, and what arrives for it is genuinely one of the largest villas in the Maldives: 400-plus square metres, a private pool, a retractable roof over the bed that opens straight to the stars, and a slide off the deck into the lagoon that every kid (and most adults) treats as the main event. The staff are the reason people rebook: guests describe a Barefoot Guardian who sent a doctor over for a sunburn within minutes, and a butler who knew the island's history well enough to answer any question without being asked twice. The food gets called out by name, dish by dish, from an in-villa omakase lunch to a chef who quietly restocked a table with dishes that weren't on the buffet at all. None of that erases what a run of 2025-26 stays actually found on arrival: mould in fittings, weathered decking, lights that didn't work, and an AC that struggled on hot nights. One family paid roughly $40,000 for six nights and left after two, citing a limited menu and a distant, seagrass-choked lagoon; a fire took out The Gathering, the wooden building that held most of the restaurants and the best gym, and renovation work has left construction visible from parts of the island. The lagoon itself is the trade worth knowing about going in: spectacular to look at, weak for snorkelling, since there's no house reef and you'll need a boat to find real coral. Half-board runs close to $250 a person a day, which only pencils out if you'd otherwise be paying $600 for dinner alone. This is a house for families and repeat guests who want space, privacy and a genuinely warm team, not a honeymoon pick if quiet and reef access matter more than square footage. Book it for the villa and the people who run it, and go in expecting the odd rough edge on the building itself.

Fat Legend

Bulgari Hotels

Bulgari Hotel Tokyo

Tokyo, Japan

A room here starts north of $1,000 a night and can run past $10,000 for a weekend once you add suite categories and the pricier sake list, and what you get for it is a genuinely small, quiet hotel stacked on top of Tokyo Station. Check-in happens in your room. The lobby sits on the 40th floor, and the building itself, floor to ceiling windows, blackout curtains, walls that seem to absorb sound completely, gets called out by guests who've stayed at the Peninsula, the Ritz and Aman Tokyo and still rank this above them. The location is about as convenient as Tokyo gets: you can walk from the lobby to the shinkansen platform mostly indoors, with the Ginza shops a few minutes further. The service is the real case for booking. One family had their ANA flight to Sapporo cancelled the night before departure, and the overnight concierge worked the phones for them, offered to hold their room, and met them with warmth when the rescheduled flight fell through too. That kind of problem-solving shows up over and over in different forms, from restaurant bookings handled before arrival to a couple walked personally through the underground maze to catch their train. The rooms lean small by Tokyo luxury standards, and the base suites have a glass door between bedroom and living area that's worth asking about if you're traveling with kids or want real privacy. One diner who wasn't staying the night also got turned away from the bar despite having just spent $2,000 at the hotel's own sushi restaurant, which sits oddly against everything else on record here. This suits people who want a hotel that disappears into the trip rather than becomes the trip. If you want a home base for Tokyo Station access, a serious sushi dinner, and a team that solves problems before you've finished explaining them, book it.

Fat Legend

Four Seasons

Four Seasons Hotel Tokyo at Otemachi

Tokyo, Japan

A room here runs you well over $1,000 a night and what you actually get for it is service that keeps surprising people who've stayed at a dozen Four Seasons before. Guests get escorted to the 39th-floor lobby and checked in without ever standing at a desk, and the stories pile up: a front desk agent arranging an English-speaking doctor and off-menu chicken broth for a guest with food poisoning, a concierge team coordinating an entire week of reservations over WhatsApp before the flight even landed. The breakfast gets called the best in Tokyo often enough that it's worth building a morning around, and Virtu, the bar off the lobby, has a following of its own. Where it gets more mixed: the rooms lean minimalist rather than warm, which a few guests flag as un-Four-Seasons, and the lobby sitting six floors up means two separate elevators to reach a room, which reads as fussy after a long flight. One guest found the spa's steel-lined pool and rules-heavy vibe more clinical than relaxing. And the address, ten minutes from Tokyo Station rather than in the middle of Ginza or Shibuya, splits opinion: some love the quiet, some call it inconvenient for transit despite the subway lines underneath the building. Janu Tokyo, the newer arrival at Azabudai Hills, comes up constantly as the alternative — better suites, weaker views, no age minimum at this pool versus most others. Book it if you want a Tokyo base that treats you like a regular by day two and don't need to be in the middle of Shibuya's noise. The views of the Imperial Palace and, on clear days, Mount Fuji, are hard to argue with at any price.

Get notified

Be first when Soneva Okinawa opens

We'll email you the day it opens — and our first honest verdict once guests have actually stayed. No paid placements, ever.

Joins the Fat Voyage list — leave any time.

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