Castle vs Private Island
Two ways to run a company offsite, side by side — group size, budget, where each concentrates, and the estates worth booking.
Plan a RetreatCastle
Heritage grandeur — turrets, great halls, and a sense of occasion.
- Venues
- 21 exclusive-buyout estates
- Typical group
- 2–450 guests
- Indicative budget
- $500–$950 pp/night
- Concentrated in
- British Isles · Mediterranean Europe · Northeastern United States
- Best for
- leadership, celebration, strategy
Private Island
Whole-island buyout — total privacy and a captive company.
- Venues
- 18 exclusive-buyout estates
- Typical group
- 10–500 guests
- Indicative budget
- $1,200–$2,350 pp/night
- Concentrated in
- Caribbean & Latin America · Australasia · Southeast Asia
- Best for
- leadership, celebration, team building
Dromoland Castle
A 16th-century baronial castle on a 450-acre estate with a walled garden, championship golf and a purpose-built Brian Ború Hall that swallows a 450-person conference under 30-foot ceilings. The mix of state rooms for board-level sessions and a full estate for team activity is why companies take it whole.
OHEKA CASTLE Hotel & Estate
Adare Manor
A neo-Gothic manor on an 840-acre estate whose golf course hosts the 2027 Ryder Cup, paired with a 499-square-metre Grand Ballroom seating 350. It runs board sessions in the oak-panelled library and awards nights in the ballroom without the group ever leaving the grounds.
Atlantis Paradise Island
The Caribbean's only true large-conference campus that still feels like a holiday: 500,000+ sq ft of meeting space, a 50,000-sq-ft Imperial Ballroom that seats 4,000, plus 11-acre Aquaventure waterscape, an open-air marine habitat, a Tom Weiskopf golf course and a 63-slip mega-yacht marina. This is the one tropical basecamp that genuinely absorbs even several-hundred-strong companies — and well beyond — without partner overflow.
InterContinental Hayman Great Barrier Reef
The northernmost private island in the Whitsundays, taken whole, with 182 rooms, suites and villas and 15 indoor/outdoor event venues across the property. Guests arrive by a 50-minute yacht transfer from Hamilton Island, which makes the whole offsite feel like an expedition the moment it begins. Whitehaven Beach and the outer Great Barrier Reef are day-trips by tender.
Petit St. Vincent
A 115-acre private island resort in the southern Grenadines with 22 one- and two-bedroom cottages spread across the hillsides and beaches, holding up to 56 guests. No phones or TVs in the cottages, seven beaches and a whole island for an executive group.