I have published a 7000 (not a typo) word review on my blog.

http://thegoodthebadandtheluxurious....na-madagascar/

To summarise, as no sane person would bother reading it: I cannot recommend Miavana. We had a great time, and I'm glad we went, but it almost reminds me of DSI's level of lies from Ani Villas - the difference here being that all of the staff were wonderful, and we did not leave with bad feelings.

Let me summarise what you get for $5000/n (going up to $6000/n come January): one of the best villas I've ever stayed in, very good food, very good service. That's the pros.

The cons are vast.

There is no usable Internet connection. Nor any phone signal. I don't mean "it's rather slow", I mean it does not work around 90% of the time, then suddenly a load of messages come in, then it dies again. I was told it works between 2am, as another guest found it out, and it did...most of the time. I run my own business and cannot be out of touch for 5 days, so it was a real struggle.

You have only French speaking TV channels, with no movies. You have a very poor and boring selection of activities to do, excluding the lemur excursion and whale watching, which were excellent. You have 2 choices for starters and mains, with very little flexibility available due to procurement issues. You have one of the worst airliners in the world to contend with to get there, with horror stories galore regarding changing and cancellation o flights.

You have no privacy in your villa, as the front is all glass and if anyone approaches they can see you. You have no privacy on the beach, as anyone walking by could see in. You have no temperature control in the villa, and worse of all, it is somewhat open, so you have wind rushing throughout, with no option to close it off. Of course, you have mosquitos galore - so they took some lessons from North Island.

The front door broke. The power went off. The temperature control they do have by the bed broke. It was like a snagging activity.

The island is not private. It was already inhabited and will continue to be so. The website says 14 villas, yet only 8 are finished. The welcome brochure talks of cycle routes around the island, yet the only path goes from villa 1 to 8.

As with so many places I stay, I can still enjoy myself and at Miavana we both did, but it is arrogance on a new level to charge these prices.

You may wonder why I'm not more angry, but it is because the staff are so great and so aware of the issues, most of which they cannot fix themselves and the owners are responsible. I wish the staff all the best, as they were amazing and the evening drinks with the management team was great fun, but I wish the owners a thousand mosquito bites.