Underwater Hotels

Bedrooms with the sea on the other side of the glass. There are very few true underwater rooms on earth — the engineering is brutal and the upkeep never stops — so a stay shows a checked date only once a person has confirmed the operator exists and the suite still takes overnight guests.

What gets in is the room itself, not the resort around it. The bed has to be below the waterline with a real view out of it; a restaurant under the sea and a villa on the beach is a lovely holiday and a different category entirely.

The catch here is almost always price and weather. An underwater suite is the most expensive room its resort sells, often by a wide margin, and what you see through the glass depends on the season, the tide and how recently a storm stirred the sand up. Nobody can promise you clear water.