For years, Nicole Pollard Bayme has taken vacation advice from a close friend. But a recent trip to Nicaragua was enough to make her reconsider.
The friend recommended a resort that she said would be perfect for Bayme’s first anniversary with her husband, Ari Bayme. She investigated the resort on Instagram, finding photos of fashionable people lounging near monkeys in trees and promptly booked a week’s stay.
But Bayme and her husband arrived at the resort covered in dust after a two-and-a-half-hour truck ride from the airport over dirt roads. Then there was a long hike to check in.
“My husband almost divorced me after carrying my 300-pound suitcase,” said Bayme, 34, a stylist who owns LalaLuxe in Santa Monica. True to stylist form, she had packed every sundress she owned – about 50.
Their shelter, advertised as a “casita,” was “more like a treehouse,” Bayme said, a bamboo structure without hot water. Wind gusts later blew the sheets off the bed and scattered their luggage around the room.
The winds worsened throughout the week. Bayme and her husband became accustomed to eating sand-covered tacos from a beachside stand.
“I thought I was laid back until I went on this jungle retreat and realized that I do, in fact, like the Four Seasons,” she said.
Dog Has Day
While high-end stores are always pleased to see rich socialite Paris Hilton on their premises, not all of them are so keen on her ever-present companion, Chihuahua Peter Pan.
The dog, a huge favorite with Hilton’s 4 million Instagram followers, has been known to run off leash once inside, and even, on occasion, to relieve himself.
Luxury West Hollywood design showroom Christopher Guy recently laid out the welcome mat for Paris and Peter Pan, only for the pooch to pee on it.
Hilton was there doing a photo shoot for fashion magazine Runway when the pup wandered off and took a tinkle on the designer doormat.
Paris, 34, has numerous animals whom she keeps in the lap of luxury, but Peter Pan appears to be her current favorite as he’s the one she takes along to exercise class, fashion shows and shopping trips. Stores be warned!
