While Kate Middleton and her family enjoy a plush vacation holed up in a $23,000 every week mansion at the Caribbean island of Mustique, the remainder of the island is on near lockdown, upsetting tourists and locals.
The Mustique Company, which owns the Caribbean getaway, is restricting the movements of alternative guests to offer protection to the Middletons‘ privacy, the Daily Mail reports .
Tourists have reportedly been banned from using the rented “mules,” or golf carts, normally used to zip round the island, and are being quizzed by security before being allowed to access the beach and other island hot spots.
The Middletons – Kate, together with her parents, Michael and Carole, brother, James, and sister, Pippa – jetted off to Mustique on Friday, sitting top quality on a British Airways flight out of London’s Gatwick Airport, a photographer blogged .
The family, owners of a celebration-planning business, are frequent visitors to the island and reportedly have looked into purchasing a holiday home there. Kate and her husband, Prince William , traveled there in 2006 for a luxury getaway while they were still dating.
But now the safety and strict regulations that follow the Duchess of Cambridge, as Kate became known when she and Prince William tied the knot last April , regardless of where she travels are making a stir, even in an island known for hosting A-listers like Jennifer Lopez and Mick Jagger.
“This is not precisely the way one expects to be treated after you pay awesome money to go to probably the most exclusive island within the Caribbean,” one local told the Daily Mail.
A source told the paper the Mustique Company is covering the prices of the additional security, said to be installed place after discussions with Kate’s bodyguards.
“a few years ago, recall, the Middletons were only a regular family, very regular,” Dickie Arbiter, former press secretary to Prince William’s grandmother, the Queen, told ABC News .
“Then, Kate met a prince, Pippa wore that dress, and the Middletons, they all, at the moment are neo-royalty,” he said.
The security can be expected to extend much more within the week ahead when Prince Williams joins the family for vacation.
People magazine reports Middleton’s husband, the Duke of Cambridge, will join his wife’s family in Mustique once his military shift schedule allows. He’s currently at RAF base in Anglesey, Wales, fulfilling his duties as a search and rescue helicopter pilot.
Neither the palace nor the Mustique Company had touch upon the royal couple’s vacation plans.