Inside the Love Island villa - hidden parts and secret hideaways revealed

A new destination means we get a brand new villa that's home to all the action, and while we have come to love both our usual Majorcan haunt and Casa Amor, the team has well and truly excelled themselves for Cape Town.

Granted, I wasn’t really sure what to expect as we piled into the mini-bus up to Eagles Nest – the tabloids have reported about the villa being in an area "plagued with gang warfare", and when we pulled up to a gated house called ‘The Cottage’ I didn’t have particularly high expectations.

But the three-storey villa far surpasses all the previous Spanish locations and Casa Amor put together, and then some.

RadioTimes.com spoke to Love Island producers and executives about the villa – which took only two months to put together.

How big is the new Love Island villa?

As mentioned before, it’s three storeys – but in terms of floor space, the Cape Town villa is the same size as the Majorcan villa, explained producer Mike Spencer.

But the layout is designed to make the series more explosive than ever before, with the different floors and sections ripe for shocks and surprises – producers have now given bombshells three different entrances into the garden to make their arrival.

“We want to emphasise the element of surprise,” series producer Tom Gould said.

Separating the outdoor area into three different floors also allows for more private moments between our Islanders, with some of the lookouts designed to prompt conversation – with the balcony connecting to the girls’ dressing room overlooking the gym.

“We’re hoping the girls will come out here for a gossip and perhaps watch the boys working out,” explained Gould.

We may also see more intimate moments between the Islanders this series, as the spacious layout allows for a touch more privacy – not including the cameras, of course.

How many cameras are there in the Love Island villa?

The Cape Town villa has been decked out with 80 cameras – more than the 69 cameras that watch our Islanders out in Majorca.

How many people worked on building the villa?

In just over two months, around 30 UK workers and a large team of local workers worked together in creating the villa – managing to get everything done at the end of December.

What’s new in the South Africa Love Island villa?

The space has seen producers add a brand new dressing room for the boys as they felt they didn’t have their own dedicated area like the girls did when they were getting ready.

“It was too cramped for them, getting ready at the bottom of the bedroom,” Spencer explained.

Another thing the boys are likely to make good use of – the dog house: a brand new pull out bed in one of the lounges.

The bed was included as it seemed our producers took pity on the Islanders who found themselves sans bed after a row.

“They were always sleeping on the sofa,” Spencer laughed. “But we’ve changed the day beds now, so they’re slightly lower down.”

The additional beds and sleeping spaces in the villa suggests that we may see even more Islanders than ever before – something that has been teased in the new firepit, which has been made slightly bigger.

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Will we see changes in Love Island in the summer?

While both Spencer and Gould were tight-lipped on what will happen to the Spanish villa, we can expect producers to learn from the new series and make tweaks accordingly.

"We do always try and give a house a refresh each year," Gould said. "We're going to see how we go."

Love Island airs weeknights and Saturdays on ITV2 at 9pm