Kate Middleton's Vacation Upsetting Other Guests

BY ABCNEWS

Mustique Island, TAG – While Kate Middleton and her family enjoy a luxurious vacation holed up in a $23,000 per week mansion on the Caribbean island of Mustique, the rest of the island is on near lockdown, upsetting tourists and locals.

The Mustique Company, which owns the Caribbean getaway, is restricting the movements of other guests to protect the Middletons' privacy.

Tourists have reportedly been banned from using the rented "mules," or golf carts, normally used to zip around the island, and are being quizzed by security before being allowed to access the beach and other island hot spots.

The Middletons - Kate, along with her parents, Michael and Carole, brother, James, and sister, Pippa - jetted off to Mustique on last Friday, sitting first class on a British Airways flight out of London's Gatwick Airport, a photographer said.

The family, owners of a party-planning business, are frequent visitors to the island and reportedly have looked into purchasing a vacation home there.  Kate and her husband, Prince William, traveled there in 2006 for a luxury getaway while they were still dating.

But now the security and strict regulations that follow the Duchess of Cambridge, as Kate became known when she and Prince William tied the knot last April, no matter where she travels are creating a stir, even in an island known for hosting A-listers like Jennifer Lopez and Mick Jagger.

"This isn't exactly the way one expects to be treated when you pay very good money to visit the most exclusive island in the Caribbean," one local told the Daily Mail.

A source told the paper the Mustique Company is covering the costs of the extra security, said to be put in place after discussions with Kate's bodyguards.

"A couple of years ago, don't forget, the Middletons were just 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, all of them, are now neo-royalty," he said.

The security can be expected to increase even more in 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 is 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 comment on the royal couple's vacation plans.[]