If you are into the arboreal aesthetic, especially the indigenous palm thatch vibe, then you will find it pervasive at Makunudu. Not only are the villas covered in the traditional thatch, but virtually everything on the island that have any type of cover – trash bins, air conditioning units, lamps, swings. Even the partitions are made of palm thatch.
I’ve often described the Maldives as that iconic plot of sand in the middle of the ocean with a palm tree on it. At Vakkaru, you can dine at your very own homage to this icon at its banquet table at its Isoletta restaurant complete with its very own arboreal canopy (thanks Paola).
While there might be miles of open ocean to gaze out on, the Maldives islands themselves are famously diminutive. For people seeking the get-away-from-it-all (including getting away from everybody), they sometimes wonder whether these tiny islands mean that people are crammed in (which led to me adding the “Population Density” field to the Maldives Complete database).
Soneva Jani now boasts the least inhabited of the resort islands with 10,650 square meters per guest. The Daily Mail reported…
Coincidentally, previous low crowd mark was its sister resort, Soneva Fushi (with 10,592)
When you see effusive PDA in the Maldives, it’s not just “get a room”, but “get an island”!
At current count, the Maldives Complete has over 900 room categories (909 to be precise), but Waldorf Astoria Ithaafushi’s “Private Island” is the first dedicated room type you can book (as opposed to booking the whole island like Coco Prive). Maafushivaru has its Lonubu villa, but this is booked more as an “excursion” than a room category.