Best of the Maldives: Reality TV – Handhufushi

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Survivor South Africa 4 Intro

 

Talk about not wanting to get voted off an island!

For the first time ever, the global hit TV show, ‘Survivor’, comes to the Maldives. The whole format is based on being stranded on a tropical island Robinson Crusoe style. The fun and games come from producer driven challenges which earn the reality stars opportunities for ‘immunity’, useful tools and treats.

The series based there is the ‘Survivor South Africa’ series and is set on the presently idle Handhufushi resort island. Aside from the unprecedentedly spectacular setting, the show introduces some other twists like ‘The Curse of the Black Cowrie’ (oooooh!). I wonder if it as bad as the ‘Curse of the Watered Down Pina Colada’ or the ‘Scourge of Not Being Able to Eat on the Beach’ (and other Maldivian nightmares).

Lots of clips, photos, footage and info are posted up on the DSTV website for you Maldives buffs not in South Africa.

The tribe has spoken!

 

Survivor South Africa Maldives

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Best of Maldives Online–Trip Advisor Destination Expert Recommendation: Athuruga

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Spammie in Athuruga

The Reviewer’s favourite might be Cocoa Island, and the Forum’s favourite might be Vilamendhoo, but what is the Experts’ favourite?

The other thing I noted in my survey (looking at the past 6 months of Trip Advisor Maldives Forum posts) was responses by the Destination Experts (DE’s) to the question ‘Which Resort?’ (which is most typically followed by the response, “What is your budget?”). 

First, I must say that I was impressed with the range and balance of their recommendations.  After having visited 19 myself, I’m not sure I would be so balanced in my recommendations (we all have our favourites).

Despite the impressive balance of recommendations, there was a clear favourite…Athuruga.  It was both the top 2 DE’s top recommendation as they suggested it 13 and 7 times respectively. Their next most recommended resorts were Maayafushi (11) and Mirihi (10) collectively. Curiously, most of the Maayafushi suggestions came in the first 3 months and the Athuruga one’s more recently (a shift of sentiment?).  In total, 32 different resorts were proposed by the DE’s. Other favoured resorts include Dhiggiri (8 mentions), Vilamendhoo (6), Bandos (5), Kuramathi (5). The top DE recommended a total 24 resorts on 81 occasions (again, this is just counting those instances where a poster asked a very open ended ‘which resort’ question).

Also, a hats off to all the DE’s on Trip Advisor who do a pretty heroic job of answering the most repetitive and obscure questions with speed, expertise and often a bit of light-hearted fun.

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Best of Maldives – Swag: Huvafenfushi

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Oscar - snorkeling

And the Oscar for the ‘Best Swag Gift…Ever’ goes to…Huvafenfushi.

  • “Four-night stay at the Huvafen Fushi luxury resort in the Indian Ocean from Premier Tours, featuring an underwater spa in the Maldives (for those tough weeks when a terrestrial spa just won’t do).”

Estimated retail value: $16,000. PS. It’s not even the most expensive item in the bag!

It all sounds very extravagant, but actually the windfall is probably more in the hands of the giver than the getter. If you think ‘too good to be true’ promotions are just the domain of low end punters, think again. This stunt is actually a no-brainer for Huvafenfushi/Premier.

In all likelihood, if the nominee does decide to take advantage of their coupon, chances are that Premier Tours will get plenty of money out of them. If you are an award winning Hollywood actor, are you really going to go all the way to the Maldives for just 4 days (the number that has been given away). You are probably going to be one of those fortnight guests which means Premier sells 10 paid days. Sort of like those offers of ‘free one night stay (with purchase of three qualifying nights)’. And for Premier Tours, high-end celebrity clientele don’t grow on trees and probably don’t respond to fliers shoved through the letterbox. But coupons shoved in an Oscar goodie-bag is another matter. Winning a celebrity customer to your business is worth its weight in gold statues.

So Huvafen and Premier probably makes a good a tidy chunk of change from its Oscar ‘give away’. But that’s just the beginning. In the meantime, Huvafen and Premier are getting reams of free publicity. Valuable publicity. Not cheap little banners on a backwater web pages, but stories in premiere publications speaking of their product in exotic, aspirational, and exclusive tones. And little dinky pieces like this one here.

Oscar - Pool side

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Best of Maldives Online – TA Resort Popularity: Vilamendhoo

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Having been an active TA Maldives Forum participant (“Maldives Complete”) for a while now, I’ve noticed that one does see the same sort of things come around as regularly as sting rays at feeding time.  Discussions mosquitos, weather, snorkelling, children, snorkelling children, whale sharks. Many of these have been helpfully turned into FAQs by the Destination Experts (DEs). Obviously, one that comes around very regularly (about one out of every ten posts I discovered) is the question “Which resort?”.  With over a hundred resorts to choose from and a few dozen more in the works, we can all appreciate the dilemma.

But for all of the extensive choice, I found it curious that some resorts seemed to dominate the Forum while other great ones were virtually non-existent.  I wondered whether it was just my perception so I did a little test.  I pulled the Maldives Forum posts for the past six months (August through January) and simply logged any resorts mentioned in the post title.  Not extremely scientific as an indicator, but easy, effective and objective. 

Vilamendhoo came out the most popular resort enquired about. But just only as they pipped Reethi Beach 49 mentions to 48 over the last 6 months. Rounding out the top 5 were Kuramathi (40 mentions), Lily Beach (38), and Biyadhoo (37). The lions share are shown above which you can click on to see in a clearer, larger version.

I was also intrigued by the quite prominent resorts that have never come up on the forum at least as an explicit post. Many were Italian oriented resorts more like to go to an Italian language site – Alimatha, Dhiggiri, Gangehi, Kihaadhuffaru, Madoogali.  Other were pretty exclusive so that the butlers probably book the travel – Banyan Tree Madivaru, Dhoni Island, Nika, The Rania Experience. There was clearly an bias towards the lower priced resorts in terms of mentions.  Admittedly, while there are typically fewer rooms/guest on the more expensive/exclusive islands, the modest difference in bed number was not enough to explain the quite extreme difference in post numbers. 

Trip Advisor Maldives Forum

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Best of the Maldives: Luxury (2011) – Cocoa Island

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Trip Advisor Readers Choice Awards 2011

The Trip Advisor Traveller’s Choice Awards have been announced and the top Maldives resort was Cocoa Island, the only one featured in their 10 lists. It came in #5 in the ‘Top Luxury’ resorts worldwide (wresting the title from last year’s honoree Angasana).  A well deserved honour, it would seem, given the very recent report by Francis where he described it as bringing him to tears. Just to top it all off, Cocoa Island also tops Trip Advisor with the highest review ratings of any Maldives resort.

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Best of the Maldives: Longest Pool – Anantara Kihavah

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Anantara Kihavah pool

Winner of the ‘Newest Resort’ award goes to Anantara Kihavah which opened this past week. Unfortunately, especially the way Maldives development is going, such a recognition is fleeting at best. So I have had a run through of some of the early glimpses from this glittering new addition for a more enduring accolade.

Actually, a number of innovations and designs have caught my eye and are likely fodder for future posts. The ‘Sky-Fire-Salt-Sea’ restaurant/bar/deck is a creative and ambitious concept with both underwater venue and elevated roof deck. High and low. Unfortunately, this part is about the one piece left not quite finished (it is due to be completed in mid-March). Francisco Negrin is there as this very moment so I await his accounts.

In the meantime, let’s start with something simple. A distinctive that does stand out which is their pool length…

“At 49 metres, Manzaru pool bar boasts the longest swimming pool in the Maldives and Sunshine Butlers are always on hand with fruit skewers and cold face towels to cool sunbathers down. Casual lunches of crisp salads and traditional pastas are served poolside.”

So if doing your morning laps gets tedious in typically diminutive hotel pools, then consider Kihavah.

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Best of the Maldives: Caves – Helengeli

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Trixies Caves

The Maldives are renowned for simple, easy, shallow dives. But for the advanced diving plenty of more technical dives abound. For example, there are over a dozen caves structures you can dive

And if you are interested in cave dives, I recommend Tim Godfrey’s book ‘Dive Maldives’ reviews 12 of the top cave dive sites in the Maldives. You might have put an alert for on Amazon since the book appears to be out of print and is increasingly hard to locate. All of his dive sites are graded on a 3-star scale and 4 of those 12 earn top marks – Lankan Caves, Maagiri Caves, Fulidhoo Cave and Velassaru Caves.

But the Mecca for cave diving in the Maldives has to be Helengeli as it has two of the top caves nearby- Trixies Caves and Fairytale Reef Blue Caves. Both receive 5-stars in Harwood & Bryning’s ‘Complete Guide to Diving and Snorkeling The Maldives’.

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Best of the Maldives: Chinese Therapy – Adaaran Club Rannalhi

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Club Rannalhi chinese therapy

Looking for am apropos hangover cure from your Chinese New Year celebrations? Well, you might want to stop by the ‘Traditional Chinese Therapy Centre’ at Club Rannalhi.

Liu Yaping offers a range of treatments which are mostly variations of acupressure massage such as “Tui Na” and “Chinese cupping”. Most treatments run about $60 for an hour session

Disclaimer – I am not a fan the many disastrous environmental effects of many traditional Chinese therapies that call for ingredients of rare species like tigers, rhinos and most relevant in the Maldives is manta gills. Most holistic therapies are harmless placebos which provide comfort. But when a billion people with increasing amounts of money start wanting these obscure ingredients, the side effects for the planet can be tragic. Fortunately, Club Rannalhi’s therapy centre does not offer any of these ingredients based on endangered species in its treatment offerings.

While other resorts have spas offering Chinese treatments (eg. Shangri-La Villingili, Olhuveli, Soneva Fushi, Meedhupparu), the Rannali centre is the only one who specialises in just this area.

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Best of the Maldives: Aquatic Topiary – Four Seasons Landaa Giraavaru

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Four Seasons Landaa Giraavaru coral garden Yin-Yang

While the ‘house reef’ is the ‘main event’ in snorkelling, lagoon snorkelling can be its own treat. During our first, uninitiated trip to the Maldives, we spent nearly the whole week there delightedly snorkelling among the modest coral and rock croppings in the shallow, sandy lagoon. We didn’t even know that there was such a thing as a ‘drop off’. We still enjoy the charms of lagoon snorkelling with some real highlights in our history – a playful octopus, a digging sting ray, a passing manta, and a whole host of turtles and fish.

If you can’t get the snorkelers to the reef, bring the reef to the snorkelers. Often the main problem with house reefs are their accessibility. Eventually, you can get to a drop off point, but you have swim over long expanses of relatively boring white sand. So as a part of its award winning reef regeneration efforts, Four Seasons Landaa Giraavaru has taken a creative twist on reefs with what can best be described as ‘reef topiary’.

Its showcase piece is the Yin-Yang Coral Garden pictured above. From an aerial view, the coral forms a yin-and-yang symbol. The resort is now planning an encore with a ‘Crescent Moon’ in the works.

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