Best of the Maldives: Personal Fragrance – SAii Lagoon

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SAii Lagoon - MIY 1

Instagram can save the sights and sounds of your trip to paradise, but how to do preserve the scents? The tropical flowers, the salty sea air, the crisp coral sands. I asked that question with my #26 of installment #5 of “Haven’t Seen Yet”, but thanks to SAii Lagoon “M.I.Y” (ie. “Mix It Yourself”) bar, I can finally tick that one off.

The M.I.Y. boutique lets you prepare a customised bouquet from their extensive array of aroma’s in the “Aroma Lab”. “M.I.Y.” is also a reverse acronym for “Yim” Thai word “Yim”, meaning “to smile”. So, the Aroma Lab motto is, “Make a scent that makes you smile.”

The process includes product testing to ensure your skin’s suitability and affinity with the customised formula. You can wear the final olfactory cocktail directly or have it added to you shampoo and soap in your room as well throughout your stay. Finally, each formula is kept for when you return to SAii Lagoon.

Makes scents to me!

SAii Lagoon - MIY 2

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Best of the Maldives: Screwpine Colada – Amilla Fushi

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Amilla - screw pine cocktail

If there’s two things I enjoy in the Maldives it is exotic flavours of local ingredient and the traditional cocktail of a Pina Colada. Now, Amilla has added another screw pine concoction mashing up these two into a Screw Pine Colada:

  • “Enjoy a Maldivian twist to your usual pina colada with the fresh flavours of our home-grown products. Our rum-based coladas are made with fresh screw pine juice and coconut water from our island – truly the taste of the Maldives in a glass.”

A few these walking tree drinks and you might just be walking into the tree (“screw pines” as also known as “walking trees”).

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Best of the Maldives: Tiki Cocktails – LUX North Male Atoll

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LUX North Male Atoll - cocktails

Tiki cocktails exemplify the quirky fun extravagant side of cocktails and so no surprise that LUX North Male Atoll offers an extensive collection:

  • Tiki Tonka – dark rum, pineapple juice, ginger juice, orgeat syrup, vanilla syrup
  • Zombie Return – white rum, dark rum, apricot brandy, pineapple juice, lime juice
  • Hurrican – white rum, dark rum, passion fruit juice, lime juice, simple syrup, grenadine
  • Bleu Angel – white rum, Malibu, Curacao, coconut cream, pineapple juice
  • Silver Surfer – tequilla silver, lime juice, lychee, rosewater simple syrup, ginger beer
  • Guduguda – gin, watermelon juice, lime juice, homegrown mint, sugar syrup

This week Jumeirah announced that it was taking over the management of the LNMA property. I’m sure that they will instil their own branding and twists on the offering, but many of the establishments will continue operating. So hopefully you can keep enjoying such playful concoctions.

LUX North Male Atoll - cocktails 2

LUX North Male Atoll - cocktails 3

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Best of the Maldives: Marina – The Crossroads

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Crossroads marina

At a destination that is 99% ocean, one of the best ways to explore and experience this paradise is on the water itself. Dive boats have long been a staple of the Maldives, but the rise of guest affluence has introduced more and more luxury yachts and cruisers passing through this equatorial archipelago.

Previously, the only full service in the country was at Hideaway Beach resort. The Crossroads at Maldives introduces an entire marina complex with acres of property to cater to every billionaire’s need:

  • “Offering an impressive 30 berth quay, complete with world-class facilities, the Yacht Marina @ CROSSROADS is the ideal haven to weigh anchor. Catering for vessels from 10 to 60 metres, this is the ultima explorer’s paradise.”

You can even get full board and half-board dining plans at the Marina’s eateries.

Your own personal floating water villa.

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Best of the Maldives: Safety Turtle – Amilla

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Amilla - safety turtle

Even if you stay sequestered in your own villa pool, you still to have to be careful with safety around water. Especially with young ones in tow. And this is doubly the case if you have a water villa with a pool. A while back, most Maldives resorts did not allow children in water villas for fear of their falling into the ocean, but recently they have decided to let parent’s make their own decisions about safety. If your child is less mobile or you are diligent in looking after them, then there shouldn’t be any problems. But all parents know their attention can be distracted even for a moment.

For an extra measure of hi-tech protection, Amilla has procured a number of “Safety Turtle” devices which trigger an alarm at a base station (up to 200 feet away) if it gets wet. Put it on your child’s wrist to be alerted imediately if they fall into the pool or ocean. The devices are available for loan on request.

Amilla - safety turtle 2

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Best of the Maldives: Snorkel Safety Ring – SAii Lagoon / Hard Rock

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SAii Lagoon - safety ring

One of the appeals of snorkeling and swimming in the Maldives is the mill pond calm waters of the sea stilled by the atoll reef topology. But any body of water, including your bathtub, can be a drowning risk. Not surprisingly, for a country 99% water, the biggest cause of fatality for guests to the country is drowning. Perhaps seduced by the placid feel, people can literally get in over their head. To help reduce the risk of snorkellers getting into trouble (or just to provide a place where they can stop and rest and maybe chat easily with their snorkel buddy), Hard Rock and SAii Lagoon have placed hi-vis floatation rings at the lagoon snorkeling spot (where they have placed a few underwater items to attract fish and provide visual interest in an area which is, and always has been, most sandy shoals.

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Best of the Maldives: Upcycled Table – Amilla

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Amilla - upcycled table

Furniture can be just as artistic as paintings and sculpture. It is sort of a living, functional sculpture which makes experiencing it all the richer. My favourite art is those pieces with a story as enchanting as its aesthetics. Like Amilla’s upcycled dining table in their Mystique Garden. The resort hosts chef’s garden meals there. The table itself has been made out of reclaimed wood from the island’s previous jetty. So you are dining in the middle of the island, eating produce from all around you, sitting on part of the island’s history.

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Best of the Maldives: Reception Large Chair – SAii Lagoon

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SAii Lagoon - large chair

While you’ve got a whole holiday of stretching out and lounging, too often reception area have pretty basic seating, I guess, to prepare you for the shock of sitting in a confined seat for hours on the plane. But SAii Lagoon has the biggest reception chairs we’ve ever gotten swallowed up in (photo above). It reminded me of the feature item in Copenhagen’s renowned Design Museum which itself jumbo sized (photo below with Lori as well). Great for bringing out the kid in you (or at least looking like it on Instagram…and it makes those holiday extra pounds look less prominent).

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