Classic combos – champagne and canapes, red meat and claret, port and stilton…and of course whiskey and cigars. To facilitate the decadent luxury of lingering over a sumptuous meal, Joali features a private section of its Mura Bar dedicated to this postprandial pairing.
Best place in the Maldives for a glass of something. Soneva Jani’s “The Gathering Bar” features a captivating vitreous sculpture for its bar and seating:
Glass has long been a very fitting material for the Maldives with its aqua-green hues and light refracting properties evoking the glassy lagoons themselves.
We’ve had glass bottom boats and glass bottom tubs, Soneva Fushi’s Soneva in Aqua features a glass bottom tub in its floating villa.
LUX North Male Atoll lets your yacht stop over at its Overwater Retreat which is fitted out with its own private boat jetty. The most luxurious arrival since the now defunct helipads at Anantara and Maafushivaru.
Havana ho-ho-ho na-na…
The Christmas and New Years holidays have a distinctive Latin vibe a Raffles Meradhoo with their “Raffles Revolution 2000”:
Dance workshops by Yesenia Selier (photo above), and music by Chino putting the sizzle into the salsa and the ay ‘kurumba’ into the rumba.
Most resorts don a bit of Yuletide adornment for the festive season, but Jumeirah Vittaveli has done theirs with a distinctively aquatic style with a giant sea-faring Christmas tree and a red-nosed jet ski drawing Santa’s sleigh:
Martime Christmas!
Homes festooned with Christmas lights to herald Santa’s arrival around the world, but if you don’t want him disturbing your tropical holiday with his festive cheer, then the two little green and red light on the outside of LUX North Male Atoll’s villas are its “do not disturb” system. Just flip the switch inside that illuminates them. You can choose between a silent night or a bearing gifts ye traverse afar. Merry Christmas everyone.
For the squinting crowd whose arms are not long enough to hold a menu far away enough to see it, the romance of under-the-stars candlelight might add to the romance, but it also means you can’t figure out what you can order for dinner. Resorts have come up with a various solutions to this problem including the fiddly clip-on mini light or the serve holding a torch. But Faarufushi has introduced electronic menu tablets with soft back lighting to provide optimal visibility.
Another two things I love in the Maldives are logging apps (with maps) and whale sharks. Now the Maldives Whale Shark Research Organisation has brought these two great things together in their mobile whale shark tracking app:
Whale Shark Spotter on steroids. They’ve also merged two general features of Maldives Complete – (a) a spotting tracker, and (b) a database lookup (with individual profiles). Add a blog and you have Whale Shark Complete!
Two of my favourite features – island maps and bed decorating. Both are quite distinctive in the Maldives with their “all on one island” resort properties and their tradition of elaborate blossom bed creations. Kudafushi has merged the two together for a mattress-based map of the island’s landscape (thanks Paola). One of the most exquisite works of bed decorating I’ve seen.