Maldives Tour 2012 – Day 4: Lily Beach

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Lily Beach tour 3

Just right.

That was the best compliment a family friend, Elmer Rising, had for a meal or anything he enjoyed. As an artist, he had a deep appreciation for getting things ‘just right’. For a meal, it was not over the top (like some Thanksgiving feasts), nor conversely lacking in anything. That is the phrase that came to mind visiting Lily Beach.

One of the great attractions to Lily Beach is its Luxury All Inclusive offer – the Platinnum Plan. The plan includes everything you can imagine outside of special excursions (eg. motorised sports, diving) and special meals (eg. lobster dinners in the Wave restaurant). The plan even provides cigarettes which I’d not come across before.

Not only is the plan an attractive value, it also changes the whole ambience of the property. That is because it is the only plan they offer and everyone is on it. As a result, staying at Lily is more like staying at some rich friend’s paradise estate than it is like consuming a holiday package. No signing for things constantly. No class/category dividing arm bands. Never hearing the question ‘What room, sir?’

A few years ago Lily underwent a refurb to take it from 4 to 5 star status. It ticks all the boxes to the Maldives Complete special ‘5 Star’ checklist. Smart food, rooms, service throughout. One of the key qualities I look for in resorts attesting to 5-star status is shortfalls. If you are going to be a true ‘5 star’, then you really shouldn’t have any ‘holes in your game’. And Lily Beach was solid throughout with a few special touches of distinction thrown in.

The house reef is more like 6 stars. A mere 3 metres from the shoreline it is closely accessible to the beach from one entire side of the island. It has a quite deep drop-off (about 20 metres), but the drama comes with the coral. All sorts of shapes, sizes and colours of vibrant and healthy coral are packed onto the reef. Sprinkled with endless colourful schools of fish. Lily would definitely be a candidate for ‘Best House Reef Coral’. An amibitious distinction, but Lily is worthy of candidacy.

Tip 1: Family Beach Villa – Lily offers several Family Bech Villas with interconnected rooms. Not unique in itelf in the Maldives, but still rare enough to be appreciated by family visitors. Lily have been extra smart to kit out the two rooms with one having double bed and the other having twin (so siblings don’t have to share a bed that might cause friction not welcome on a holiday).

Tip 2: ‘Beach Suite’ – One of their Beach Villas (#300) is actually a ‘Beach Suite’ with a living room added. There is no extra charge and can be requested on an availability basis.

In addition to the ‘Luxury All Inclusive’ distinction, I have now identified a further 11 Best of the Maldives candidates to research and share in the coming months.

Just right.

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Maldives Tour 2012 – Day 3: Paradise Island / The Haven

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Paradise Island - tour post

Just a literal (or should I saw ‘littoral’) stone’s throw away, we proceed onto Paradise Island / The Haven.

We’ve have been very close to visiting Paradise (the resort, not the notion) several other times before. A few years back when the family was seeking out a more value-for-money place, it made the short-list. And subsequent North Male visits took us to Manta Point for diving which is just off Paradise’s house reef.

Paradise pioneered the concept of the split personality island. Where a newer part of the island, typically water villas, are developed to a significantly higher standard than the rest of the resort. Often an entire ‘star’ difference (eg. 4-star and 5-star). Now over half a dozen resorts have this sort of ‘split’ set up. Often the adjacent properties have completely distinct branding, logistics, service, etc. This trend was just one reason the contributed to the development of Room Type database to provide people with more granular information on possible destinations. Just a profile on a resort as a whole doesn’t really tell the whole story of what’s on offer.

One of my discoveries was that The Haven water villas allow children of any age. Pretty much all of the water bungalows that I know of have restrictions against children staying there for safety reasons of them falling into the water. The policy at the Haven is to firmly warn the guests of the risks and if they do want to still stay there with children, then they are allowed to do so. This flexibility will be very welcome to families looking for the water villa experience but often restricted from doing so.

Another aspect of a big island is that it often sits on a big lagoon table making the house reef hard to reach and the snorkelling less exciting. But, as duly logged in Snorkel Spotter, we had a delightful snorkel seeing a shark, sting ray and more lion fish in one little rocky overhang (about a dozen) than we had ever seen.

I uncovered a further 6 Best of the Maldives candidates during my stay to add to the 2 already done. Great to finally make it all the way to Paradise after so many close callings.

 

Paradise Island - lion fish

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Maldives Tour 2012 – Day 2: Gili Lankanfushi

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Maldives Tour 3 - Gili Lankanfushi

Gili Lankanfushi is probably the most anticipated stop of the Tour. And it is our very first stop. When we were first planning our earliest trips to the Maldives, and compiling a massive spreadsheet of research data that would eventually evolve into Maldives Complete, our friends Andy and Linnet forwarded me a picture pulled from a travel magazine of the new extravagant water villas the likes of which none of us had ever seen. With Huvanfenfushi, it really kicked off the move by the Maldives to super-premium resorts that were built from the ground up with ‘wow’ factors such a distinctive designs, creative touches and remarkable features. I vowed that one day I would visit this magical resort.

Visiting Gili was also especially timely as it just changed ownership and branding last week The Soneva chain has sold the island to HPL Hotels and Resorts and renamed it ‘Gili Lankanfushi.’ There has been no refurbishment and pretty much all the staff hae remained the same. It’s clear that they want to preserve the distinctive concept and reputation of Gili and so no major changes are expected. They do have a new web site with all of the latest up-to-date detais.

Gili is a ‘plateau’ island (largish island sitting on a broad, raised underwater tableau) and such islands are not typically renowned for great snorkelling. But Soneva Gili is a great illustration of the power of Snorkel Spotter. The local marine biologist Vaidas Kirsys, who is used to fish surveying for his current research project, has logged a Maldives topping 21 sighting of everything on the Spotter list (lobster, ray, octopus, shark, turtle, manta). When we were there we were greeted by one of the larget reef sharks we have seen in a lagoon (well over a metre), duly logged in Snorkel Spotter. We decided to aim for Three Palm Island which was both near to our villa and where there was a sighting of an octopus logged. He didn’t find one but saw a large school of yellow snappers.

So renowned are many of Gili’s distinctions that I have already published 9 pieces about (the former) Soneva Gili. I uncovered a further 16 distinctions during my 24 hour stay. Combined with the 9 previous that takes Gili to 25 ‘distinctions’ which is the same as the ‘league leaders’ W Retreat and Four Seasons Landaa Giraavaru. Without doubt, one of the top 10 resorts in the Maldives.

Great to finally see this first of it’s type first class property first hand.

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Maldives Tour 2011 – Day 14: Wrap up

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Komandoo writing

Best Of the Best – A lot of people ask ‘what is the best island’, but the real question to ask is ‘what is the best island FOR YOU.’ As Mohamed Thoufeeq, Reservations Manager at Kuredu says “Resorts create their own atmosphere and that is actually the tradition with local islands.” I kept being surprised by the many funky and quirky bits I would uncover. I would often arrive at an island with the first impression that everything looked so conventional that nothing would stand out. But after a few minutes of walking around, all of these hidden treasures would reveal themselves.

Two weeks versus one week. This was our first two week trip. We used to think that a single week was just fine. That after seven days you get a bit tired of the resort food, miss home, run out of clean clothes. Aside from just ‘more Maldives’ and ‘more time down time,’ there was one dramatic impact that the fortnight stay had over the single week. It meant that when you woke up and the day wasn’t quite so sunny to start with or if a day didn’t quite go the way you wanted, you didn’t worry that one of your precious days was lessened. You figured that you had plenty more and so each inevitable, minor shortcoming was easier to shrug off than the 7 day stay. It was the difference between savouring a fine meal and wolfing it down. I do think that the ideal is probably 10 days – ie. a week straddling two weekends. Then you get most of the 14 days while only burning one week of holiday time. With the increasing availability of commercial flights and direct booking, such a tailored timing is much more feasible than ever (versus the tour operators who want to slot you into nicely synchronised 7 day segments).

Rainy Season. One of the top frets of prospective visitors is rain spoiling any part of their stay. The weather is the weather and anything can happen anywhere. Mother Nature offers no guarantees on planet Earth. That disclaimer said, in my experience, the Maldives worst rainy season is on a whole better the UK’s best sunny season. Official meteorological data is the most objective and scientific, but nonetheless I offer this anecdotal perspective because the ‘quality’ of the weather can get lost in the statistics. Travelling in late July, normally we would be past the depths of the rainy season in May and June. But July is the third wettest month and due to a relatively dry and sunny June people were saying that the rainy season was stretching into July. In fact, when we looked at the forecasts on the night before our departure there was an unending string of thunderstorm icons. So what really happened? Out of 15 days, we got a couple of showers at night while we were tucked in our beds, and a couple of days where you felt some drips and asked ‘is it raining?’ I would say that most days there were clouds in the sky instead of the iconic boundless blueness mirroring the aquamarine sea below.

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Maldives Tour 2011 – Day 13: Kurumba Farewell

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Kurumba is perhaps the most unsung house reef there is. You don’t often hear about it being mentioned as one of the tops, but I must say that Kurumba is simply the best house reef we have ever snorkelled. And we have snorkelled dozens. Especially for reef sharks, Kurumba is Shark Central (though a local tells me that Bandos is also extremely good for reef sharks). Our first snorkel at Kurumba we lost track of how many sharks we saw at about 20. Some well over a metre long. When they swim, sharks shake their butt more than a double-jointed salsa dancer. We thought maybe it was a fluke. Sometimes you see things snorkelling and other times you don’t is typically how it goes. But every single day we snorkelled at Kurumba, we saw tons of fish and lots of reef sharks of all sized.

But that wasn’t all. Lots of sting rays (mostly by the water sports centre), every type of lion fish, a turtle we swam with. A friend we met found an octopus in the lagoon and took lots of pictures. My wife’s favourite was finding a Zebra Moray (see picture below). They are very shy so she waited by his hovel for a long time hoping for him to pop out a bit more for a better photo op.

Dusk seems to be a particularly good time for fish activity. What we recommend is starting your snorkel around the front/reception side of the island (a bit to the left of the restaurants) around 4:00 pm and circle the house reef leisurely until you hit the Sunset Bar. Pull up there just in time for a sunset pina colada. Then, order your dinner right there too and eat on the beach while the sunset sky changes hues and the stars start popping out overhead.

Kurumba zebra moray

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Maldives Tour 2011 – Day 12: Club Med Kani

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Club Med Kani Abdul Samad Ibrahim

Welcome by Abdul Samad Ibrahim to Club Med Kani

Activity Central, Maldives.

Many resorts seem to tick the box by offering a night time DJ, local band, traditional dancing or the like. It always seems a bit depressing when so many times these events are so sparsely attended. At Club Med Kani, these events are always hopping with enthusiastic and ‘join in the fun’ audiences.

And it’s not just night time that people get bopping. When I arrived at lunchtime, the water aerobics was just beginning. Perky announcements were blaring from the loud speakers around the common areas repeated in half a dozen languages. Then a hard driving club beat came over the sound system and no less than 30 people aged 5 to 75 jumped in the pool and started moshing to the instructions of a couple of fit youngsters.

The energy is pulsating constantly. No fear of boredom here. Lots of laughter and chatter everywhere I went. “Friendly and convivial” is how the resort was described by Chief of Village, Ryan Leach.

Club Med Kani is not for lovers of quiet unless you sequester yourself on the premium side of the island. Like Kuredu and Meeru, Club Med Kani has segregated a part of the island for a more premium product. It is not officially classified as ‘5 star’, but all of the design criteria are 5-star quality. The trademark boisterousness is kept to a minimum down that end, it seems.

High octane fun.

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Maldives Tour 2011 – Day 11: Velassaru

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Velassaru flowers

You never forget your first time.

Lori and I returned to the first ever island that we visited in the Maldives back in 1996. Back then it was the 3 and half star ‘Laguna Beach.’ Simple, but enchanting for us first-timers. It wasn’t the perfect resort, but it seemed perfect to us. One of our recommendations is to go to the most basic resort you think that you can tolerate on your first visit to the Maldives. The Maldives have so much beauty and delight to take in, if the resort piles even more on top, it is almost too much to take in at once.

On our transport over there, we felt like we were going home, but you know the adage, ‘you can’t go home again.’ Certainly not to Laguna Beach. Universal Resorts has since completely overhauled it into a dazzling 5-star gem renamed ‘Velassaru’.

If the W is over-engineered, over-priced or just OTT for you, the Velassaru offers a cut-rate version of a glossy, stylish, modern 5-star. Velassaru is less than half the price of the W Retreat. Kind of ‘V’ as half a ‘W’. The one area where Velassaru does best the W is with the glass floor in its top room. Velassaru’s Water Villa Suite boasts a 138 square foot glass floor beating the W’s top floor of 100 square feet (it also boasts one of the longest private water villa pools at 100 feet).

Another thing that Velassaru did better than the W was its desk location. Like Four Seasons Landaa Giraavaru, they have placed the desk behind the bed, facing outside. I have only seen it in a few resorts, but thoroughly applaud it as someone who regularly has to be on the computer and do work during my stays. It’s bad enough if you have to be on the computer or even work in paradise, but most of the resorts add insult to injury by placing the desks in some back area facing a blank wall, making you feel even more like someone being punished.

One thing we remembered so fondly about ‘Laguna’ was its colourful landscape. We have not yet come across an island with such dense flowers as we remember from Laguna (Vadoo is close with its two gardens taking up the better part of the island). While not quite as concentrated, there are still lots of flowers lining the paths, especially a hyper-abundance of multi-coloured bougainvillea.

The colours don’t end with the greenery. Velassaru could make a case for a ‘Best for Turquoise’ award. It is surrounded by an extended, shallow, sandy lagoon which produces a dazzling azure blue everywhere you look. On the water villa side, the lagoon extends over a mile. We still remember snorkelling that part of the island with our small children. Even though the water was only waist deep, we were well over a half mile from shore and felt, ‘Hmmm…maybe it’s time to head back.’

While completely transformed, it was certainly a treat to head back to Laguna in its new guise as Velassaru.

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Maldives Tour 2011 – Day 10: Meeru

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Meeru water villas

Meeru is a simple, tasteful formula that works.

It’s smart casual. Not ‘chinos and polo shirt’ smart casual, but ‘boho chic’ smart casual. Rattan furniture and natural blonde wood interiors give the chalet-like villas a tasteful simplicity. A relaxed and breezy style where nothing is forced.

Like its sister resort, Kuredu, Meeru is a large island with lots of activities. It also is the only other resort with a ‘Golf Club’. The pitch and putt is compensated for its diminutive size with sumptuous landscaping including well manicured ‘fairways’ and water lilies in the hazards (curiously enough, no ‘sand’ traps). Like Kuredu, Meeru also has segregated the resort into ‘kid-friendly’ and ‘no kids’ sections. Children (under 18) are only allowed to stay in the Garden and Beach Villas, and not allowed in the Pavillion pool or the Uthuru Bar.

Meeru’s house reef is only accessible by excursion, but their house lagoon so impressed me (as have some other resorts I have visited like Four Seasons Landaa Giraavaru, Kanuhura, and Velassaru) that I am going to change the Maldives Complete house reef categorisation. I think that there needs to be a category for ‘Weak House Reef, Good Lagoon’. The lagoon is filled with lots of coral croppings (that Meeru is adding to with an active reefscaping project) as well as lots of big and colourful fish.

Certainly a the resort is a candidate for ‘Best for Dolphins’. Rasheed Mohamed, who took me around, boasted that their dolphin excursions have a 95% success rate in sightings. Lo and behold, on my boat transfer to Meeru, we came upon a giant pod of dolphins with dozens cavorting and swimming around the ship. The captain pulled up and we just sat and watched them for a good long time. Then when we pulled off again, the dolphins loved riding the waves made by the ship’s wake behind us.

A natural charm.

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Maldives Tour 2011 – Day 9: Kurumba

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Kurumba tour

My first ever repeat. After visiting 29 resorts with a credo of always trying new resorts, I have returned to a resort for the first time ever. Kurumba. My motivation pretty much describes Kurumba’s key differentiators – great value 5-star luxury, business convenience to Male, and variety of offerings.

Kurumba is the grand old man of Maldives resorts with all of the dignity and refinement the years of practice bring. It knows, though, that it has to keep in shape with all of the young luxury marque whipper-snappers coming into the neighbourhood on a regular basis. Current General Manager Jason Kruse has undertaken a particularly aggressive investment in updating the look and standard of the rooms. I revisited the Deluxe Beach Villa that we stayed in two years ago and it was a completely different class of room. Simple tasteful style touches livened up the whole look. But they haven’t flown in a bunch of Swedish style-boffins nor imported a boatload of Milan decor. Instead, they have done most of their work themselves to reflect a more Maldivian flavoured style and produced the touches right on the island by their own in house artisans.

Would you buy a second-hand Rolls Royce in excellent (not mint condition) cared for by loving, caring owners? Or would you prefer a brand new Audi for the same price with its new car small and whizzy state-of-the-art bits? If the former, then Kurumba is a place to consider.

They have kept their food standards very high with a constant refresh of the menu. The restaurants are all truly gourmet (eg. ‘Magic Fish’…a dish as fine as its name). Also, Kurumba is a top candidate for ‘Most Sharks as Diner Companions’ recognition. Their Ocean Grill sits over the water in a place frequented by the reef’s many juvenile black-tipped reef sharks. At one point we counted 8 circling just below our table.

Looking forward to settling in and enjoying a bit of this classic for a few days.

 

Kurumba Ali Farooq

Welcome at the Ocean Grill restaurant by Ali Farooq who I friended on Facebook after our last visit.

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Maldives Tour 2011 – Day 8: Kandooma

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Kandooma tour

Kandooma has architected, in its landscape and buildings, vast inner spaces from a tropical canopy to a striking set of main buildings. Walking around the island, one feels a dramatic cathedral-like sense of interior space both in the built up and natural areas.

The island has no house reef and only a few small swimming lagoons. The downside is that there is hardly any snorkelling from the beach (but snorkelling excursions are offered for free everyday at 3:00 pm). One upside is good wave breaks for those interested in surfing. But this type of reef gives the island a different atmosphere to the classic, quiet little plot of sand in a lagoon. Instead of calm water gently lapping the shores, the ocean in many places (not all) around Kandooma rolls in with modest waves that fill the air with the ambient sound of gently crashing surf.

The surf is just the beginning of its more vibrant feel. Kandooma is popular with young families, so one hears peals of laughter, splashing of water and scampering around by giddy youngsters. The resort also offers different entertainment every night from local bands to karaoke.

Kandooma’s island does not sit alone in the ocean like W Retreat, nor is it tightly clustered with other islands like Anantara, nor amidst big built up islands like Vadoo, but there is a collection of islands in the immediate vicinity. Like a little Indian Ocean neighbourhood of islands.

Kandooma itself has the feel of a little ocean town, especially around the reception, which overlooks a main mini-harbour surrounded by the restaurant and the towering upside-down ‘coconut husk’ buildings. Kandooma is not small at all, but doesn’t feel big either. You can easily circumnavigate it in the time it takes to drink a pina colada. It has a very open feel, especially in the interior where there are lots of trees and greenery, but not lots of shrubbery or ground cover. A pervasive tropical canopy of greenery shrouds an endless expanse of white sand.

Like its syllable shuffled counterpart Komandoo, Kandooma is really a 4+ star. It ticks all the boxes for a 4 star rating but adds quite a number of 5 star touches like rain showers and free in-room Wifi. The rooms are smart and stylish with antiqued white wash decor. It has stylish design with its use of burr-wood, the ‘coconut husk’ inspired architecture, and dramatic white canvas awnings of the main areas.

An ebullient bubble of paradise.

Kandooma tour 2

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