Best of the Maldives: Passenger Trike – Amilla

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Taking a gentle bike ride across the island is a lovely way to explore the Maldivian tropical paradise, but not everyone can manage a bike to well. Amilla Maldives has introduced trikes so that all the guests can enjoy a leisurely ride through the island:

  • “It is possible to get around the island in a wheelchair however some of the sand is soft but we can assist with buggies and we also have a tricycle with a large seat on the back, which is a great option for families with a child who needs special assistance. Especially good for disabled joining in, but also children.”

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Best of the Maldives: Artistic Accessibility – Amilla Maldives

Amilla - fish ramp

Disabled guests are pretty resourceful so they find a way to manage even if the lay of the land is not the easiest to manage. They live in a world that in many if not most cases is not made to accommodate their impairments. When places make an effort, like adding a ramp for a wheelchair, they are grateful for the consideration and added ease. Many accessibility features are fairly functional affairs bolted on as the need presents itself. But Amilla Maldives has introduced permanent accessibility features with an aquatic themed stylish flair to boot. They have craft fish-shaped ramps to beach villas which replace a total of 5 steps that previously led to the entrance. Swish!

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Best of the Maldives: Kefir – Amilla

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Yogurt is a common breakfast item I enjoy regularly (especially loaded with honey and granola), and a yogurt drink for stomach biome health is fairly popular, but Amilla Maldives has added Kefir yoghurt to its buffet now for that extra special yoghurt treat:

  • “Kefir Yoghurt is a liquid milk beverage with an acidic creamy taste made with milk and gelatinous kefir. Kefir originated from the Balkans and Caucasus and is rich in lactic acid and acetic acid, which helps ferment kefir in yoghurt.”

Amilla - kefir

Best of the Maldives: Villa Height Accessibility – Amilla

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Amilla Maldives continues to pioneer accessibility in the Maldives with its latest accessibility feature being “height”. Lowering access to key features is not just beneficial to height-challenged individuals, but is also a major boon to wheelchair users whose own operating height is obviously lowered.

The catalogue of the villa overhaul includes the following:

  • Bathroom Vanities
    • Lowered mirrors
    • Relocated taps to side
    • Cut out under benches to allow wheelchair access
  • Showers
    • Added hand shower unit in Beach Villa
    • Added grab rails
    • Shower Chair is added depending on guest requirements
  • Mini-Bar Cabinet
    • Reduced the bench height by 23cm to enable access when in a wheelchair
    • Easier access to minibar fridge and coffee machine
  • Bedroom
    • Built a long benchtop in place of working desk to create a vanity area for guest to blow-dry hair and make-up area within the bedroom
    • Removed all rugs and benches from the bedroom

Maldives is renowned for having the world’s lowest elevation, and now Amilla have provided accessibility to match.

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Amilla - mini-bar cabinet

Best of the Maldives: Wellness Cocktails – Amilla

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We’ve long joked in our family about the “medicinal” benefits of various alcoholic beverages, but Amilla Maldives has seriously concocted a range of “wellness cocktails” that let people enjoy drinking well. The example above is their “Orange Sky” (Hendricks gin, fresh orange, orange shrub, honey, lime, and egg white):

  • We integrate wellness into all of our menus while ensuring the flavour and fun remains. Many of our cocktails are made using Homemade@Amilla ingredients including our range of kombucha and other probiotic drinks, bitter, infused spirits and shrubs (drinking vinegars).”

Here’s to your health!

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Best of the Maldives: Local Museum – Amilla

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Many resorts offer a local island trip for a taste of Maldivian authentic culture and for an extra rich dose, Amilla Maldives features an excursion to neighbouring B. Kendhoo which not only boasts its own historical significance, but also a superb collection of historical artefacts and displays at its own museum:

  • · “B. Kendhoo, the first island to welcome Islam to the Maldives. At this island you will see the first mosque to appear in Maldives as well as many other historical and ancestral works of art. Here you will also have the opportunity to witness the islands industry of making coir rope by hand. Your next stop will be B. Kudarikilu. This island is home to a national heritage museum, with countless historic pieces that truly showcase the history of the Maldives. The villagers here will offer you a fresh drinking coconut and traditional handmade snacks.”

Best of the Maldives: Coconut Soap – Amilla

Amilla - coconut soap

We love all things coconutty and Amilla Maldives features another item for our basket of tropically inspired items:

  • Our soaps are hand-made in Amilla Fushi with home-made pure coconut oil, powdered herbs handpicked from our gardens and natural essential oils

You can lather yourself with the essence of Amilla for weeks after your return.

Best of the Maldives: Dedicated Diet Menus – Amilla

Amilla - diet menus

The dining life of a special diet scanning the menus for codes like “V” for “Vegetarian” (or it is “Vegan”?). I was at a restaurant and they had a leaf icon for “vegan” and a carrot icon for “vegetarian” (go figure). Then there is all of the interrogating the server for the options. Amilla Maldives has eliminated this confusion by providing special menus printed with all the options for “Your Way” of eating, including:

  • Gluten Free
  • Dairy Free
  • Low Carb / Keto / Paleo
  • Vegan / Vegetarian

Best of the Maldives: Ms. GM – Amilla Maldives

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Looking at the “better half” issues at the halfway point of International Women’s Month. Some women find their satisfaction in the workplace and some find it in the household. Some women find it from both. And for some, the home is the workplace. Such is the case with resort spouses. Juggling the two spaces can be a real challenge. Not to mention juggling the roles of worker and wife. Mind you, increasing numbers of men also face these dilemmas, but historically, it has been the women who were more torn between both.  Amilla Maldives Victoria Kruse’s own juggling of so many roles, managing the blurred lines of home and work on a resort, and pioneering initiatives in the Maldives make her a role model for women looking at resort careers or co-careers with their husbands.

My father was a clergyman and so I observed the role that my mother played as “Minister’s Wife” which was also a “job” in its own right even though she did have her own career. The congregation had certain expectations about the presence and contribution of the minister’s spouse.  So I grew up with a first-hand view of this informal business-marriage partnership.

The resort couple I have known the longest in the Maldives is Jason and Victoria Kruse. They are (along with atoll neighbours Sonu and Eva Shivdasani) one of the most prominent resort leadership couples in the Maldives. I’ve already profiled Jason’s extensive and distinguished career in the Maldives, but I have long wanted to do a similar profile on Victoria. Her contributions at Kurumba and then Amilla have been noteworthy and growing in prominence with every year of her service. When we last visited Amilla, we noticed that Victoria’s activity and role was beyond full-time and pervasively wearing so many hats.   So she was happy to share an exclusive Maldives Complete interview about this experience:

  • How did you and Jason meet?
    Jason and I were introduced through mutual friends at a BBQ in Bali. Jason was a managing a hotel there and I had a fashion label back then. We each tell a different version of the story of course!
  • How did you decide to take an active resort role at the resort?
    It depends how you define active role really. At Casa del Mar in Langkawi I interacted with the guests but that was all. At Kurumba, Jason asked me to “help out” with the resort boutique as it was in bad shape. From that I started a retail consultancy business for resorts and was involved in the Kurumba boutique plus I also helped out with design things. At Six Senses Fiji, I was a consultant to the owners for the wellness area and store and as happens during opening I was called on to help with other things. In fact, Amilla is the first property I have had an official role working for the resort itself!
  • What is your current role at Amilla?
    Director of Sustainability and Wellness (also responsible for Events) – however over the past three years I have acted as the F&B manager, Executive Chef and Director of Sales not to mention purchasing and more. It is hard to define exactly as I also welcome and farewell guests and spend time speaking to guests at each meal period.
  • What is a biggest challenge to couples working together on a resort?
    Honestly it is the attitude of owners and management companies that do not accept that management couples can work. Most big companies and many traditional owners are very against it or ban it completely. For me it makes sense in a remote destination.
  • What would be one tip you would give to couples working together at a resort?
    Define responsibilities with yourselves and then everyone else.
  • How do you keep a boundary between resort life and home life?
    Umm we don’t!
  • What resort initiative that you led are you most pleased with?
    Wellness Your Way. This was a hard one to get everyone onside with, especially the previous culinary team. Winning Wellness Cuisines of the Year in 2021 with Destination Deluxe was a vindication enough but now seeing so many guests booking Amilla because of the WYW menus is amazing.
  • If you have one piece of advice for a woman who wants to succeed in resort leadership, what would it be?
    Don’t lose your femininity to fit in with the “boys” but use it to connect with people.
  • If you have one piece of advice for a woman who wants to join their husband on a resort posting, what would it be?
    Have clearly defined roles and try to set up your house as a non-work environment (just to be clear I have totally failed on this one).
  • What if anything do you wish you had done differently ten years ago or more?
    Stood up for myself and secured a clear job.
  • Ten years from now, what do you think you will regret doing too much of or too little of?
    Allowing too much working stress and too little do things outside of work.

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