No heart-shaped beds yet (jacuzzi, yes), but a round one. Conrad Rangali has one centered in its sunset water villa master bedroom like a giant bulls-eye. But the circular crib at Constance Halaveli tipped the feature today with the swoosh of a bedside stand and the round villa that lends a curvy Corbusier feel to villa.
After all that horizontal tandem activity, Constance Halaveli brings a new vertical dimension to some tandem rest. Our kids always enjoyed a bit of “sleep over” ambience on our holidays where they invariably stayed in the same room and chatted surreptitiously in the dark while Mom and Dad got in a few more chapters on the deck. Despite their camaraderie, except at the very youngest age, they started to want their own beds, but often twins were hard to come by at resorts. Sometimes one could improvise sleeping on a couch or day bed. But Halaveli’s bunks are a great solution that my children would have adored (though definitely would have prompted many fight over who gets the top bunk).
To TV, or not to TV…that is the question.
The Emmy’s last night celebrated the very best of television, and yet one of the great debates about Maldives holidays are whether ‘TVs’ are a good thing or not. Part of the allure to this enchanting destination is its remote “get away from it all” feel. The “no shoes, no news” ethos implies no network broadcasters droning on about the depressing headlines of the day. There is a school of Maldives purists who think that any such modern contrivances have no place in the idyllic archipelago.
I’m more of the “to each his own” school. I have always focused on very individual tastes and preoccupations that people have that are catered for by 100+ different islands in the resort. We have never really watched any TV during our visits to the Maldives and never missed it. But we can appreciate the people who might. We empathise with people whose busy lives mean they never get a chance to just chill in front of a favourite show. Sometimes holiday is the only opportunity for these folks to treat themselves to a little boob-tube that we all take for granted.
One big challenge is the kids. Not just in the Maldives, but anywhere and at home. When the glowing, rectangular shrine beckons will it override all other opportunities for exploration and experience? It is a pervasive balancing act.
Baros has come up with a clever and stylish way to have your cake and eat it too on the TV front. Taking a page from the pirate world, it has devised a way to hide the electronic treasure by burying it in discrete hideaway unit (see hidden below and in use above). For families wanting to remove the temptation from the younger ones (or themselves), the unit can be tucked away out of sight. But if there is a special game on or the weather has gone a bit sour, it pops up easily for a bit of video chilling.
Now you watch it, now you don’t.
“Conrad beach rooms open on all four sides. What a difference to a/c. The outside comes in. Lovely sleep under the silent fan.”
A pavilion in your villa. The weather and surrounding are so idyllic and perfect that the biggest downside to a villa is having to go into it. The best villas provide lots of ways for you to remain connected to the natural splendour through decks, outdoor showers and bathrooms as well as a design of windows and vistas.
(Thanks Adrian)
Check out the post the time on this entry. How cool is that?
Looking for something to mark this unique moment of ‘12’, I’ve chosen Paradise Island’s Haven Suite doors which are 12 feet tall. So are the showers. The drench showers do really feel like rain from heaven. In England, we moved to a converted barn just to get that vertical, cathedral-like spaciousness.
Big island means big stuff, The spaciousness is as vertical as it is horizontal in places especially The Haven Suites. Spa rooms were bigger than many gardens in the UK. And there were 15 of them. The spa seemed to go on for acres. And the spa entry itself had 3 distinct and distinctive water fountains with water cascading down.
I guess combined with their basketball supremacy and their super sized Haven Suites, Paradise Island is the also best for tall people.
Time to get down.
The latest bed instalment is not the biggest, nor the best, but the ‘lowest’. In keeping with its Japanese heritage and ambience, the Vadoo beds rest on the ground. Not like your typical ‘Beds-R-Us’ foldable futons though, these beds are as plush and thick.
I had my bed on the floor growing up. It was especially convenient for collapsing into (perhaps a very serious concern for some people). Also, great for subclinophobics (fear of things under the bed).
Vadoo is not unique with this bed style, but Vadoo is best quality I have come across with its quality of mattress, bedding and stylishly design black lacquer frame.
There’s biggest, and there’s best. And at the W Retreat, beds are as much of a pervasive obsession as their service and music.
Beds are everywhere. Their pool-side restaurant/bar serves you lunch on a bed (see photo above). Later in the day, you can go to their over-water bar, ‘Sip’, for a sundowner on an array of king sized mattresses with pillows to stretch out on. Even after dinner, a night cap at the night club 15 Below offers seats that are more bed than chair in design (see photo below). Beds are on the beach and in reception. The upstairs decks of the villas have swinging beds.
And to cater for all of this lounging, the W have created these little serving tables (see in both photos) which handily hold your drink, food, etc. what ever way you want to make yourself comfortable.
Of course, they also have them in the bedrooms. Lovely ones. Top of the line ‘super kings’ with down mattress covers and down pillows (the softest we have come upon) a luxuriously high thread count (400 TC) bed linen.
For a destination where most of the landscape is horizontal, the W does more than just about anywhere to get you horizontal.
Of course, another way for the whole family to relax is a bit of cuddle therapy. But, as my wife and I learned when we had young kids, as sweet as it is when the little ones jump onto the bed in the morning for a start-the-day hug, it does call for a bigger bed. And in the Maldives, there are no bigger beds than Jumeirah Dhevanafushi’s Ocean Revive and Island Revive beds. At 3 metres wide (2 metres long) they are the biggest I have come across anywhere. A UK ‘super-King’ is only 2 metres wide (and 1.83 metres long). In fact, the biggest commercially sold bed in the world is the ‘California King’ which is only 2.13 metres wide.
Many Maldives bedrooms have some distinctive views and the water bungalows certainly give you that up close view of the aquarium-like ocean around. But if you want more up close and more aquarium and more ‘surround’ than ‘around’, then the big news out of the Maldives this month is the introduction of Conrad Maldives Rangali’s ‘underwater bedroom’ experience.
Rangali has taken what was one of the all-time best ‘Best Of’ features (and the very first featured on Maldives Complete), the Ithaa underwater restaurant, and extends the use of this great space during the graveyard shift by transforming it into a bedroom.
Luxury Insider reports that “After a champagne dinner, what is normally the 12-seat restaurant will be rearranged into a double bedroom while breakfast will be served in bed.”
Gives a more inspiring connotation to the colloquialism ‘sleeping with the fishes’.