Best of the Maldives: Room Telescope – Lily Beach

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Lily Beach - telescope

The Leonids are back!

Our favourite astronomical event. We love to be in remote places with little air pollution or light pollution which provide ideal viewing. Just lie on the ground and star at the heavens waiting for the staffs to fall.

If you want to be a bit more pro-active with your personal star gazing, then Lily Beach offers the most powerful personal telescope we have found in the Maldives. A number of resorts offer a high powered device for group star gazing and Soneva Fushi even has its own observatory. But for more private viewing, Lily Beach offers Celestron Power Seeker 80EQ in its water suite which includes “3x Barlow lens triples the magnifying power of each eyepiece…[and] ‘The SkyX – First Light Edition’ astronomy software with a 10,000 object database, printable sky maps and 75 enhanced images.”

Star struck!

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Best of the Maldives: Longest Jetty – Constance Halaveli

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Constance Halaveli jetty

Guinness World Record Day today.

Only natural that Maldives Complete ‘Best of the Maldives’ collection of distinctions would rank not just among the best in the country, but across the world as well. One such example appears to be Constance Halaveli’s water villa jetty. They have the longest jetty in the Maldives at 850 metres. Two-thirds of the Maldives resort islands themselves aren’t even that long. And with the Maldives leading the way in the world with water villas (due to its unique shallow reef/island topology), some research indicates that it appears to be the longest in the world.

Back here in blighty, we have to console ourselves with celebrating distinctions like ‘Fastest bog snorkelling triathlon’ (see below – slide 36). With the current UK weather, it might become the new national pastime. If Maldives is the ‘Best Snorkeling in the World’, then the UK has probably achieved the distinction of hosting the ‘Worst Snorkeling in the World’.

 

UK bog snorkeling record

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Best of the Maldives: Cashless – Centara Grand

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Centara Grand spa treatment

Centara Grand is getting rid of another kind of paper in its business…cash. ETurboNews resports…

“Guests arriving at Centara Grand Island Resort & Spa Maldives from November 1, 2012 can leave both their shoes and their cash behind, because from that date the resort begins its Ultimate All-Inclusive experience. Although Centara has always featured fully-inclusive accommodation, Ultimate All-Inclusive takes this concept to an entirely new level and represents the ultimate in luxury escapes. Included are champagne breakfasts served all the way through until mid-morning, a choice of three restaurants for lunch, and sumptuous dinners that offer a daily theme buffet, Thai cuisine, Italian dining at a romantic overwater restaurant, Japanese teppanyaki cooked to order, fresh seafood, and international dishes…Also included are credits of US$100 per person, per day, to spend at Spa Cenvaree village spa, with a range of treatments that include foot massage, Indian head massage, face relaxing massage, and a choice of body scrubs and upper-back massage…The package also includes Wi-Fi access in the rooms and across the resort, use of fitness facilities with programs designed by a personal trainer, tennis, snorkeling equipment, motorized water sports, and windsurfing lessons…A number of off-island excursions are also included such as a whale shark tour, sunset fishing, sunset cruises, and the local island discovery tour.”

Other resort have done ulta-all-inclusive plans comparable to this, but one feature that stands out for me here is the $100 daily spa credit. Nice touch.

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Best of the Maldives: Press Kit – LUX* Maldives / Gangehi

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LUX Maldives press kit

Bumf, swag and paraphernalia. That is the burden of conventional marketing. The most popular give-away (often sponsored) at trade-shows is a carrier bag to haul all of the brochures, pamphlets, flyers, fact sheets and other assorted promo material. After a tour, I have to watch my baggage weight with piles of paper I bring back. LUX* Maldives has remedied all that with their credit card USB press kit. After my island tour, PR Manager Dolores Semeraro handed me all the material I needed on the handy little device shown here.

As it happens, when I met with Raffaela Colleoni of Gangehi at WTM and they had the same gizmo. But they had a picture of the island on it. In fact, several of the business cards I collected featured aerial resort shots. I think this is a smart idea. The romantically diminutive dot nestled in swathes of turquoise IS the ‘product’.

Like the Maldives islands themselves, good things do come in small packages.

 

LUX Maldives press kit close up

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Best of the Maldives: Pool Number – Beach House Iruveli

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Beach House at Iruveli pool

One of the dividends to my WTM visit is coming away with a notebook full of new ‘Best of Maldives’ candidates through my discussions with the various resorts and the Tourism Ministry folks. One of my revelations was meeting with Haydee Cruz of The Beach House at Iruveli and learning about their ‘all pool villas’ concept.

Iruveli are neither the only nor the first ‘all pool villa’ resort (eg. Banyan Tree Vabbinfaru has the same concept), but they are the biggest. With their 83 rooms (versus 48 are Vabbinfaru) plus their 2 (!) main pools AND a special kids pool at the kids club, they coming to a splashing 86 pools in total (hat tip to Liz Panchang who pointed out the distinction). And these are substantial pools, eg. Length: 3.2m, Width: 2.3m, Depth: 1.1m.

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Best of the Maldives: Boulevard – Kanuhura

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Kanuhura boulevard

 

Turn on those lights! The starting pistol to American Christmas season might be ‘Black Friday’, but in the UK it is tonight’s ceremonial lighting of Oxford Street, the biggest shopping street in London.

The closest equivalent to Oxford Street in the Maldives is the Manhattan-inspired ’Fifth Avenue’ straight through the middle of Kanuhura island. Extended by jetties to the water villas and the welcome jetty on either side, the boulevard stretches for over 400 metres. It makes for a dramatic vista. But perhaps even more enticing for the plastic-toting visitors are the posh shops that line it in the centre that inspire its name. They even have their very own private label fashion. If you can’t get there before Christmas, at least you can take a 360 degree virtual tour here to get in the shopping spirit.

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Best of the Maldives: Junior Hoopsters – Lily Beach

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Lily Beach - junior hoops

Let the hoops commence. The NBA starts today with Celtics vs. Heat and Lakers vs. Mavericks. For aspiring hoopsters or young fans, the resort of the day is Lily Beach. An increasing number of resorts have basketball courts (perhaps as the sport grows increasingly international), but only Lily Beach has a junior hoop at its kids activity centre.

Swish!

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Best of the Maldives: Turkish – Ayada

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Turkey flag
Happy Turkey Day!

No not American Thanksgiving. But the National Holiday of Turkey, ‘Republic Day’. And the resort of the day is Ayada.

Ayada is owned and managed by a Turkish company and it reflects its Ottoman roots throughout the resort. From the Turkish Hammam baths to the Ottoman lounge…

“From the serenity and tranquility of the Maldives to the vibrancy of a café in Turkey, Ayada Maldives showcases the beauty and unique experience of sipping authentically brewed Turkish coffee and specialty teas with a wide array of traditional shisha at the Ottoman Lounge. The lounge is reminiscent of a traditional café in Turkey with the Ottoman style furnishings complete with intricate light fixtures and low seating.”

?erefe!

Post Script – For a Turkish language website on the Maldives, check out www.maldivler.com.tr .

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