Best of the Maldives: Personal Fragrance – SAii Lagoon

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SAii Lagoon - MIY 1

Instagram can save the sights and sounds of your trip to paradise, but how to do preserve the scents? The tropical flowers, the salty sea air, the crisp coral sands. I asked that question with my #26 of installment #5 of “Haven’t Seen Yet”, but thanks to SAii Lagoon “M.I.Y” (ie. “Mix It Yourself”) bar, I can finally tick that one off.

The M.I.Y. boutique lets you prepare a customised bouquet from their extensive array of aroma’s in the “Aroma Lab”. “M.I.Y.” is also a reverse acronym for “Yim” Thai word “Yim”, meaning “to smile”. So, the Aroma Lab motto is, “Make a scent that makes you smile.”

The process includes product testing to ensure your skin’s suitability and affinity with the customised formula. You can wear the final olfactory cocktail directly or have it added to you shampoo and soap in your room as well throughout your stay. Finally, each formula is kept for when you return to SAii Lagoon.

Makes scents to me!

SAii Lagoon - MIY 2

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Best of the Maldives: Underwater Easter Egg Hunt – LUX* North Male Atoll

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LUX North Male Atoll - easter egg hunt 1

Happy Easter! The Easter bunny left me another “Finally Seen” item with LUX North Male Atoll’s underwater easter egg hunt (#2 of the 13th “Haven’t Seen” instalment). Of course, they weren’t able to reprise it this year with the property closed, but they shared these photos from last year’s event. It was part of a largest egg hunt with goodies sequestered around the island with one giant golden egg hidden in the lagoon for intrepid snorkeling egg hunters.

LUX North Male Atoll - easter egg hunt 2

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Freeze Frieze

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Maldives resort distinctions are like London busses…you wait forever, and then a bunch come along all at once. That’s the case with the clever content of “Animated Wedding GIFs” featured as item #20 in Part 5 of the “Haven’t Seen Yet” series. Now there’s a whole collection of these Maldives-own Mannequin Challenges (albeit technology assisted)…

    1. Sailor Moona (China) – NIYAMA [ABOVE]
    2. Coco Laite (Germany) – Holiday Island

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    3. Sania Camelli (Russia) – Dhigali

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    4. Karina Leyman (Russia)

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    5. Natasha Davydova (Russia) – Soneva Fushi

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    6. Bernshtein (Russia) – Sun Siyam Irufushi

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    7. Man Chia (Malaysia) – Ayada

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    8. Nadya Kiss (Russia)

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    9. Chou Chou (Vietnam) – W Maldives

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    10. Maria Medvedeva (Russia)

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    11. Camila Carril (Brazil) – Six Senses Laamu

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  1. Maria Karieva (Ukraine)
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Best of the Maldives: Reef VR – Carpe Diem

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Carpe Diem - underwater VR

While still many “not seen yet” possibilities, my research is uncovering “finally seen” features I’ve proposed ages ago. Like Carpe Diem’s (also at the Raa atoll but didn’t get a chance to stop by this tour), house reef VR (which I proposed in Haven’t Seen #11 post, #4 a couple of years ago). The resort is doing more than just providing a sexy view of its underwater seascape, but is actually using the footage to assist with its reef conservation efforts:

  • “Carpe Diem Maldives is excited to expand on the Dive with a Purpose marine conservation programme this September in collaboration with Scripps Institution of Oceanography in the United States of America…Using innovative imaging and data technologies to archive reefs digitally and watch how populations change through time. Recreational divers joining the cruise will learn how to take their own reef images to recreate a virtual reality of the dive using special software. During the Dive with a Purpose week on Carpe Vita from September 9th – 16th Dr Brian Zgliczynski, Project Director of the 100 Island Challenge will present to Carpe Diem’s guest divers the research work involved in the project and go diving with the Carpe Diem Maldives team and guests to lesser-known dive sites in Raa Atoll as they accomplish conservation tasks.”
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Best of the Maldives: Skydiving – Shangri-La Vilingili

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Shangri-La Villingili - skydiving 1

Look! In the sunny cerulean sky! It’s a bird…it’s a plane…it’s super Best Of! “Super” because skydiving in the Maldives is perhaps one of the most eagerly anticipated Best of the Maldives activity to date. It was featured in the very first “Haven’t Seen Yet” post nearly a decade ago. Since then, I have been teased regularly by a number of announcements that skydiving was coming to the destination. A number of initiatives never seemed to get off the ground (quite literally). Even the company who eventually pulled it off, Sky Diving Maldives, posted about it months before details actually were forthcoming. Until finally they teamed up with Shangri-La Villingili for a landmark jump. The plane takes off from neighbouring Gan airport and you land on Villingili island. Guests were able to sail through the blue sky towards the blue water in a tandem jump for $699.

Shangri-La Villingili - skydiving 2

Shangri-La Villingili - skydiving 3

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Best of the Maldives: Underwater Villa – Conrad Rangali

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Conrad Rangali - underwater villa 1

Conrad Rangali’s latest show stopping “wow” feature finally introduces an underwater bedroom to the Maldives. Or should I say “re-introduces”. Actually, Conrad pioneered not only the first underwater restaurant (which was actually my very first “Best of the Maldives” post that kicked off all my blogging about the Maldives over a decade ago), but also experimented with converting the underwater room into a bedroom for guests to sleep in. They discontinued it as it was too difficult to transform the room into a bedroom and back to a restaurant quickly enough to make it work. For example, the guests paying an extreme amount of money to sleep there (at the time the most expensive room in the Maldives) had to wait until later in the evening to access their room when guests had finished dining there and the resort had cleared the restaurant items and set up the bedroom.

So in my 4th “Not Yet Seen” piece I had to add “Underwater Bedroom” back to the list. But now, it can go back to the “Finally Seen” catalogue.

Conrad describes the master bedroom masterpiece as follows….

  • “The entire lower suite was built on land in Singapore, fittingly made of acrylic from Japan’s premiere aquarium manufacturer Nippura Co., and sealed with Shin Etsu Marine sealant, which was used in the construction of Ithaa Undersea Restaurant. Then the 600-ton structure was hoisted by crane onto a specialized ship that could transport it to the Maldives and moor near the reef without damaging it. It was then submerged into the ocean and held firmly in place by 10 concrete piles that ensure it will not move or shift due to a high tide or rough seas.”

Conrad Rangali - underwater villa 2

Conrad Rangali - underwater villa 3

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Best of the Maldives: Whale Shark Float – Rihiveli Dream

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Rihiveli Dream - whale shark float

Black Friday today is the annual carnival of commercialism. The day after American Thanksgiving when all the families get together (“homecoming”) and have a Friday day off so they all go to the mall to get a jump on their Christmas shopping. For float aficionados, I had already added today’s feature to the resort Santa list. And now one lucky resort – Rihiveli Dream – finally features it. In fact, the whale shark float was the bequest of Maldives Complete and field correspondent Isley Lynn who stayed their this summer as a part of the artist-in-residence posting. Best Maldives Float Ever.

   

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Best of the Maldives: Underwater Sculpture Gallery – Sirru Fen Fushi

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Sirru Fen Fushi - sculpture 1

International Sculpture Day today. And new resort Sirru Fen Fushi is launching a world class sculpture exhibit with the most distinctively Maldivian twist – it is underwater.

  • “The sculptural installation on Sirru Fen Fushi will offer visitors a unique, cultural eco-art attraction whilst creating the foundations of an artificial reef to enhance the underwater ecosystem. The centre piece will be the Coral Cube, the worlds first semi submerged art space, a portal to the underwater realm offering visitors ephemeral encounters with the natural beauty beneath the water’s surface, delivering an other worldly experience that illustrates the connectivity of man with nature, a hybrid organic form in harmony with its surroundings, a seamless link between the land and the ocean, combining two disparate wonders, one created by man and one designed by nature.”

This creative installation is another gratifying “Finally Seen” for me as I first suggested such an exhibition 4 years ago with Part 4 of my “Not Seen Yet” series (#7).

Sirru Fen Fushi - sculpture 3

Sirru Fen Fushi - sculpture 2

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Best of the Maldives: Gourmet Popsicles – Gili Lankanfushi

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Gili Lankanfushi - popsicle

Gili Lankanfushi is concocting its own magical wands of tasty wizardry with its custom recipe Pool Pops.

  • “This is a popsicle from Fini Foni – our popsicle and ice cream bar at the pool side. Popsicles are chargeable, but during the afternoons we do offer it as a poolside Gili Refreshment. We do have different Gili Refreshment at the poolside available for guests throughout the day.”

The menu includes the following lollygagging lollies…

  • Non-alcoholic
    • Paleta Passion (photo above)
    • Gili Spa
    • Power Bar
    • Sun & Sea
    • Bodu Beru
  • Alcoholic
    • Pina Colada
    • Sangria Al Espagina
    • Fini Bubbly
    • Ghiaccioli Mojito
  • Weekly Special
    • Fini Green

Their icy assortment makes a double “Finally Seen”:

  1. Frozen Juice Pops (#6 from post #5)
  2. Poptails (#7 from post #5)

I’ve even added the new Tag “Frozen” hoping more will come out of the freezers.

Gili Lankanfushi - popsicles

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