Best of the Maldives: Live Aboard Combo – Four Seasons Kuda Huraa / Landaa Giraavaru

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Four Seasons Explorer

Maldives Complete also doesn’t do boats in its profiles or ‘Best of’ reviews. I’ve shied away from getting into the whole ‘Live Aboard’ segment of Maldives holidays because, like Guest Houses, I’ve never been on one so I wouldn’t know which criteria to feature or how to write about it.

But, this post’s distinction is sort of a resort/cruise hybrid so it just passes. It’s sort of the ultimate water villa. A mobile water villa.

We have always fantasized about taking a cruise boat actually as a way to see lots of nooks and crannies of this mystical archipelago. Having been to many resorts and enjoying the discovery of new gems, the notion of touring along a stopping at all sorts of little islands off the beaten path and then retiring to the ultimate in ‘water villas’ sounded entrancing.

We can see the appeal of such a floating holiday…

  • If you ever wanted to try out the mega-yacht life for the experience of your very own (ever see those gigantic yachts parked in swish harbours with ports of call on their bow for ‘C.I.’ and ‘V.I.’ and wonder what staying on them would be like?).
  • If you’ve ever thought of going beyond even the picnic island excursions of resorts to the most secluded and far flung hidden parts of the Maldives strung together like your own customised ‘virtual’ resort.
  • If you are thinking of an extended (time and budget) holiday over say two weeks and definitely want to split into two resorts

Well, any of these have crossed your mind, then the Four Seasons has an offer for you with their Four Seasons combo offer on the exquisite Four Seasons Explorer offers a brilliant option.

  • 22 guests
  • 39 meters
  • 1 suite
  • 10 state rooms
  • Wi-fi (this surprised me…I thought I would have to forfeit my digital connection for the tour)
  • Underwater videography
  • Kayak, snorkel, water-ski
  • Spa therapist on board

Another possible title for this post is “Billionaire for a Week”. Like my “Billionaire for a Day” post. The price of chartering the Four Seasons Explorer is $16,000 per day (last I checked) for whole yacht. For 22 people that’s a bit over £500 per day which isn’t exactly billionaire price bracket. But it certainly is the billionaire lifestyle.

Four Seasons Explorer 2

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Best of the Maldives: Open Room – Conrad Maldives Rangali

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Conrad Rangali open room

 

 

“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)

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Best of the Maldives: Long Stay – Gili Lankanfushi

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Gili Lankanfushi - Private Reserve

 

 

 

If all you need to relax is one treatment…the Maldive environment around you and you want as much of it as possible, many of the super premium resorts feature the rather grand room (well, ‘suites’) of ‘Residence’. Gili Lankanfushi’s Private Reserve in its ‘Residence’ collection takes this moniker seriously though. It has had one guest stay there for 9 months!

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Best of the Maldives: Room Height – Paradise Island / The Haven

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Paradise Island - door

 

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.

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Best of the Maldives: Villa Windows – Kuda Huraa

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Kuda Huraa villa windows inside

 

 

The World is Ready!

For Windows! That’s the tag line (one of them) for Windows 8 launching today around the world. My Facebook page and Twitter feeds are packed with former Microsoft colleagues whooping with delight at their new release (launch times are are always a bit frothy in Redmond, especially for the franchise product).

In honour of Windows 8 (and in the interest of balanced coverage), I thought I would showcase some superlative Windows in the Maldives. Particularly those of Four Seasons Kuda Huraa villas. Maybe it is my Microsoft heritage, but one of my pet peeves in any building, especially resorts and hotels, is not enough windows. Especially in a picturesque destination like the Maldives. Yes, we do spend as much time as possible outside on our visits, but sometimes you just have to or want to be inside. Maybe for a dose of refreshing air conditioning. Maybe because you have to or want to get on the computer (a la photo above). It is a shame that in such cases you have to abandon the beauty you came to experience.

The most striking design he have some across in our worldwide travels is the Phinda Forest Lodges in the Kruger, South Africa. They are constructed of 3 walls of floor-to-ceiling glass. Yes, you can lower blinds for complete privacy, but the fun part is just opening them completely and still feeling immersed in the lush surrounding jungle. We were resting in our room one mid-day after a crack-of-dawn safari and just watched all the gazelles and monkeys playing a few feet away outside.

The closest we have found to this design are the Kanuhura villas which have a very similar design (see photos). You do more often find floor-to-ceiling glass on one wall of the new water villas around the Maldives, thank goodness. But wrap-around transparency is still a novelty.

Windows everywhere. Just like Microsoft would like it.

 

Kuda Huraa villa windows

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Best of the Maldives: Adventure Villa – Banyan Tree Madivaru

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Banyan Tree Madivaru tented villas

The soft coverings at Banyan Tree Madivaru aren’t just in the villa, but *are* the villa. Their unique ‘Tented Pool Villas’ a sort of sombrillas on steriods

The luxury tent is one of the ultimate in sumptuous adventure. My wife and I have been to some of the finest African safari lodges, but we haven’t had a chance to try one of the tented safaris. It might sound a bit rough and hardy, but actually a number of establishments have created 5-star luxury in a simple tent. Many Maldives resorts try to evoke that natural aesthetic with thatched roofs, but the main villas are all standard construction material. The soft and flowing tented design just seems like the ultimate final touch to that exotic cast-away experience…

“Experience desert island living with our Tented Pool Villas. Banyan Tree Madivaru comprises 6 Tented Pool Villas. Each Tented Pool Villa is a set of three individual tents, distinctively equipped to function as living, sleeping, and bath areas. The spacious bath tent features a pair of spa beds for enjoying In-Villa treatments that include signature Banyan Tree Spa massages and facials. Interior furnishings exude a warm and tropical ambience, replete with timber flooring, rattan and teak furniture, handcrafted wooden and canvas accents, and luxurious ceiling canopies.”

Banyan Tree Madivaru interior - Sakis

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Best of the Maldives: Fresh Air Villas – Gili Lankanfushi

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Gili Lankanfushi - villa

 

 

It’s all about the fresh air. Breakfast by the water, morning snorkel/dive, lunch on the deck, lounging by the pool, stroll around the perimeter of the island, sunset pina colada, dinner on the beach, reading on the porch/deck, lying down on the sand for some star gazing.

We love spending as much time outside as possible on our trips. Dining al fresco is one of the great treats of the Maldives. One of my pet peeves at a resort is when I don’t have the option to dine out in the open air with the sand in my toes (ie. if I’m stuck to some enclosed, hard-floor restaurant).

Gili Lankanfushi extends the al fresco vibe to your villa when you finally do return to it. The whole villa – lounge area and bathroom – are completely open air.

On the particularly hot days, you can retreat to the bedroom which is the only part of the villa with air conditioning. But the even the doors are louvered so you can use natural sea-breeze AC in all but the most scorching days.

Fresh!

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Best of the Maldives: Desert Island Villa – Maafushivaru

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Maafushivaru Lonubo 4

Billionaire for a Day.

Maafushivaru’s neighbouring desserted island Lonubu evoked a billionaire’s paradise to me, one you could experience yourself for a night, from a number of different perspectives…

  • “Buying their own islands” – My professional alma mater, Microsoft, was renowned for its generosity in giving out equity in the company to all its employees (originally in the form of stock options and later in the form of vested stock). This largesse was a big contributor to my affordability of the luxury of the Maldives for so many years. But this munificence actually became a problem for the company in the late 90s as it became difficult to retain some of the top talent who had made small fortunes. I remember Bill commenting that his objective in giving out stock was ‘so people could by themselves a nice house, not their own islands…’ I certainly never made enough to buy my own island, but a night on Lonubo would feel like it.
  • Super-premium Micro-island Luxury – The Maldives is rivalling Dubai, Monaco and Mustique for the most exclusive bolt-holes. More than half of the resorts are 5-star to start with. Then, there is the arrival of the super-premium marques like Jumeirah, Four Seasons and even the rumoured Louis Vuitton. And beyond that, there are hyper-exclusive resorts like The Rania Experience and Dhoni Island (closed) with price tags starting in the $10,000 night range. If you need to be a millionaire to afford the 5-star plus properties, then these exclusive ones must be the playground of billionaires. Like Lonubo, these are eztremely small islands and it is not unheard of for customers to simply rent out the entire resort to themselves.
  • Lost’s ‘moved’ island – The most famous ‘deserted’ island of modern times is ‘The Island’ on ‘Lost’. In fact, one of the great storytelling innovations of this iconic and billion-dollar TV series was making the island itself a character itself in the epic. The whole Lonubo experience reminded me of Season Four’s final episode when Ben ‘moves the island’. You have your billionaire in Charles Widmore. You have your mystical deserted tropical island. But the clincher is that Lonubo has a helicopter pad (see bottom below) and a helicopter plays a big role in this episode. More importantly, the helicopter pad is old, dilapidated and even partially submerged underwater like an ancient Man in Black period relic. But the killer is that the reason the heli-pad is submerged is because in the decade since it was built, the Lonubo island…has moved! The seas are constantly playing shell games with the sand banks and islands (necessitating the omnipresent groynes and sea defences). In this case, the sands of Lonubo have shifted the island about 100 yards (no confirmed reports of rips in the space/time fabric).

Maafushivaru offers a number of ways to enjoy this facsimile of a billionaire playground…

  • Daily excursions – Every day a dhoni takes over resort guests for a visit to the island. Often special extras are organised like activities or a BBQ. Sometimes it is just an opportunity for a new place to snorkel or watch the sunset. For those short a billion or two, these excursions are entirely free of charge.
  • Private Dinner – You can book a private dinner on Lonubo. The cost is $320 per person…”Prepared by your own cook and served by your own waiter, accompanied by the sounds of the ocean and a bottle of sparkling wine. After dinner, stay on Lonobu and enjoy the peace and privacy of your very own island, a beach bed will be set up for you to relax and enjoyu the thousands of beautiful stars…pick up at midnight.”
  • Overnight Villa(s) – If you don’t want to turn into a pumpkin at midnight, you can also spend the night on Lonubo in one of their two villas (see below). These bungalows are what really set apart this desert island experience. You get the sensation of remote and solitary bliss…but with the comforts of home. A shower, bath, minibar, AC…even a TV to watch some old episodes of ‘Lost’. The cost of an overnight is $1,265 (for two sharing) which includes the special dinner. You stay until 10:30 am the following day when you are picked up by dhoni. There are two rooms so a family can even book the island if they like.

So if you want to re-enact the Lost experience, but prefer the homey bungalows of the DHARMA Initiative to the rustic living off the land of ‘The Others’, then set your Daniel Faraday machine to Maafushivaru’s Lonubo.

 

Maafushivaru Lonubo 3

 

Maafushivaru Lonubo 2

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Best of the Maldives: All Suite – Jumeirah Dhevanafushi

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Jumeirah Dhevanafushi suite

 

 

 

 

While many islands are diversifying their room types, others are focusing on certain categories. When I first started Maldives Complete, there were essentially 4 types of room categories – apartments, beach villas, water villas, and suites. Jumeirah Dhevanafushi this year launched the Maldives first ever ‘All Suite’ resort…

“The all-suite residences at Jumeirah Dhevanafushi recognise the individuality of luxury travellers and the significance of personal experiences in their lives. The uniqueness of each guest is reflected in the originality and amplitude of the interior design of the 38 spaciously apportioned suites. At the resort, there are two principle residence types, Revive and Sanctuary, each giving you a choice of breathtaking views of the Island or the Ocean accompanied by the liberating freedom that such space affords.”

(Thanks Adrian)

How suite it is.

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