Best of Maldives – Online: Interactive Map – Dreaming of Maldives

Dreaming of Maldives interactive map

Like the resurgent corals, the vibrant inter-web thingy just gets richer and more colourful every day. When I launched Maldives Complete, there was a really dearth of good, useful information about the resorts. The resorts themselves had weak and limited websites. Nowadays, things are much more sophisticated.

Probably my second favourite Maldives website, after Maldives Complete, is Sakis Papadopolous’ ‘Dreaming of Maldives’. Just as I started with an anchor of a comprehensive database, Sakis’ starts with simply the best collection of images on the Maldives around. But like Maldives Complete, he hasn’t rested there and has branched into a range of other areas. His section on families, “The child-friendly Resorts in Maldives, all the Kids-clubs,’ remains one of the most comprehensive reviews of resorts on the Maldives. He has started to move into videos with dazzling results. And his latest innovative addition is this ’Maldives Photo Map’.

When I first launched Maldives Complete, one of the fun bits I added was the DeepZoom control of the British Admiralty Maps of the country. As I launched it, you can zoom into the charts to exacting detail. I had fantasized about pushing this party trick even further. I had pictures for both aerial shots of the island and prominent features like the swimming pool. I had thought that once one zoomed into an island, you would see an aerial photo (see directly below). And if you zoomed in on the photo, then it would take you to a shot of the pool (see bottom). A bit like a Russian doll photographic drill down reminiscent of the second half of the iconic film, ‘Powers of Ten’.

In the end, I didn’t see a lot of traffic on my interactive map and Microsoft never really developed the Deep Zoom technology much. Its editing tool, Deep Zoom Composer, remained klunky and incomplete. So I decided it would be too much work to add these extra layers of images. Also, soon the Google and Bings maps caught up on the imagery and so the aerial shots were pretty good. And now Sakis has taken the final step of allowing you to zoom even closer into gorgeous shots of island highlights.

Velassaru deep zoom island

Velassaru deep zoom pool

Best of the Maldives: Video Series – Conrad Maldives Rangali

Conrad Maldives Rangali youtube videos

And the winner of the ‘Best Online Video Series’ for the Maldives Academy Awards goes to…[drumroll]… Conrad Maldives Rangali

One of the first things I put on the design list for the Maldives Complete Resort Profiles was a link to videos. No matter how professional the sumptuous photography of this colourful paradise, a video is worth even more words than a picture. Even photographer extraordinaire Sakis Papadopolous has started doing more videography in his Dreaming of Maldives portfolio.

At first, I was quite frustrated by the available videos of the resorts. The worst were the pictures-set-to-music (with a bit of special effects thrown in). These slide shows really added nothing (except saving some the mouse clicks of going through a gallery. Other clips were amateur holiday clips that sometimes provided a quite thorough guided tour of the island (for the entertainment or envy of their friends and family back home).

We are starting to see some really comprehensive and well done videos on the web now. Leading the way is Rangali who have introduced their own YouTube channel of nicely done videos of everything from the Spa Experiences to Resort Jobs (subtitle: “From Life As A Submarine Driver To Window Cleaner At The Underwater Restaurant.”)

Sunshine, Camera, Action!

Best of the Maldives Online: Diving Signs – Scuba Hanna

Worldwide Dive and Sail Maldives trip for hearing impaired

  

In honor of Dhivehi Language Day yesterday, we feature a post on a universal language. One familiar to speakers of all languages who dive in the Maldives.

Diving is probably most people’s first introduction to actually using sign language. That is except for the hearing impaired, of course, for whom the underwater world is just as east to converse in as above water. Worldwide Dave and Sail offers a range of diving holidays for the deaf and this week takes them to the Maldives for a wide ranging itinerary including a stop at the Kuramathi house reef.

“Ever wanted to take the plunge, but you have been unable to take that giant leap because you are D/deaf or hard of hearing? Do you find it hard to understand instructors in big classes? FRUSTRATED?? Not anymore… Welcome to Worldwide Dive and Sail where your worries will disappear. We use a wide range of communication methods to ensure that everyone can understand and participate; these being: BSL, ASL, lip-speaking, gestures and fingerspelling. We aim to accommodate everyone, whatever their communication needs are! Please note, however, that all our trips will be a mix of D/deaf, hard of hearing and hearing people.”

The trip goes from 18-28 April and includes Male, Rasdhoo, Ari,Thaa, Nilhande and Laamu atolls.

If you would like to enhance your silent vocabulary of underwater words, then I highly recommend Scuba Hanna’s YouTube channel which is the most complete collection I have found. She does an entire 3 minute video on just different signs for different species of shark, and all sorts of fish I never knew the signals for like angel fish, and clown fish.

 

OK sign

Best of the Maldives Online: Videos – Dreaming of Maldives

Dreamin of the Maldives videos

Facebook, Twitter, Forums, Foursquare…all of this look a social media and I have not yet looked at one of the big ones, YouTube.

As it happens, the best eye to Maldivian spectacle has expanded his lens from photography to videography recently. Sakis Papadolpolous now has a collection of video vignettes for resorts he has produced available not just on his own Dreaming of Maldives site, but also on Vimeo and his own YouTube channel. They are simply the best resort videos going. Sakis does produce some seriously beautiful staged ‘mood’ shots to highlight a languid hammock or a tantalising cocktail. But he also includes plemty of panoramic material which provides a good perspective on the look and feel of the landscape itself and facility itself.

Since the inception, I have included a video of the resort in the main Profile page if there was a decent video available on YouTube. I limited myself to YouTube do to the ease of embedding into the Profile page. I limited myself to’decent’ because I loathe those fake slide-show “videos” (in air quotes) which are just the picture gallery set to music with some tired transitions. Many of my resort clips were guests simply doing a walk through to capture a feel for the resort for their friends or their own memories. Production quality not be much, but their utility and effectiveness to give people an authentic feel for the resort is invaluable.

Video is definitely taking over the web. A decent video of your resort is as much online table-stakes as an FAQ, map of the island and contact details.

I’ve now changed the videos in the Profiles to Sakis’ pieces for the resorts that he has done so far – Six Senses Laamu, Huvafenfushi, Dhonakulhi Island Hideaway and Lily Beach. Hopefully, more resorts will produce such vivid illustrations and hopefully, they will all use Sakis’ artistic talents to do so.

Best of Maldives Online – Facebook Photos: Meeru

Meeru Facebook Photos

A picture is worth a thousand words, and a good Facebook album can give you an insight out perspective of the resort.

After ‘Likes’, the next easiest measure to check out on a resort’s Facebook page is the number of Photos that Friends have posted. On this score, the Flickr of the Maldives is Meeru with 2,984 (as of the end of January). Today it is up to 3,030.

The next closest was Champa sister resort Kuredu with 2,629 (does Champa hand out cameras at reception or are they particularlt photogenic?).

Say cheese platter!

Best of Maldives Online – Facebook Likes/Members: Kuramathi

Kuramathi Facebook

Everyone wants to be Liked.

The most prominent bragging rights to any Facebook presence is ‘Likes’ (or ‘Members’ if you are set up as a ‘Group’). While this measure is debatable, it is transparent and certainly indicative of a degree of engagement and popularity.

The runaway winner for Maldives resorts is Kuramathi with 7,347 ‘Likes’.

Frankly, this is the page that kicked off my investigation into the use of Facebook by various resorts. When I went to the Kuramathi page I was struck by the richness of activity and contributions by both the resort and guests. I had visited plenty of resort Facebook pages, but Kuramathi’s made me wonder if any other resorts had stepped up to this level. I figured that I couldn’t dish out a ‘Best of Maldives’ without a more thorough examination. I really had to look at all of the resorts’ Facebook Pages (or in some case Groups). When I first made note of this idea for a post, Kuramathi had over 4,000 Likes, when I did my survey in January they had 7,347 and as of yesterday (see snap above) they stood at 7,786. In just a month, they have grown over 500 which is half the amount of the average total number of ‘Likes’ by resorts. In fact, their growth in a single month of 500 is more than total Likes/Members of 47 resorts.

I ‘Like’.

Best of Maldives Online: Most Languages – Velassaru

Velassaru website languages

Today is UNESCO’s International Mother Language Day which seemed an appropriate occasion for a shout out to Velassaru for their language rich and diverse web site. Their 8 supported languages far surpasses any others I have come across…

  1. English
  2. French
  3. German
  4. Russian
  5. Spanish
  6. Italian
  7. Korean
  8. Japanese

Oddly, no Chinese which is the very first language that I translated my website into. With Velassaru’s extensive shallow lagoon, one would think it would be an attractive option for swimming-challenged Chinese.

Best of the Maldives Online: Kids Site – Kuramathi

Kuramathi kids site

Kaki is not alone in bringing the marine delights and insights home to young guests on the web. Kuramathi’s web site features its very own ‘Kids Corner’ online. Anyone on the Internet can join in the maritime fun and curiosity with material like their interactive ‘Marine Life Alphabet’…

  • “In here, you shall find all those familiar fish you often see swimming about in the ocean in Alphabetical Order, each described in a playful manner. From Angelfish to Zebra Moral Eel, learn the names of the fish and their unique characteristics in a snap! Little guests, have also the chance to experiment with colours, with the new Marine Life Colouring Book which comes as a downloadable PDF booklet. Learning was never made this easy! After absorbing the interesting bubbles of Marine Life, test your skills by going snorkelling and prove yourself the winner when you can name the fish you see!”

Actually, seeing a baby Zebra Moray Eel, at Kuramathi’s sister resort Kurumba, was the underwater highlight for my wife Lori during our last visit to the Maldives. There were wonderful reef sharks swimming all around us, but all she wanted to look at was this shy little black and white stripped critter ensconced in a crevasse.

Kuramathi Kids Corner Zebra Moray Eel

Best of Maldives Online – TA Ratings: Cocoa Island

Trip Advisor Top Resort

 

If you really want to poll for the best of somewhere to travel, then one of the most credible popular juries is TripAdvisor. No fees, no advertising bias, no select group. It is completely open to the entire world of travel and travellers. That doesn’t mean it is perfect. All sorts of biases can creep into any population sample and opinion gathering. But at TA is tops for structural objectivity. For some time, the top of the leader board for Maldive resorts is Cocoa Island.  In fact, this year, Cocoa Island was rated one of TripAdvisor's top resorts worldwide for 'Luxury'.

But as I say when people ask me my expert opinion on ‘Which resort is the very best resort in the Maldives?’, my response is, “There is no ‘best’…only the ‘best for you’.” It’s all very diverse and subjective. It’s like asking ‘what is the best ice cream flavour?’ That was one of my major motivations for developing the Finder page so people could filter the 100+ resorts based on the criteria that mattered to them.

Best of Maldives Online: German – Maldives.at

Maldives Portal - home page

Maldives gives you wings. And Maldives Portal gives you all the nuts and bolt and any other tool you need to take flight to Maldivian paradise.

The most comprehensive German website for the Maldives is actually not from Germany, but Austria – www.maldives.at (For those of you who didn’t get the link to the ‘gives you wings’ tagline of Red Bull, Red Bull is the not just the biggest manufacturing company in Austria, but I think it is the biggest manufacturing company share of a country’s GDP of any in the world, not to mention it is by far Austria’s most iconic brand).

The simply titled ‘Maldives Portal’ is anything, but simple. It is a smorgasbord of information with a pedigree as rich as its pages. It is arguably the first major independent website on Maldives resorts. Certainly the oldest of any that persist to today. It was a major source of information for me when I first started researching my first trip in 1993. It wasn’t the most polished site with stylised graphics and slick interface, but it was chock full invaluable information that was actually useful. Instead of overly contrived pictures of tropical fruits and palm trees, it featured practical shots of the resort infrastructure like the rooms and facilities long before TripAdvisor or Flickr albums came on the scene. They also provided island maps which helped provide a sense of the overall layout. The forest for the trees. Not just of the island itself, but the surrounding waters, lagoons, reefs, etc. It was a major inspiration for me in creating Maldives Complete as I thought that the web needed more practical information on the resorts like the kind of stuff I could find some of on the Maldives.at.

Over the many years, Maldives.at has continued to update and enhance itself. It has added a bit more polish and order, but it still resembles a colourful, packed-to-the-ceiling-bazaar rather than a fussy, posh boutique. What it features in comprehensive information it does lack a bit in resort coverage as it only profiles 34 of the over 100 Maldives resorts. The section ‘All Tourist Resorts’ is, however, a virtually complete table of information with links to ‘Reports’ on nearly half which does provide a more expansive set of resort data.

The two areas where it stands out for its depth are diving information and its own community Forum. While Maldives Complete fatures dive maps of sites nearby to each resorts, Maldives Portal features broader atoll dive maps showing virtually all the dive sites in reach (see below). Unfortunately, the while the Forum rivals TripAvisor’s, it is almost completely in German.

But the shop inventory doesn’t stop there. It has links to key government sites, online webcams, TV, radio, services, companies, and so on. It’s like a giant hardware store of Maldives information where you could just get lost on a Sunday afternoon browsing all of the obscure items and thinking ‘surely, I can use this Maldives Puzzle!”

As Reethi Beech General Manager Peter Gremes wrote me after this week’s piece, “If Vettel wins next Sunday we’ll raise the Austrian flag and serve Red Bull.” Maldeives.at certainly is its own little online resort Red Bull – a powerful jolt of information, worldwide notoriety and German content in an Austrian car.

Maldives Portal - dive map example