We decided to take a break and celebrate an occasion in Maldives primarily because of two reasons.
1> We desperately needed a break
2> Emirates airlines was giving us free tickets to Maldives via colombo as part of their loyalty program.
I scouted on the net for places to stay and finally got the number of a travel agent in Bangalore who would do the booking. The agent showed us quite a few resorts and we finally chose Lohifushi primarily because of the cost advantage. This was one of those which was offering maximum facilities at minimum rates. There are two types of bookings - stay + brkfst & stay +fullboard(Lunch and dinner inclusive) The total expenditure came to about 35 K for 5 days. Later we found that had we booked it directly it would have been about 28k.
Well it was August and we left Bangalore in the morning and had about 6-8 hrs in Colombo and finally we reached Male at about 7:30 in the evening. The visa is on arrival and for indian nationals there is no charge.
From the airport we went to the resort in a speed boat that was a bit late. In the speed boat it took us 45 minutes to reach the island. The resort is a whole island. As soon as we landed on the island we got a welcome drink and then were shown to our cottage. Cottage was a superb one. One large bedroom with a sitout. One luxurious bathroom and a small courtyard with shower facilities. And this was about 50 metres from the shore. The place was hot and humid but the cottage had proper A/c.
then we went for dinner and I had the time of my life just eating away to glory in those 5 days.
The food served was great quality but you had to pay for water.
There were other facilities that we used to the max like :- Tennis, TT, Badminton, Swimming pool, evening sunset cruises, snorkelling, darts, disco, surfing. Scuba diving was one that we didn’t use as it is a full 7 days course. All in all it was a very enjoyable trip and I would recommend it to an and everybody.
One thing that my agent had advised us was to carry bottles of water if possible. We did that and did not regret as a bottle of water was priced at abt 5$ which could get you 2.5 cans of beer:).
General tips:
1>Carry enough of Sun tan lotion
2>Get ECNR on the passport else you might have some trouble at the airport
3> Book Directly. Not through an agent
4> Carry dollars. widely accepted( although same with pounds and other western currencies)
5> The prices vary from season to season so plann carefully.