A magical honeymoon to Maldives

Maldives is one of the dreamiest honeymoon locations. My husband and I being beach lovers, Maldives was definitely on our mind when we were selecting our honeymoon location. Other options we had in mind were Seychelles, Maldives, Bali and Malaysia. We finally narrowed down to Bali and Maldives. Both the places had their pros and cons.

Factors we considered:

• While Bali offers you the advantage of both land and sea, Maldives is all about sea

• As we were travelling from India and we had limited day offs, we did not want to spend too much time in travelling

• You have to be in the explorer mode when you visit Bali as there are so many spots to visit

• In Maldives, its all about staying in a beautiful luxurious island and relaxing

Although Bali seemed very attractive, we parked it for a future vacation and finalised Maldives, mainly owing to the fact that we wanted a honeymoon where we could relax and spend time with each other and not worry about covering tourist spots! We wanted to have a luxurious honeymoon and when it comes to luxury, nothing beats Maldives!

Next came the most important step: Planning the vacation.

Best time to visit Maldives:

It is said that November to March is the best time to visit Maldives. As our honeymoon was planned in August, we were a little skeptical. However, after an extensive research and consulting some friends who had been to Maldives, we understood that it can be visited any time of the year. The heat and humidity might increase but the rains are limited to an hour or so, after which there are clear skies again. We took the plunge and went ahead with August and luckily, it did not rain at all for the 5 days when we were there except for a quick rain one night post which the sky cleared up.

It depends a lot on what kind of temperature you prefer. If your skin is not extremely sensitive and heat does not bother you, you can easily plan it during the summer months.

Mistakes we made:

• We booked our flight tickets before finalising our island and booking the resort. This was a huge mistake owing to the following reasons

  • The hotel fare will be much higher than the flight tickets, so its better to go for slightly expensive flight tickets if you are getting better deals on hotels for those days

  • The resort you many want to stay in might not be available for the selected dates
    

• We booked our tickets in the weekend, it is generally advisable to book tickets on weekdays (especially Tuesday) because the rates tend to be lower on weekdays

Since we had already made the mistake, we had no option but to figure out the best available resort for our chosen dates. And thus started the tedious search for the resort we wanted to stay in. Maldives has almost 130 resorts and it is extremely difficult to figure out which one is the best for you. The following steps can be taken to shortlist resorts:

• Have a budget in mind

• Have all the amenities in mind that you may be looking for. For example, our requirements included:

  • All inclusive meal packages

  • Bath tub

  • Pool Jacuzzi

  • Water sports

There might be other requirements that you may have like sunrise facing villa, complementary pool breakfast etc.

• Figure out the kind of villa that you want to stay in. The resorts in Maldives have two kinds of villas:

Beach Villa

Situated on the beach, these beautiful villas are best if you love to chill on the beach. The beach villas are situated right on the shore and you can enjoy both the sea and its shore. It also has an added advantage of being near the restaurant and bar so in case you want to grab a quick drink, you can easily get it.

Water Villa: While beach villas are beautiful and have many advantages, water villas are one of a kind. These gorgeous villas are located directly on the sea. Although they are a little far away from the main property, they offer more privacy and some stunning views! Although they are more expensive than the beach villas, it is highly recommended to experience a water villa when you are visiting Maldives.

We decided to go for a beach villa for 3 nights and a water villa for 1 night.

How to chose your resort

There are many websites out there which can help you in selecting your resort. We used websites like trivago to figure out the best prices but as we required a custom tailored plan, we were also exploring the option of going through travel booking companies. After contacting many such companies, we found a company called pickyourtrail which specialises in booking holiday packages. We shared our budget and all our requirements with them. We also shared the names of some of the resorts that we had in mind. After a thorough analysis and help from the pickyourtrail team, we were able to finalize our resort. The resort name was Cocogiri resort and it was situated in Vaavu Atoll part of Maldives. It was a beautiful resort and following were the inclusions of our stay:

• 3 nights in the beach villa with private area and bathtub

• 1 night in water villa with pool jacuzzi. In case you want to opt for a pool breakfast, make sure that you go for a water villa for a minimum of 2 days because the checkin time is post 12 and the breakfast time is already gone by the time you check in

• All inclusive meals and drinks. The all inclusive meals covered breakfast, lunch and dinner buffets. The drinks were limited to a select number of brands, but the brands were good enough to go for it. If you are a light drinker, it is advisable to not go for all inclusive drinks and instead buy drinks on the go.

What to pack

Since you will be staying in a private island, it is recommended to pack all essentials as there will be no shops in the islands. For a detailed beach vacation packing checklist, check out my link https://www.instagram.com/p/CVXeq0nl28R/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y%3D

Visa, documents and other things to keep in mind

- Maldives has visa on arrival, so all you need is a valid passport. Ensure that you carefully read the guidelines on your ticket and carry all the required documents.

- The following forms need to be filled out for visiting Maldives from India:

- Imuga Form

- Air Suvidha Form

- The internet speed is okay in the resorts and there is no need to buy an international roaming pack if you can manage with whatsapp calls. The internet might not be great if you require heavy usage.

Our 5 day stay in Maldives

We took a flight from Mumbai to Male. It is advisable to book early morning flights because the sooner you reach Male, the sooner you can take a speedboat/seaplane to your resort. The speedboats and seaplanes do not operate after 4 pm for most of the resorts.

Our flight was at around 10 am and we reached Male by 1 pm. On reaching the Male airport, we saw a representative from the Cocogiri Island resort (where we were staying), who was standing to receive us and the other guests going to that resort. The wait time was around 1 hour till all the guests arrived and then the speedboat took almost 50 minutes to reach the resort. On reaching the resort, we were greeted by the most polite staff with welcome drinks and fresh towels. The place felt heavenly and all our tiredness from the journey just vanished.

We then checked in to our beach villa, it was a luxurious villa with everything that one may dream of. Big spacious rooms, a gorgeous bathroom and stunning views! The best part of the room was the outside area which was facing the sea, with the sea just 4 steps away. The entire villa space was our own private space and it felt no less than living in a movie!

After settling in, we went for a dip in the beautiful ocean, post which we had our dinner and relaxed by the swimming pool with our favourite drinks.

Day 2 was all about exploring the ocean. We got up really early to see the magical sunrise and then I spent some peaceful time taking a long bath in the bathtub and reading my favourite book while my husband soaked in the sun with his book. After having a delicious breakfast, we took our snorkelling kits and spent hours snorkelling in the ocean. It felt surreal looking at the marine life, the colourful fishes and corals. After having a great time snorkelling, we finally headed back to our villa and went to have our lunch. We spent the evening and the night sitting on the beach, talking our hearts out, all while sipping wine and enjoying the calm breeze. It was so beautiful that we wanted to capture every moment and yet the pictures don't justify the beauty of the place seen through naked eyes.

Day 3 also started at 5.30 am for us and we caught the perfect sunrise! After having our breakfast, we lazed around in the bar with drinks. It is strange how, on a vacation, you have so much to talk with the person you literally live with. On normal days our minds are so much occupied with the routine tasks and the daily activities, it leaves us with very less time to talk about other things. Vacations are perfect to leave all your worries behind and just talk about anything to everything.

Day 4 was when we shifted to the water villa. The water vill a was even more luxurious. The villa was huge. It had a bathtub with the most beautiful view and the best part of the villa was the pool jacuzzi. Our was the biggest watervilla in the resort and it had everything and more! We could spot fishes under clear water right from the balcony of our villa!

We spent the day chilling in the villa and doing water activities. We went for both Kayaking and snorkelling on day 4.

On the 5th day, it was time to bid adieu to the resort. We woke up early for the last sunrise of the trip and then chilled by the sea. After a few hours, we had our breakfast and then it was time to hop on to our speedboat.

It is recommended that you keep some buffer time and reach the airport a couple of hours early, in case you are planning to do some shopping/ buy souvenirs. The Malè market is just 10-15 mins away from the airport and there are easily available cabs to take you to the market.

For a detailed video on our Maldives trip, please visit my youtube channel