Maximizing Miles in the Maldives: Cathay First, Eating in Singapore, and a Park Hyatt Water Villa

Braised lobster




My absolute favorite dish here, and one of my favorites anywhere, is now being prepared:




They shave fresh wasabi onto the plate, cook a piece of wagyu beef perfectly, and serve it with a citrus dipping sauce and garlic chips on the side.

Somen noodles


A specialty tea which was good but for which I lack the refined palette


After concluding our tea we were taken into the main dining room which is where they serve dessert. It looks over the Marina, and we got to watch the evening’s laser light show.


Blueberry Cheesecake

The sable … which also introduced me to really outstanding honey, I later realized flying home on Cathay Pacific that they serve Tasmanian honey with breakfasts and I took advantage of it for the first time, I don’t know how many times I’ve given that a pass. Sigh.


They brought out petit fours to share


And when we finished those, asked whether there was anything at all we had had that we’d like more of, and I simply said “Oh, the macarons, please…”


Well worth the price, I miss the beef already, and I’m glad they don’t seem to change up the menu all that often or else I’d be tempted to go back more than once a year.

Thanks for sharing your amazing experiences! Keep it coming!

Singapore Airlines Business Class: Singapore – Male

We caught a cab from the Grand Hyatt to the airport, the cab driver seemed skeptical when I told him we were flying Singapore but going to terminal 2 and not to the newer terminal 3. Central Asia flights are terminal 2, he called the airport to verify and found that indeed that’s where we were headed.

We were on Singapore Airlines business class awards, roundtrip Singapore – Male. These are not easy tickets to get generally,, and this was a separate award from what brought us in and out of Singapore.

If I’d been able to use US Airways miles for the itinerary it would have been a great value at 30,000 miles roundtrip. Unfortunately there were never any seats available to Star Allaince partners (though I didn’t check within a week of travel), I booked these tickets with Singapore Airlines Krisflyer miles. They cost me 55,250 miles per person roundtrip (after 15% online booking discount) plus fuel surcharges and taxes of about SGD$330 per person.

That’s a lot of miles for one trip, considering we were also spending 135,000 miles apiece for the first class Singapore roundtrip. I could have saved some miles flying Cathay to Colombo and back, stopping over in only one direction, but that would have added another (paid, though not more than the fuel surcharges on the Singapore redemption) flight segment onto the itinerary. This is how I wanted to do it, and I had to come out of pocket the miles to make that happen.

Maldives are just tough to get to — with Star Alliance in addition to the Singapore flight there’s a once-weekly Austrian flight on which award seats are fairly impossible. Oneworld services on British Airways a few days a week from London Gatwick. There’s Malaysian from Kuala Lumpur. But mostly non-alliance service, including generally the Middle Eastern carriers, as noted earlier with American’s new Etihad partnership that’s probably the path I’d take for a return.
It’s really striking and says a lot about Singapore that there weren’t ever partner business class award seats available… when both flights were less than 1/3rd full in business on departure, although it’s possible that recent unpleasant political events in the Maldives contributed to the light loads and that the flights would have been expected to go out more fully booked.

We arrived at Changi’s T2 and there was no line to be checked in for business class passengers.

Through passport control in minutes, it was a short walk to Singapore’s business class lounge. Sadly I’ve flown Singapore first, even, but never on departure from Singapore, so I’ve yet to try The Private Room first class lounge.

This lounge, which I’ve visited in the past, is perfectly nice and comfortable — it’s busy but there’s plenty of seating, there are nice showers and a nice buffet area and perfectly serviceable internet.

I had a seat, plugged in my laptop to conserve power though I’m not sure why as there’d be seat power on the flight, and checked my email one last time as it was just past the end of a business day in the States and I wanted to get my box cleared out so that I could clear my head for total relaxation.

After about an hour boarding had commenced for our flight so we headed down towards the gate. By the time we arrived nearly everyone else was in the gate area, and there was no one queued up for security.

I do love that Singapore does security at each gate separately, it makes connecting especially a breeze as there’s no transit security to clear before heading to the lounge. You land, get off the flight, and can head straight to a shower or relaxation ad there’s never really a meaningful line at security or if there is you are standing right by the boarding doors and of course airline staff see you, security isn’t going to make you miss your flight in virtually any conceivable case.

We were greeted (as I had known to expect) with one of Singapore’s Airbus A330′s with their ‘new-ish’ mid-haul business class product. For a four hour flight, angled-flat seat with large screen video on demand and seat power is a real treat and also a real contrast to Cathay’s old-style recliner product offered on most similar routes.

The seat was a little bit narrow for my tastes, but I love the classy look and feel of the leather, it’s a scaled down version of Singapore’s lie flat long-haul seat and just looks fantastic.

I found the seat great for lounging, and the general comfort-level plus the incredibly friendly Singapore flight attendants made the trip pass quickly.

Newspapers were distributed, along with socks, I kicked off my shoes and put them on over my own socks for the flight. Pre-departure beverages served, menus were distributed, very much all according to script.

Prelude

Satay

With onion, cucumber and spicy peanut sauce

Starter

Antipasto plate

Seared scallops with grilled vegetables and mozzarella

Main

Grilled sirloin steak, chimichurri, salsa, roasted baby tomatoes, mushrooms, potato

Braised chicken with mushrooms and bamboo shoots, carrots and fried rice

Grilled salmon with lemon chive sauce

Buttered green beans and steamed potatoes

Baked tandoori lamb chop with mint chutney, pineapple onion salad and cumin pilaf rice

Finale

Ice jelly with fresh fruit

Dark chocolate, crème brulee with mixed berries

Gourmet cheese with garnishes

A selection of fresh fruit

Gourmet coffees & selection of fine teas, with pralines

Singapore’s business class meals — and on medium-haul no less — are really impressive, both in terms of quality but also and truly because of the presentation.

And how can you go wrong with satay, even before your appetizer is served? (And can I say how impressive it is to see meals served in courses this way?)

Mmm… peanut sauce

I mean, it wasn’t as good as the satay at the East Coast Lagoon Village hawker stalls, the flavor in that beef was incredible, just exploded in your mouth. But at 30,000 feet, this was a nice treat.

Here’s the scallop appetizer, which was good not great, but a welcome presentation nonetheless:

The steak was unimpressive, though a hearty portion for an entrée with sides.

With the cabin only 1/3rd full, my wife ordered the lamb but they were out. While she considered her choice, I ordered the steak, and it turned out that was the last one. I tried to get her to take it, but turns out she didn’t want it (good choice) and she went for the chicken instead:

I did nibble on some cheese, good but not nearly as interesting as the cheeses I’m often served in first class (hardly a complaint).

Meanwhile my wife tried a few bites of both desserts

After a couple of episodes of The Big Bang Theory is was almost time to land. I snapped a photo of this warning on the landing card:

The Maldives is certainly an interesting place. A supermajority muslim country, it’s a dry country, but over 70% of GDP is tourism. So they’re not going to do anything to disturb that. Alcohol, while heavily taxed , is very much available on the resorts. I’m not by any means an expert in the political economy of the country but I understand they draw a distinction between inhabited and uninhabited islands, Islamic laws apply in the former and not the latter, and the resorts are considered to be a part of the latter.

Much of the current political controversy plays out in the theatre of enforcing Islam, the opposition which recently ousted the democratically elected President was pushing for crackdown. They make political hay with the people over this. But their real beef seemed to be that the government was (1) raising taxes on resorts and (2) allowing expansion of new resorts, while the opposition — which had been in control of the country for decades and had used its political muscle to reap economic benefits — actually owns many of the existing resorts. So the government’s policies were to the detriment of the resort owners.

You had the spectacle of resort owners simultaneously using Islam but benefiting from its non-enforcement in ‘uninhabited areas’, a classic bootleggers and Baptists scenario where they protect themselves from competition by wrapping themselves in religion.

So when the government threated to crack down on spas at resorts it was kabuki theatre on the government’s part, to call the opposition’s bluff and put economic pressure on them. All of which was prelude to the coup.

And none of which seemed to be affecting tourism. In and out of the airport, we never came into contact with ‘local’ society. Most of the places I travel I do want to get to know the area, the Maldives are known for separating high end tourism from local society and I have to respect that choice, it’s a potentially uneasy coexistence because they rely economically on tourism which is otherwise at odds with the beliefs of the people.

I was rather surprised though I suppose I shouldn’t have been to land and see provocatively dressed women (really, just in resort wear and prepared for a hot climate but based on Western sensibilities). I’d have expected folks to understand the local culture and be a bit more respectful of it. But it didn’t raise any eyebrows, certainly airport staff are used to this and the airport itself is apart from the local society…

We landed in Male and I found the procedure interesting, taxi all the way to the end of the runway and turn around, the landing strip is basically straight and the plane makes a u-turn at the end until it reaches its parking place on the tarmac. No jetways, they bring a set up stars up to the aircraft and you walk into the terminal for immigration. As business class passengers we were first off the plane, no line for immigration, and we were through relatively quickly but it did appear that some of the immigration officers were having difficulty booting up their machines which was delaying passengers a bit. We had to wait for bags to come off the carousel, and then walked them over to customs. Every bag went through x-ray as you passed through customs, it wouldn’t be a good idea to try to bring in items on the prohibited list!

Once through customs we were greeted by a man with a Park Hyatt sign, who walked us through the rest of the transfer process.

Transfer to the Park Hyatt Hadahaa, Maldives

Once we cleared customs — including having our luggage x-rayed on the way through, as was done with everyone else — we were met by a Park Hyatt representative.

We had both an hour long domestic flight and an hour long boat ride to look forward to.

The transfer is currently charged at about US$500 per person roundtrip, which isn’t much more than the cost to purchase the roundtrip flights between Male and the island but you receive lounge access on arrival in Male and meet-and-greet service at each step and the roundtrip boat ride. I imagine the resort must buy tickets at a discount from the airline.
My sense the person who met us wasn’t a Park Hyatt employee, but someone who worked at the airport likely for several hotels meeting arriving passengers and assisting them with their domestic connections.

Plenty of hotels have designated desks at the airport in the arrivals area, the Park Hyatt doesn’t, but this gentleman assisted with one of the bags and walked us out of the international terminal and over to the restaurant that sits on the way to the domestic terminal while he went back inside to retrieve another couple that, it seems, were on the same flight from Singapore (in coach).

Once he had the four of us, he walked us over to domestic check-in for the domestic airline, Maldivian.

For the check-in process, our guide asked for our passports and stood in line for check-in.
The agents were helping a group of Australian surfers, once they were through our luggage was taken and boarding passes issued. The only strange part of the process is that each and every passenger has to individually get up on the scale to be weighed.

According to their FAQ,

Q – Why do I get weighed at Check-in?

Ans – All passengers are weighed at check-in for safety requirements of our Dash-8 and Dornier-228 aircrafts.

Umm….

My guess and I haven’t posed the question is anyone is that they’re trying to maximize cargo onboard, and so they want to know exactly what their weight limits will be. What’s odd is that they do a fairly quick turn and I never did see cargo loading or unloading.

Once we had our boarding passes we were shown to the lounge which was directly behind us. It’s labeled “VIP lounge” and is certainly a nice space for servicing a domestic commuter operator. This doesn’t come with the tickets per se so I imagine it’s something that the individual resorts pay for their guests to have access to.

We had about an hour and forty five minutes in total for our international to domestic connection, which gave us about 40 minutes in the lounge prior to boarding.

There’s comfortable seating, although they pack in the furniture and there isn’t a lot of room to walk around. There’s a restroom, and a modest buffet that will do the trick if you’re hungry but there wasn’t anything I was anxious to have just for the sake of trying.

Internet in the lounge requires a username and password. That gets uniquely generated for you by the lounge desk attendant, using a handheld printer device, I had to struggle to read the printing on the paper they handed me. Internet access is valid for two hours maximum with that password.

Our flight would be headed to Kaadedhdhoo. Several of the flights headed there first make a stop in Kadhdhoo, and I’ve heard stories of folks waiting four or more hours for their flight only to find themselves making a (brief) stop at another island before finally heading to Kaadedhdhoo where they’d pick up the Park Hyatt’s boat.

You don’t make your own flight arrangements, rather you let the hotel know your Male arrival and departure. They purchase your domestic tickets. Presumably this isn’t done until close to your stay, in case you cancel, and it’s certainly possible that a given flight may sell out.

I didn’t want the logical, non-stop connection to sell out before my ticket was booked so I checked the schedules on the Maldivian website and communicated with the hotel in advance about what I assumed would be my travel arrangements, which they confirmed. Otherwise I’d have likely just been told what I was doing when I made it to Male, that could have been something other than the best possible flight arrangement, and I might never have been the wiser.

Given how long the whole process of getting to the resort takes, I certainly wanted to avoid any unnecessary delays. (And the flight we were on wascompletely sold out.)
When it was time to board they let us know in the lounge, we walked straight out and to the right, the lounge isn’t just right by the ticket counter but also by the domestic gate. Quickly through security we walked out onto the tarmac and to the plane.

One interesting thing about the aircraft was that there was a curtain after the first few rows, as though the plane was outfitted for both business class and coach, though the seats were exactly the same. What’s even more strange is that after takeoff the curtains were drawn, and pulled back again shortly before landing. It didn’t appear as though any special services were provided.

During the flight there were a few passes made by the flight attendants — with pre-poured small paper cups filled with a choice of two juices (both sweet, not great for thirst, and not very full) and with candies, I chose toffee.

The flight was about 50 or 55 minutes, fairly uneventful. It was a pretty standard flight for the aircraft, which is to say it’s tight width and pitch, the cabin temperature was quite warm (which several people commented on to the flight attendant who said nothing could be done) and I was happy for the beautiful view on approach and then to be off the plane.

We landed, down a flight of stairs, and walked into a building that was baggage claim — they brought bags over on carts, there’s no belt, they just bring the bags in and drop them off.

There was a representative from Park Hyatt there to meet us, he guided us outside and suggested we have a seat on the park benches outside the terminal. He and a colleague grabbed our bags, and a golf cart came to pick us up and also the other couple that were headed to the same resort that had arrived in Male on our flight from Singapore.

It was a short ride over to the boat dock, where there was a waiting Park Hyatt boat.

We had a seat, they gave us life jackets, boarded our luggage and put it in the front seats. We sat in the back, the other couple sat in the middle row of seats, and we were on our way.

The staff handed out cold towels. What I really wanted, though, they didn’t have. Water.
The Park Hyatt purifies its own water and re-uses glass bottles. I imagine they didn’t want to have glass bottles on the boat. They don’t use bottled water. But perhaps for just this one use…. After the Maldivian flight, and with n hour-long boat ride, a drink would be nice.

Now, I’d prefer more of a yacht than a speedboat, a climate controlled cabin and the ability to walk around instead of sitting for the hour after sitting through the previous two flights. I could imagine a glass of champagne, something to nibble on.

But the speedboat did the trick, it’s mostly open ocean with some resorts off in the distance, you can often make out overwater bungalows. And then there’s a dramatic approach to the resort….

Magnificent Gleff....... Now don't let the wait be too long......

Certainly a trip report of distinction Gleff, I enjoyed the review from beginning to end.

Well by now, I would have had enough, I would be saying the Hyatt in Singapore was fun, loved the food court and the casino boatie things, I am thirsty tired, I would like to lay down, and if they can't get their act together and have the hotel next to the airport or thereabouts, I will move back to SPG. Maybe the next installment will convince me, that everything I have ever thought about these low islands was wrong. I imagine I would be bored to tears after 2 days, the Hyatt in Danang got on my nerves after 3, I just get tired of being nice, I don't mind saying good morning to one or two people, but it is never ending.

I know, I know, I owe y'all the next installment...

It's not the end!

Bring it ON!

Come on Gary, I want to read more of this report!!! I'm saving up all my Hyatt points (and my husband's too) to blow at this hotel, hopefully next year. You're really leaving us hanging here!

Well said and very true!

ok, here we go...

Park Hyatt Hadahaa, Maldives

Here’s a view of one of the water villas, like the one we’d be staying in, as seen from the boat as we arrived at the resort:

Now let me start the chapter about the Park Hyatt Maldives with its conclusion: this is one of the absolute best places I have ever stayed, it is the single best use of points for a hotel redemption I have ever had (and that’s saying something after my Conrad Koh Samui trip in November).

The hotel is a category 6 redemption, meaning 22,000 points a night. That’s the same points requirement as the Grand Hyatt in Manhattan. And that gets you a villa that goes in the range of ~$1000 a night.

The property has three room types:

• Park Villa
• Park Pool Villa
• Park Water Villa

I just checked a random set of dates and found rates of $870, $1070, and $1220 respectively.

Note the incremental prices of $200 and $350 for the higher category rooms. That seems to be stable. After booking my award I inquired of the hotel about confirming a paid upgrade in advance. All awards book into the Park Villa category, which is itself a suite.
There’s no opportunity to use free suite nights from a Hyatt Visa signup or Diamond confirmed suite upgrades on paid rates, since the base room is already a suite. There are some reports of Diamonds booking a Park Villa being given a Park Pool Villa as an upgrade based on availability at check-in, though this is certainly not an entitlement of the Gold Passport program.

Some prefer the greater privacy of a pool villa, but to me the quintessential Maldives experience is the overwater room, and I wasn’t sure I’d come back to this hotel. I wanted the overwater villa, and I certainly didn’t want to fly all the way to the middle of the Indian ocean, managing to make it to the Maldives and then still have to take a domestic flight and a boat to get here, and wind up in the base level room.

Since I had a bunch of Hyatt gift certificates with expiration dates from the 2011 Capital One signup bonuses burning a hole in my pocket I was looking for a paid upgrade. When I asked about confirming this in advance, I got the following reply:

It is possible to upgrade to a next category subject to availability upon arrival. Should you wish to confirm a villa upgrade following are the upselling rates

Park Villa to Park Pool = US$ 200 +++ ( Subject to 10% Service Charge, 3.5%GST and US$ 8 per person as Government bed tax)

Park Villa to Park Water Villa = US$ 350 +++ ( Subject to 10% Service Charge, 3.5%GST and US$ 8 per person as Government bed tax)

Please note that prices are subject to change.

Now, I was still a bit torn especially since I’d likely get the Pool Villa as a free upgrade anyway. And I didn’t like the idea of ‘subject to availability upon arrival’. So I asked whether my impression of upgrades was correct, and also whether I could do the buy up in advance in order to confirm the room I wanted, and got the following reply along with the same pricing:

Refer your email I would like to confirm that Diamond members would be get a villa upgrade to a next category subject to availability at the time of check-in and It is possible to confirm a villa upgrade now by paying up sell rates as below

Pool Villa: USD 200 +++ per night ( Subject to 10% Service Charge, 3.5%GST and US$ 8 per person as Government bed tax)

Park Water Villa: USD 350 +++ per night ( Subject to 10% Service Charge, 3.5%GST and US$ 8 per person as Government bed tax)

I then confirmed that if I did the buyup they would be willing to add it to my folio instead of billing me for it in advance, so that I could pay with Hyatt Gift Checks. They confirmed this, and we locked down the Water Villa.

And in fact I was pleased with the privacy of those villas — they are angled so that folks in one villa cannot see onto the decks of other villas. The only time folks will see you sitting on your deck is if they are walking in towards the resort from a villa further out on the property, or if they are snorkeling around your villa. I specifically asked for the most private villa possible…

After booking but prior to the stay I noticed that the hotel disappeared from the list of eligible properties for using Hyatt Gift Checks. So I emailed the hotel to ask about this, I was worried having committed to the stay and the room buy up using these certificates.
The hotel replied that,

Unfortunately upgrade fee is not payable through Hyatt Check Certificates hence the charges will be added to your folio and can be settled at check out.

However you may settle your Dinning Charges using Hyatt Certificates during the stay.

I replied that I had specifically set up the upgrade in our correspondence saying that I would be paying with gift checks, and that I still hoped they would permit me to do so. They said they would, but that I couldn’t then use it for other charges — evening “dinning” –

As a very special case we are happy to make an exception and will accept Hyatt certificate for the upgrade to Park Water Villa. However we are unable to accept Hyatt certificate for other incidential charges such as excursion, dinning or transfers.

I had costs on the brain now. The cost of the resort still scared me a little. Not only was I paying about $400 per night on top of the room rate, but all reports of spending on property were that everything was going to be very expensive. I actually didn’t find that to be the case once I got there, I’ll share the details of that shortly, but I was expecting dinner for 2 to be at least $300 per night without alcohol. So I started mulling over a Passport Escapes award — that provides daily breakfast plus 3 complimentary dinners on a 5 night stay (or 5 dinners on a 7 night stay) for additional points.

Everyone at the resort gets breakfast for free though. And Diamonds of course would get breakfast for free anyway. So I asked whether the resort might extend something else in lieu of breakfast, such as lunch, and was told this was not possible. I converted the award to a Passport Escapes stay, it seemed as though it would be a great value given the price of dinners. In the end I wish I hadn’t, food wasn’t as expensive as I thought it would be and I didn’t get the value out of those incremental points that I had anticipated

It also turned out, in the end, that the hotel was willing to take Gift Checks for the room upgrade and for other on-property expenses. The hotel returned to the list of properties accepting the gift checks. I flagged this for the property which then clarified,

Please accept my apologies for the confusion over Hyatt Check Certificates.

Our Property accepts Hyatt Check Certificates for eligible charges such as F&B, Room upgrades and excursions. In eligible charges are boutique shop and transfers.

All good in any case, I had a room on points and an upgrade to a water villa I’d be paying with certificates. I was spending additional points for 3 dinners. And the remaining food and beverage I’d be paying with gift checks. No stress about the costs, and the confusion was sorted.

I was contacted a couple of weeks prior to my stay by the General Manager asking whether I had any special requests, and I made several.

• Soy milk for my wife, noting that I prefer cream or half and half with my coffee and she likes soy. I was happy to be flexible if this wasn’t possible, but my morning coffee is one of my favorite things to savor and linger over at a resort. And this can surprisingly be a source of confusion, so anything that can be done so that folks know these preferences in advance is really helpful.
• Extra waters in our villa. The standard allotment seemed to be two large bottles of sparkling and two of still each day, we drink a lot of water and this wasn’t likely to be enough.
• The most private villa possible, as requested earlier.
• Specific flights for our transfer to and from Male. It’s certainly possible for specific flights to sell out, I didn’t know when they’d be buying our tickets (presumably inside the hotel’s cancellation period). I didn’t want a flight which stopped at another airline first, and I didn’t want a longer than necessary layover. So I had a look at the Maldivian flight schedules and suggested that the most appropriate flights. Glad I did too because our flight <I.to the resort was completely full.

When we finally arrived at the resort we were informed that there was a one-hour change of time from Male, clocks are an hour ahead of Male and also of Kaadedhdhoo, the small island where our domestic flight landed.

We were introduced to our island ‘host’ who would assist with any needs throughout the stay. He met us on the dock and had a golf cart ready to take us to our room. We drove around the resort and onto the walkway that takes you out along the water villas. And we kept driving. All the way to the end. We had been assigned the outermost villa on the property, which was perfect, just perfect, definitely the one regarded as the very best and early in our stay when staff would ask us our villa number there would often be a nod of surprise or a smirk recognizing that this was the best room in the house.

Only 7 of the 14 water villas were occupied during the better part of our stay, there is a bowl with water out front of each occupied villa (perhaps to wash your feet before entering?) and that bowl is turned up on its side in front of unoccupied villas so it was always clear which ones had guests and which did not.

When we arrived in our room our host gave us a tour around. There was a half bottle of champagne and several snacks under a glass bowl waiting for us. The bowl was an absolute necessity, as any uncovered food would quickly attract ants.

I was disappointed to see that there weren’t any extra waters in the room as requested, I didn’t say anything at the time but subsequent housekeeping visits always brought additional waters and we usually had twice the normal allotment and without charge. The hotel uses large glass bottles which they sanitize on property and fill with water that they purify as well, in order to avoid the waste of bottled water.

In a similar vein, there are reusable bottles for shampoo, conditioner, and bath gel in the shower. The top on one of the bottles in our shower was broken. It was one example of lack of detail or need for updating in some of the rooms, the property is only about 3 years old but the villas are definitely showing wear from the elements. They’re beautiful and stylish, but there are holes or gaps in the walls and sliding doors out to the deck which makes bugs entering easier and makes it more difficult to keep the villa cool during the day. With the air conditioning on full blast, the room would get up to around 25 degrees Celsius during the day.

The villas do need some work, they’re lovely but showing substantial wear after only about 3 years. They’re one large bedroom and sitting area, a large bathroom, and a shower that has high walls but is otherwise ‘outside’.

Most days, after breakfast, I just spent on the deck of the villa, looking out over the vast ocean and looking down at the coral. A pair of dolphins came by our villa one day, less than 50 meters away from the room. I’m not much of a photographer but the scenery itself is so beautiful that the pictures come out well.

Do bring sunscreen though. The first day there I thought that, in the shade, I could sit outside without putting any on. I got significantly burned. Sunscreen is especially expensive in the hotel gift shop, I don’t remember the amount but somewhere in the US$20s I think for a small bottle of Banana Boat.

The Maldives is a very nice place. It’s a stunning setting. The hotel offers outstanding snorkeling (and, presumably diving though we did not dive). The fish swimming around the house reef are beautiful.

Service here is very friendly and very good. Far from perfect, but much better than I’ve experienced in French Polynesia. Excursions are pricey, but spa treatments aren’t especially so. This isn’t Thailand, but they charge about $120 for a treatment which under a special was for 90 minutes instead of 60.

At the gym, with brand new equipment, the treadmill was connected to the internet. No one was ever there.

There were complimentary yoga classes, the woman leading the classes would wait in the yoga room in case guests turned up, usually they didn’t.

The main pool was equally deserted most of the time.

Each evening we would receive a complimentary dessert item delivered to our room along with a sheet showing upcoming resort activities, one night there was a manager’s reception on the beach with complimentary snacks and drinks, they advertised excursions which were by far the most expensive proposition at the resort, excursions may run several hundred dollars per person.

Here’s the beach from the villa walkway:

They offered fishing, cruises to the equator, and other adventures but without those sorts of activities and if you prefer snorkeling (free — although no snorkel equipment is in the room, you have to pick it up from the hotel) over diving you really don’t run up significant bills. And you can walk straight down off your villa into the water to snorkel..

Our host told us that each evening we were entitled to a ‘sundowner’ — evening cocktails and hors d’oeuvres at sunset. We took those on the beach, it was a perfect way to watch the sun go down, and with the price of cocktails it was nice that they were offered complimentary, apparently a diamond benefit (since internet and breakfast are free for all guests).