Monday 4/7/2008- Saturday 4/12/2008
The flight went by quickly, and it reminded Katie of when her and Sink flew to Hawaii on “North American” Airlines. We had a survey towards the end, so they were really doing up the customer service on the flight…our drinks were never empty, and they gave out free cards and pens. Funny how the little things on airlines can just make your day?!
We landed in the Maldives at night, but we knew how amazing it looked during the day, and we couldn’t to see tomorrow. We quickly found our resort representative holding a sign for us and then waited for the other group of people who would be sharing a boat ride with us to the resort. We ordered some smoothies while we waited, getting our first glimpse of ‘tourist prices’ again…oye!
We boarded the speed boat for our 40 minute ride to Coco Palm Hotel’s Island. It was simply breathtaking…like out of a movie. Just when the airport disappeared over the horizon we arrived on our island. It was completely secluded. After checking in we were shown our “villa” which was hands down the nicest place we have ever stayed. We had a personal outdoor shower, a personal pool, several lounging areas, a huge bathtub…in the center of the 188 sq meters room (almost twice the size of Katie’s NYC Apt!!), a deck and a private beach front. All just for us! It was like we were in our own little world. We had a fruit basket and sandwiches waiting for us, as well as a complimentary bottle of champagne. We knew we were going to like our time here.
We woke up to our first full day in Paradise wondering if this really would be our home for the next week. We headed to breakfast which was a very nice buffet that had basically every breakfast food you could imagine. After breakfast we picked up snorkeling equipment and checked out the amazing island’s coral reef. After checking out the reef, we lounged at the beach and the infinity. We truly couldn’t believe we were in such an esthetically pleasing environment…. We had lunch at the pool and had our first wake up call on how expensive everything would be on this resort. Still, we tried to enjoy the ‘free’ views with the pricy food price tags.
We soon came to realize that the resort was not customer service focused…and while everyone was ‘nice,’ we were feeling like the communication was a one-way street. After several instances of ‘wait, seriously…are we on candid camera?’..we got every thing settled in the end. Our days pretty much consisted of much of the same today…. We enjoyed amazingly fresh seafood (for the amazing cost) and got incredibly lucky with perfect weather.
On our second day, we met up with three other couples at 6:30 for our sunset fishing trip. The Maldivian way of fishing consists of putting a piece of bait on a hook attached to a long line. You then drop the hook in the water and wait for fish to bite. Once it does you pull in the line by hand and then do it all over again. Katie seemed to be in the ‘sweet spot’ and caught 4 fish while Dermot didn’t catch anything. Katie’s 4 fish was enough for our dinner, so Dermot was glad he had a good partner. We returned to the resort arranged for our fish to be cooked with dinner the next night.
On our third day, we decided all of our gluttony needed to be battled with a game of tennis. Unfortunately, our delay caused us to start playing at 10:45am, and we only got two games in before Katie’s face turned beet red. The heat overcame our desire to finish, and we postponed until tomorrow where we would get an earlier start. After our usual day of reading, relaxing and snorkeling almost around the entire island, we figured out that our reef front was the best area on the entire resort. We ended our day with a dreamy couples Balinese-style massage in the over-water huts. Simply delectable. We enjoyed the buffet of sushi and our two red snappers at Air which made an end to a fantastic day.
Our last full day in Paradise consisted of more motivation, as we saw the end coming…. we decided to get up early and play tennis before the temperature got too hot. Dermot seriously gave Katie a schooling with the score of 6-0, though there were some spirited rallies in the set.
We decided to get off the island and explore more of the Maldives’ reef on a snorkeling trip. The first portion of the trip consisted of looking for some manta rays. We found some, but every time we jumped into the water they swam away quickly. In our first attempt, Dermot saw three sharks and one manta ray. Eventually we did get to see a manta ray fairly close up on one of our attempts. After our manta ray search we then snorkeled along a reef in the middle of the ocean. The coral was amazing as it was very much alive and incredibly vibrant in colors. Katie and Dermot both agreed that it was the most incredible snorkeling they have ever done. Hands down.
We headed back to our resort and looked forward to getting our ‘villa’ upgraded upon our return. This was a recommendation by the manager that we met to give our feedback about our customer service experience, and he kindly offered the most expensive over water villa suite for a night in exchange for our valuable and constructive feedback. We were taken by golf cart to our new room, and we were greeted by two managers and many many staff. They gave us a residence on the sunset side of the group, which we were promised would make for a beautiful view of the sunset for our last night. We spent most of the rest of the day lounging around on our new deck and in our new pool. Then as promised, the sun set and created a gorgeous view from our deck. Next on the agenda was our private BBQ on our deck. The ambience and food of the BBQ were great. We had reef fish, prawns, lobster, rack of lamb and beef along with lots of veggies, salads and a nice bottle of white wine. It was an absolutely perfect way to spend our last night in the Maldives.
Our last day in paradise (we know, no one is trying us a river). We woke up in our island residence room to the sun shining on the beautiful backdrop of turquoise blue water. We made our way to the exclusive “stars” dining area where we had breakfast. It was basically the same breakfast as the buffets we had during the trip, except everything is served to you…. Katie was kind of sad she couldn’t pocket a PB&J for later…. Haha. After breakfast our personal butler helped us arrange our departure and even helped us pack?! It was almost…too much. We took a golf cart back to reception, paid our bill and then got on the speedboat to the Male International Airport.