Spring break in the Maldives

After a slew of "historical" vacations, the girls were begging for just a "fun" one.  Since the Maldives are less than four hours away, it seemed like a logical option.  It's pricey though so it took some advance planning - we used frequent flyer miles for our plane tickets and I packed quite a bit of lunch food so that we could picnic at our villa, *and* we only went for five nights instead of a full week.  I worried that we would go a bit stir crazy on a tiny island but that worry was for nothings - we had an amazing time and definitely could have stayed a few days longer!

We took a flight from Abu Dhabi to Male (capital of the Maldives) where we caught a sea plane to our resort.  It was a bit hot but got us there safely (whew).  We arrived just in time to look around a little and have dinner our first night.

The second day, I made the kids join us for a "Back of the House" tour of the hotel and I'm so glad I did.  They showed up behind the scenes how they keep a resort operating on a tiny and remote island.  We saw the generators, the desalination plant, the staff quarters and relaxation zones (they have their own pool for their off-days, too).  Given how far away this island is, most of the staff can only go home for a month each year.  A few are from a nearby island and can boat home once a week on their day off.  We also saw the storage room where they local fisherman bring their catches.  We ate a lot of seafood during our stay and it was special to hear that local fisherman provided it all.

There are a lot of details with the photos below but some of the highlights of our trip included the staff of the resort as they made the resort feel like a big family that was vacationing together, introducing snorkeling to the kids - Anna was especially impressive as she jumped into the ocean from the boat and snorkeled with us the whole time.  The guide pulled along a little lifeguard ring that Anna held on to and she just kept her head down the whole time (except to raise it to tell us about what she was seeing).  We loved the spaciousness of our villa.  The kids often have to bunk up (in twin beds!) or sleep on the floor but our villa had a kids' room with two twin beds and an upstairs loft with a fold-out sofa. 

Overall this vacation definitely exceeded our expectations.  I worried a bit about going a little stir crazy on a tiny island but there was plenty to do (we didn't even get to do it all - we missed the tour of the Maldivian village on a nearby island and a few of the kid's activities  like the family relay games).  Our Jane is not a fan (at all) of storms, etc, but as storm clouds were looming on our last day, she kept hoping and hoping that a big thunderstorm would roll through and cancel our sea plane so that we could stay another night.  She was almost in tears when she realized that we really had to leave.  We would definitely go back to the Maldives and to this specific resort (The Viceroy) if another chance arises.

Waiting at the Male sea plane terminal.  We were able to see several land and take off while we waited for ours.  You can see how steep the angle is as they come in.  Made me a bit nervous!

Here's our sea plane!  On the way to our resort, it was just our family, another family going to another resort and a dad who was meeting his family who was already at our resort.

They are noisy (and not air conditioned).  A hotel representative met us at the terminal and gave the kids these headphones to dampen the noise.  Meredith doesn't look nervous!

Anna looks a *little* nervous but she did great.

Our resort was a 50 minute flight from Male.  We dropped some people off at another resort 10 minutes before ours so we got to land and take off a couple of times (Yay for those us a little bit nervous about those parts!)

We are coming in for a landing.  On the approach the plane is steeply pointed towards the water so all we could see through the windshield was blue water (a bit nerve-wracking...), but they they level off, lift up the nose and we gently touch down on the water.

On our landing approach at our resort.  These are the water villas (we stayed on the beach).

Water splashing as we touched down.  Friends who had been on the sea planes raved about how smooth the landing was.  I will say that the landing was smoother than I had expected *before* they told us that but bumpier than I expected after hearing them say how smooth it was.

Our welcome committee.  There is a mom and daughter welcoming the dad who flew in a day after they did plus the staff of the hotel.

Good-bye sea plane.  Thanks for getting us here safely!

We made it (and sorry, Jake, for cutting off your head in this photo)!

In our villa - welcome goodies for us all

At the main pool

Walking into reception

During our "Back of the House" tour we saw the fresh fish brought in just that morning by the local fisherman

The (loud) desalination plant.  All the tap water on the island comes from desalinated sea water.  They still use a lot of imported bottled water but are looking into using this for drinking water, too, since it is perfectly safe.

Rubbing herbs from the garden to smell them.  They had lemongrass, mint and basil in the part of the garden we saw.

Eggplant

Corn - but it wasn't looking so good!

Touring the Treehouse restaurant

A spa treatment room.  Check out that view!

Our pool behind our villa.  There was a main pool at the hotel as well as each villa had its own real pool.  This one was deep enough that the kids couldn't stand up in the deep end (I expected more of a plunge pool).  We had fun alternating between pools.

Nice view from our pool

Picnic lunch on our deck

Time to be mini-chefs.  Off to decorate cupcakes

Foosball at the kids' club

Hammock swing at the kids club (they had a pool at the kids' club, too, but we never used that one)

Giant chutes and ladders game

Anna relaxing on a giant beanbag

Ahhhh - says Jane at the main pool

Family yoga class!  Check out the gorgeous location.

I clearly couldn't stretch my arms enough for the instructor (Anna didn't do yoga and was our photographer instead)

Hmmm - I *really* thought my legs were almost straight!  Must. work. on. flexibility.

Lots of wildlife on our tiny island.  You can't see it but there is a large fruit bat hanging in this tree.  There were lots of bats on the island and it was so fun seeing them fly around.  They were *big* and came out in the afternoon before dusk even arrived.

We also had lots and lots of lizards all over the island as well as two friendly geckos who resided in our villa.  On our first night, I spied a really big spider and was glad to see we had some local geckos who would hopefully take care of that little visitor.

The only "road" through the island.  This was our very nice commute to most anywhere.

Our second night we went to the Treehouse restaurant which really was a treehouse up in the trees with two swinging bridges and everything.  We all loved the ambiance.

View of the water side of the resort from the Treehouse restaurant

One of two swinging bridges in the restaurant

Sunset view from the restaurant

The next day we picked up our snorkeling gear and tried it out in our pool.  Here comes Duck Regan.

Here is the view of the island snorkeling reef.  Jake is out there now with Jane while I stay with the others.  I took Regan and Jane out first but Regan completely flipped out once she saw the fish.  I thought the hardest part about snorkeling was getting to the reef (there were some rough and large waves to navigate past), but she had no problem with the waves and currents.  She just did not like seeing wildlife so close as she says she felt they were going to come nibble on her.  She raced back to the beach with her head and her feet mostly out of the water trying to stay away from the fish.  Brave Meredith made it out there with me, too, but on the second attempt the waves were a little much for her.  Jane loved the whole thing and went out three times.

Another activity with the chef - decorating chocolate Easter eggs.  Icing much??

Anna in our big bathtub.  There was a tiny gecko who liked to hang out in our bathroom and Anna was sad that it didn't stick around for her bath (we were shocked Anna wasn't scared of it!)

Trying out the snorkeling gear

Who wouldn't leap for joy on this beach with this sparkling blue water??

Jane and Regan doing stand-up paddle boarding.  Regan had just toppled off.  I took all four girls kayaking after this but didn't get a photo as I didn't want to get our camera wet.  Anna was very brave but wanted to make sure that we go nowhere near the waves that were breaking on the beach!

Anna absolutely loved snorkeling.  She snorkeled and snorkeled in the pools - both ours and the main one.  She's been a bit resistant to learning how to swim but she swam all over both pools (even in the deep ends) with no floaties or life jackets as long as she had her little breathing tube in.

Look who lost her first tooth (well, lost naturally as she had knocked one out last year) while we were on vacation??  Her tooth was still in when she brushed her teeth before going to bed but we noticed it was gone at breakfast.  Unfortunately we couldn't find the tooth.

Anna was concerned about not having her tooth so she wrote this note to the tooth fairy.  And the guy who did our turn-down service completely went above and beyond.  He saw this note and left Anna some Maldivian money!!  I'm not even sure he knew what the tooth fairy was but he certainly wasn't about to let down a little girl who wrote this sweet note.  We let the manager know what he did and our tooth fairy got recognized at the staff meeting.  Yay!

This island is so incredibly remote.  The hotel has contracted with a boat owner to bring a food shipment to the island once a week (on Mondays).  It takes the boat 14 hours to get from Male to the resort.  It is so filled with food that it takes hours to load in Male and unload on the island.  There were carts and trailers full of food going by all morning long.  This trailer has a lot of fresh vegetables in it.  I visited with the chef a bit about how planning for meals takes on a whole new level of complexity.  He has his Christmas high season food order in by August!  He has suppliers in places all over - someone who roams the Paris markets.  His bacon and pork products used to come through the UAE but they changed their export rules so he had to find another source (The Maldives is a Muslim country as well that limits the sale of pork and alcohol).

Not sure why this picture is out of order but this is Jane and Jake snorkeling at the house reef right at the resort (on the windy/ wavy side of the island)

Pizza making day with the chef!

Hermit crab race.  Jane and Meredith's crabs came in 1st and 2nd

Infinity edge pool was sometimes almost the same color as the ocean.  Beautiful place to be.

Fruity juices poolside on a hot day.  Anna loved her snorkel gear so much, she couldn't be bothered to take it off even to drink her strawberry slushie!

Jane and Jake went on a fishing trip to catch our dinner

Score - Jane caught the most on the boat

Her biggest catch (note the fish - you'll see it again below)

Our friends had a special beach dinner to celebrate the mom's 50th and the staff made them this shark out of sand.

A snorkel trip by boat.  They took us to another reef with calmer waters and currents.  Regan was still afraid of the fish and stayed on the boat and read but the rest of us enjoyed the amazing fish and views.  This reef was stunning - right on the edge of an abyss that dropped of precipitously.  We saw so many fish - clown fish, butterfly fish and many, many more that I don't know the name of.  We also saw a sea snake, a sea cucumber, star fish, and other strange animals.  We saw a big-ish turtle that Jane followed for a while.  The guides (and Meredith) saw a reef shark go flying by, but the rest of us missed it.  We also saw dolphins from the boat on our way to the reef.

Anna's happy place.  Motoring around the pool studying the cracks in the tile with her snorkel mask

Flipper handstands

Why, yes, we did let Anna wear her Christmas pajamas to dinner on the beach!

Sunset view from the beach

Watching the sunset with a blue, fruity drink - just missing the little paper umbrella

Regan contemplating the day

Beach side dinner

Recognize that fish?  Yes, the chef cooked up four fish for us that Jane and Jake caught the day before.  Delicious!  Two groupers and two emperor fish (these are the groupers - one whole and one in fillets)

View from our bed - past our lovely sitting area where the staff would leave us treats and fruit, past our own pool and onto the beach and bright blue ocean water

Our table for breakfast each day where by the second day, the staff knew exactly what everyone wanted to drink

All the doors had these pots of water and homemade looking cups with handles to wash the sand off.  Our villa had one in front and on the beachside.

Ahhh-hhhhh

What our villa looks like from the back.  The big door on the right goes to the living/ master bedroom combination, the curved part on the left is the large master bathroom (with an outdoor shower to the far left).  The upstairs is a loft sitting area and there is a kids' room on the other side

Now you can also see the outdoor chairs and a little outdoor living/ dining area that is covered by thatch on the far left

View from the door to the bathroom

Pizza making was such a hit, they did is again on our last day

Sadly the time has come.  We are now waiting for our sea plant to arrive to take us away from this lovely paradise.  As a going away gift, the manager met us and gave us a little photo album filled with photos that the kids' club sitters had taken while I kids participated in activities there.  We felt very special.

Sad to leave but certainly not sad to be getting back on the sea plane

Look who is not nervous this time around

In addition to all the many islands like the one we stayed on, we also saw this submerged ones on our sea plane flight - glowing turquoise blue just below the surface.  When we got lower to come in for landing, we flew past several resorts and I saw about ten dolphins swimming by.