Splurging in The Maldives

Jonathan and I are quite spoiled with the travel experiences we've had in our lifetime. Our parents valued these experiences and shared tons of opportunities with us to see both our country and the world. These opportunities have multiplied as we've lived in various countries and states and also with Jonathan's unique travel schedule when he worked 28/28. So yea, if you want to talk spoiled little traveler, you don't need to look much further than Forest Alexander, who has celebrated 2 birthdays in Hawaii at the ripe old age of 5. 

And then before he hit 5.5, he'd been to a location most people only wildly dream of: THE MALDIVES! 

When I was pregnant with Forest we took 2 'babymoons', one to Paris and one a road trip around Scotland (spoiled in the womb!). 
Both of these were very active as we thought- 'man traveling is probably much easier without a kid in tow so let's see all the things'! We considered spending our last pre-family-of-4 vacation traipsing around Japan in a similar fashion because we thought 'man, traveling is probably much easier with just a 5 year old in tow!', but when it came down to it I knew I didn't have the energy for planning a cross country trip, dealing with the hustle and bustle of Tokyo and Disney, and trying to maximize our time seeing everything we wanted to in Japan. Soooo.... we started looking into places where we could just bum around for Forest's Songkran break and discovered that the Maldives is just a 4 hour direct flight from Bangkok. 

I researched the best family friendly resorts and Soneva Fushi came up consistently. Forest was sold after watching videos of their kid's club, 24/7 ice cream bar and chocolate room. I have to admit that the price tag was shocking. We justified it by realizing that since we are now expecting baby girl, we won't be doing any of the trips we had planned for the summer (Alaskan cruise and c Lazy u ranch) and likely will be taking a hiatus from major traveling until the end of the year. But still- ouch. 

So glad we went but unfortunately don't see many return trips in our future, though Forest loved it so much he generously offered to give us all the money in his piggy bank to go back. That $3.52 is quite the nest egg. On to the trip! 

The journey there was a little more lengthy than we expected. Our first flight had to re-route around some weather, causing us to be super late and then we were informed that the sea plane to get us to our resort couldn't fly at night and therefore we were booked on a domestic flight for 11 pm that night (5 hours from then and 1 AM Bangkok time). From there we'd have to take a speed boat to the resort, getting to bed around 2 am (4 am Bangkok time). Forest was already complaining about being tired and wanting to go to bed (which is saying something), and his pregnant momma was internally freaking out as well. Fortunately, they gave us access to the lounge and miracle of all miracles, Forest laid right down and went to sleep. 

He slept until it was time to board our next flight. In the middle of a brightly lit airport lounge. With a trio of feral toddlers screaming and tantruming constantly 3 feet away from his head. 

Ya'll, this is a kid who tells me he wakes up at 5 am because he hears his dad leave out the front door from his bedroom upstairs with white noise blaring in his ear. He says "I have ears like an owl and can hear a worm crawling under the ground a mile away.' I totally believe it. He's never just laid down and gone to sleep anywhere. It's always a long process and conditions need to be just right. I'm still totally amazed that this happened. I mean, we saw some incredible things on our trip, but this might actually be the most remarkable. 

Anyways... we both had a nap, boarded our domestic flight, took a speed boat and got to our little villa in the middle of the night. So a 4 hour direct flight turned into a 12+ hour voyage. We slept a good 6 hours and woke up ready to hit the ground running. I won't give a day-by-day account but will touch on a few of our favorite things about the trip:
1) The Den (aka Kid's Club) 

The Den is more like a family gathering place than a traditional kid's club. It's the only community swimming pool at the resort (many villas have private pools but ours didn't). It's available for drop off for kids ages 3+ from 10am -4pm with after hours babysitting events during the evenings. Forest's favorite feature was the LEGO room and he spent most of his time back and forth between swimming and building. 

They could also get lunch delivered to them there which meant Jonathan and I got to have some kid free time while he munched down on grilled cheese sandwiches with his buds. We are really going to miss kid's clubs once our clock restarts in July! This was the best Kid's club we've seen. So laid back and because the resort is so small, they had a lot of staff on hand to keep a good staff:kid ratio. 

Forest is a shy and anxious little guy but he had someone there to hold his hand and reassure him until he felt confident to jump in with the rest of the kids. They also had special events everyday like a kid's triatholon and water sports but that's not really his thing unless mommy and daddy are there. 

Taking a swim break to make marshmallow kabobs. Charmed life. 

2) Ice Cream Bar. 

cheers!

Soneva Fushi is not an all inclusive resort but they do have a complementary ice cream bar open 24/7. This was our main source of snacks between meals. Good thing I have my Gestational Diabetes test this week. Oops... 

They also have a self serve 'chocolate room', so it totally eased the 'on vacation but can't drink wine' dilemma. 

3) Dolphin Cruise. Forest surprised us by saying this was his favorite part of the trip. I'm pretty sure that had nothing to do with the dolphins but with the fact that he had some kids around his age to hang out/play pirates with. 

But it sure was a beautiful sunset! Unfortunately yours truly was feeling a little off, probably because I gorged myself during #4 on this list....

4) Private Sushi Lunch. 

The view from the bathroom. 

Private sushi lunch given by visiting Michelin star Japanese chef? I know I'm pregnant but some things are worth the risk. (Don't worry, it was all flash frozen, I  only sampled a few things and gave all the high mercury stuff to Jonathan.)

5) Out of the Blue Restaurant. 

So when you picture The Maldives, you are probably picturing something along the lines of this restaurant. It was all open air, with over water hammocks, beach beds, snorkeling from the dock, and even a two story water slide into the ocean. 

We spent a lot of time here! 

6) Water sports. Forest and Jonathan did a lot of snorkeling on the beach and from Out of the Blue. 

Forest hates the snorkeling gear so mostly preferred to free dive with his goggles. 

I even snorkeled for a total of 5 minutes. I do much better swimming out from the beach rather than just jumping off a boat somewhere. For those of you who don't know, I have a massive phobia of the ocean/fish. 

We also all enjoyed learning to paddle board, and Jon and Forest loved renting a Sea Bob which is like a handheld jet ski or 'underwater scooter'. 

The water slide into the ocean was also pretty epic. I'm not a beach/water person, but it's just so calm and inviting in The Maldives that we all enjoyed our time in the ocean. 

7) The beach. The Maldivan beaches are known as the most beautiful in the world. The sand is white and the water is a stunning shade of crystal clear turquoise. 

Each villa has their own little private beach front which was perfect for building sandcastles and going for a dip to cool off. 

We usually walked along the beach to get to and from meals, and Forest couldn't help 'falling in' the water on most of these walks. 

8) Bike rides around the island. 

If we didn't walk on the beach, we rode our bikes on the trails around the island. The sun was hot, but the jungly trails were cool and tranquil. 

Bangkok is oppressively hot in April, so comparatively, The Maldives felt refreshing, and it just felt amazing to get to be outside for a good portion of the day. Between the mosquito borne illnesses and the real feel of 115+ most days, I hardly venture outside in Thailand, which gets very depressing.

I was soaking up the sea breeze and good old fashioned Vitamin D, that's for sure (while still liberally applying mosquito repellent)! 
9) Wildlife sightings. Sharks! Bats! Dolphins! Crabs! Bunnies! Oh my! 

So many close encounters with island and sea life! 

10) Our Villa. 

We stayed in the Crusoe Villa, inspired by Robinson Crusoe's shipwrecked adventure. 

It was an idyllic little treehouse with a private courtyard out back featuring a full outdoor bathroom with a bathtub and two showers. We didn't have to fight Forest to take a shower at all! He loved it. 

He also loved our pot of water to wash our feet when coming in from the beach. 

He took this very seriously and also kept our hedgehog clean (along with all the hedgehogs at the restaurants and The Den).  The villa was set up like a loft with our bed upstairs and Forest downstairs. 

It was one big open space, but we had a huge balcony to hang out on when he went to bed early (not that his pregnant momma was too far behind him going to bed). It was a peaceful little haven for our vacation. 

It was a dream vacation and we hope to visit The Maldives again someday. My only gripes were the fact that the resort didn't have a community pool other than at the Kid's Club. I know the point is the ocean, but sometimes I don't like to get sandy and also, sharks. So I just crashed F's party at The Den a lot so I could go swimming there. He's a momma's boy so he didn't mind as long as he knew I wasn't there to make him leave. 

It was also suuuuuper cost prohibitive. I hate that I'm harping on this and I get that you're paying for luxury and exclusivity, but y'all. One night they tried to get us to sign up for this special event, a BBQ out on a sandbar. It sounded really great and Forest was pumped to go. And then we saw that it was $850. PER PERSON. And yes, Forest counted as a person. It was already a splurge to stay there and pay for normal meals. The extras were so outrageously priced that we didn't even consider them. 

plenty of complementary fun on the island! 

We did the sushi lunch, the dolphin cruise and Jonathan went scuba diving, and we would have liked to do some of the other 'experiences' but had way too much sticker shock. I think The Maldives is one of the most expensive vacation spots (maybe even #1) in the world and Soneva Fushi is five star all the way. We were expecting some level of absurdity but found some things a bit over the top and no matter how amazing it sounded, we just couldn't justify the costs.  We were definitely not in Mexico anymore! It even made Hawaii look like a budget vacation. Enough about that.

Another 'not our favorite thing' was the sea plane hubaloo. The island is only reachable by air or water. I've already told y'all about the saga getting there. Leaving was delayed over an hour because of weather so we went out by speedboat and were taken back to the resort to wait. It was a little anti-climatic since the resort managers walk you to your boat and wave goodbye as you pull away. We got to experience that twice! 

I did like the little wooden 'Soneva Fushi international Airport' sign they had on the dock. 

Barefoot pilots. Love it!

It was certainly a cool experience and an easy trip to the airport, but Forest and I both got super duper air sick during the 30 minute transport. I'm glad we got to experience it, but it wasn't as fun as I thought it would be! Dramamine next time for sure! 

Soneva Fushi form the air

flying through bad weather didn't help

Th best part was getting to scope out all the other beautiful resorts. Its never to early to start planning the next trip, right?

It was hard to say goodbye to such a heavenly destination. We are so grateful and enjoyed our time there! Forest says it was the best vacation EVER. Second goes to C Lazy U in Colorado. His ranking system: both had ice cream bars.