Bandos Island Resort & Spa, Maldives

I just got back from 4 relaxig days in the Maldives. For those of you not familiar with the Maldives, I’ll give you a little back ground.

The Maldives lies in two rows of atolls in the Indian Ocean, just across the equator.  The country is made up of 1,190 coral islands formed around 26 natural  ring-like atolls, spread over 90,000 square kilometers. These atolls  structures are formed upon a sharp ridge rising from the ocean, making  way for their secluded uniqueness.

Each atoll in the Maldives is  made of a coral reef encircling a lagoon, with deep channels dividing  the reef ring. A string of islands take their places among this atoll  ring; each island has its own reef encircling the island lagoon. The  reefs of the islands, alive with countless types of underwater creatures  and vibrant corals, protect the islands from wind and wave action of  the surrounding vast oceans. This unique structure of reefs and channels  makes navigation almost impossible for the passer-by without sufficient  information about these waters.

Ninety-nine percent of the  Maldives is made up of sea. The people of the islands are widely  dispersed across the atolls, with about 200 inhabited islands. About 90  islands are developed as tourist resort and the rest are uninhabited or  used for agriculture and other livelihood purposes.

Having been to the Maldives several times, on this trip we decided to stay at Bandos Island Resort & Spa. Only a 15 minute speedboat ride from Ibrahim Nasir Male’ International Airport, it’s convenient for a short stay. If you’re looking for something more suitable for a romantic get away, you might want to spend a little effort looking at other resorts.

I made my reservation on Booking.com and followed up with an email directly to the resort to be sure we were given quite rooms. Unfortunately when we were checking in, the front desk took nearly 40 minutes to give us our keys because they simply coudn’t fathom that we had 2 rooms booked under 2 separate names, even though they took both our passports on arrival. They kept trying to tell me that my colleague and I would be sharing 1 room! Finally when I went to check my reservation in my email, they finally thought to look for the other reservation under my colleagues name. Other than that glitch, the staff were great and very accommodating.

The resort was opened in 1972 and was one of the first resorts to open in the Maldives. Although it’s a bit dated, the hotel is clean and comfortable. It makes a great location for diving or simply relaxing on the white sand beaches which are located just steps from nearly every room.

With numerous dining and drinking establishments: The Sand Bar, The Sundowner Bar, Koon Thai Restaurant, the Gallery Restaurant,  the Sea Breeze Cafe, and the Pool Bar, the resort offers all inclusive packages and dining plans.

Getting to Bandos Island is easy with Emirates Airlines has daily non-stop flights from Dubai.

Many other airlines service Male from Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

For divers, the Maldives offers some of the best diving in the World. Bandos Island & Resort even has their own hyperbaric chamber.

So if you’re looking for a great place to unwind, relax, catch a tan or simply lay in a hammock under a tree, the Maldive may just be what the doctor ordered. You can book your trip right here on this website with Booking.com, Orbitz.com or Travelocity.com. Safe travels!