My husband and I recently visited Maldives for our first wedding anniversary. Here's everything I want to share about our trip.

We travelled from Bangalore to Trivandrum to Maldives. It's actually just a 45 mins flight from Trivandrum. 

Arrival is at Ibrahim Nasir International Airport. After immigration formalities, you can see a bunch of counters with resort names on them. You can head to the respective counter and enquire about your hotel drop. Resorts usually arrange a ferry or flight depending on the distance. 

There is nothing much you can do on this island. But Male (the capital of Maldives) is a 10 minute ferry ride from the airport and it costs $1 to reach there. If you have more than 2 hours waiting time for the hotel transfer, you should definitely visit the capital island. It is almost impossible to visit local islands once you check-in to your resort. Local ferries do not operate to the private resort islands.

We took a domestic flight to Mamigili airport and then a private ferry to Sun Island Resort & Spa. The resort is located at a beautiful island which is about 1.3 km long and 500 m wide. The ambience was good and infrastructure well maintained. The island resort is a totally different world compared to Male. It's not so crowded, not conservative about clothing. Women in Bikini is quite common in the resort whereas it is a strict no-no in Male(or any other non-resort islands).

We had opted for the standard beach bungalow with a Bed & Breakfast(BB) package. The room was beautiful and stocked up with the regular hotel complimentary stuff (coffee, water, toiletries, hair dryer). The beach at the door step is lovely turquoise colour, calm with no waves, not so deep, good place to swim & float. We saw some beautiful fishes(includes some small sharks) there.

Everything is expensive at the resort. 1.5 litre of water costs $5. And so is the food. As we had the BB package, we would eat a heavy breakfast, skip lunch and have dinner(under $20 for 2). Dinner buffet is $38 per person. But you have A la carte options as well. 

There are lot of activities that could be arranged through the resort (Fishing, diving, parasailing, scuba diving) at an additional cost. Fishing includes free BBQ of the fishes that you get. 

Snorkelling is not very expensive. You can rent a snorkel kit for $10 a day and swim around in the resort. You get to see a variety of colourful beautiful fishes & reefs. Sting rays, Manta rays, Eagle rays are easy to spot there.

Some attendants in the reception were rude, especially towards Indians. Its weird given most of the workers there are from India or Bangladesh. 

Some people are so nice that they deserve to be mentioned in this post.

I had just mentioned about my wedding anniversary to the room boy. He arranged some flowers and decorated the bed. It was a really sweet gesture. 

Indian chefs and waiters are really nice compared to the attendants at the reception. At Al Pontile, Italian restaurant, the waiter was a Malayalee. He noticed how we carefully picked the least expensive pizza every time. On our last day at the resort, he offered us free water (that’s rare) which we didn’t take. So, he prepared delicious coffee for us for free.

Overall, it was a peaceful vacation with a lot of snorkelling, cycling around in the tiny island, fishing, sleeping on the beach. If you are looking for a pleasant vacation with your partner and looking for a mix of activities and chilling out, I would highly recommend this resort.

Budget for two: $2000 ~ 2500 for 4 days (varies based on meal plans & activities)