Huvahendhoo, Maldives

We’ve been at Lily Beach for a full day now, and it’s just been absolutely perfect. I thought I may have had some high expectations, but this place exceeds them in all kinds of ways. After our water taxi back to the airport before sunrise yesterday, we were greeted by Lily Beach staff and personally escorted through check in and to a private lounge in the domestic terminal. Way more stuff there than we could’ve needed. I didn’t see any other resorts at that time providing that kind of treatment to guests. After getting a couple espressos, it was mentioned, “The butler called to check on us” real nonchalant. “Wait, what?” I had forgotten a small mention that our “sunset villa” included a 24 hour private butler service, which is definitely not something we’ve had any place we’ve stayed.

Our sea plane was a direct flight to Huvahendhoo, the Lily Beach private resort island. Peppermint refresher cloths, fresh fruit for the boat ride, elaborate welcoming party, all of it was very nice. And yes, we do in fact have a butler by the name of Mohamed. It seemed a little excessive on arrival, but after a day here I totally get it, and I wouldn’t want it any other way. Basically, all of the downsides of being on the furthest out, most private water villa are offset by a butler service. You’re given a cell phone to contact him for anything and he picks you up in an electric cart to bring you to restaurants (or wherever you want). He acts as your waiter at restaurants. He settles any issues you have with… well, anything really. He books all excursions and essentially skips any lines or hassles that you might have otherwise had to deal with. It really optimizes the time here so you’re only spending time doing stuff you want to do.

Well, this part of this trip shouldn’t have any transit nightmares or cultural oddities. Granted, some of the other guests are cultural oddities at times, but that’s really a non-issue being on a private secluded water villa with Mohamed running interference for arranging whatever we want to do. We’ll probably just be adding lots of pictures for the posts while we’re here.

Yesterday we had some nice meals and cocktails, snorkeled down-current around the north side of the island, and walked around the entire island (takes a leisurely 30 minutes). They do some “fish feeding” at 9pm off one of the docks that was pretty cool: hordes of frenzied sharks and huge fish and rays. Today and tomorrow we have some things arranged related to our renewal tomorrow… you know, really stressful spa treatments, that sort of thing.

Anyhow, here are a couple galleries of pictures so far.

Maldives gallery: