Travel to Maldives

Alok Joshi
Dec 8, 2020
5 min read

Updated: Dec 15, 2020

We got married on 1st December 2019 and like many of the cute couples in this world we had a fully booked trip to Europe in May, which got canceled because of the global pandemic. All the refunds were sitting in the form of credit vouchers which had to be utilized within one year. It was not until late October 2020, when we started thinking about planning some trip for our anniversary which was around the corner in almost a month.

Taapsee Pannu, the Bollywood actress proved to be an inspiration when she traveled to the Maldives and posted beautiful photos of the country. Suddenly, a lot of Bollywood celebrities started to travel to the Maldives, and Instagram was flooded with Maldives photos of celebrities.

On some research, we came to know that India and Maldives are part of an Air Bubble which the governments had created for slow and safe opening of air travel.

For more information on countries opened up for air bubble, check here

So the Maldives seemed to be a good fit for our first anniversary and pending Honeymoon plan.

Once the Maldives was finalized, Manasi started to think about what to wear and I started to think about the logistics. Manasi, being the perfectionist that she is, she made sure that the logistics planning is perfect as well. I was happy to partner with Manasi in planning our beautiful vacation together. She also made sure that both of us had stylish clothes to wear. My mother-in-law (Anita Bhadane) is a designer by profession and she worked with Manasi to design all her clothes.

Planning dates

The first thing we did was planned for the dates. We had to utilize our credit vouchers given by Indigo and so wanted to book an Indigo flight which we found on 1st December.

The Maldives is a set of islands and because of Covid, there were certain restrictions on Island Hopping. So, if we had to go to one island resort, then it made sense to stay not more than 4 days as it would get boring. So we decided to go from 1st to 5th December, 4D, and 4N.

Booking a resort

This is a time-consuming task, as there are a lot of options to book resorts. The resorts vary from 3 to 5 stars indicating their quality and obviously cost. Also, the Maldives being an Islamic country, the public islands have certain restrictions regarding clothes and alcohol, we were told. So, the aim was to book a private island resort. There are over hundreds of options available and it is really hard to shortlist from the available options.

Some of the factors we considered while booking a resort

1. Villa Types

Water Villa - These Villas are built on top of the water giving you direct access to the ocean from the villa
Beach Villa - These villas are built on the beach giving you direct access to the beach from the villa

2. Meal Options

AI (All-Inclusive)
FB (Full Board - Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner)
HB (Half Board - Breakfast and Lunch/Dinner)
B&B ( Breakfast)

3. Activities in Resort

Every Resort generally offers lots of Water Activities. Make sure to try Snorkelling and Scuba Diving along with other water activities

4. Cost

One factor which rules them all. A good Water Villa costs around 40-70k Rs per night and beach villa prices also vary from 20-50k Rs per night

5. Food

If you are someone who loves continental food then you will be happy to have a buffet of lot of food options to eat. Please make sure to check with the agent/resort if you strictly require Jain or Veg food options.

6. Agent or No agent

Agents do give you good deals for the resorts and also help to answer all the queries. There are a lot of agents in the market and make sure to go via some good trusted agent. In our study, we found few resorts which were asking tourists to book directly with them and discouraged to book via agents, while most resorts were pretty expensive on direct bookings but offered great discounts if booked via some partner agents. We checked with a few resorts directly as well as via agents and decided to book Radisson Blu Resort which was offering us a very good deal via an agent who was referred to us by a friend. At this point, I would like to thank Gaurav Panjabi from CozyMoons, who helped us in all the possible ways by answering all of our silly questions and I will definitely recommend him to all.

Good experience in the Maldives is pretty costly and make sure to plan the budget accordingly. To give you all an estimate, we ended up spending around 2.5L rupees for our resort which included food and stay, an additional 1L was spent on flight tickets and activities in the resort.

Note: As it was our first trip together since we started dating 7 years ago, we wanted it to be perfect and hence we decided to spend more. There are a lot of good options available as well for the budget which suits you. I feel if you are on a tight budget then you can get a good resort for around 30-40K per day and you can toggle rooms by staying a couple of days in Beach Villa and a couple of days in Water Villa. Best to check with the agent.

Good link to do your study:
https://www.overwaterbungalows.net/water-villas-in-the-maldives

We fell in love with Radisson Blu Resort which was newly opened this year and were offering a 40% discount, so we decided to follow our heart.

Covid test

Mumbai, India to Male, Maldives

Arrival in Male requires tourists to carry a negative Covid RT-PCR test report. The test has to be conducted no more than 96 hours ago before arrival into Male.

Male, Maldives to Mumbai, India

All International passengers arriving in India are required to submit a negative Covid RT-PCR test report. The test has to be conducted no more than 72 hours ago before arrival into Mumbai.

Passengers can also avail the option of landing in India without Covid test and then undergoing a Covid test at the airport terminal. This option is much cheaper in terms of cost, but passengers have to wait for 8 hours at the airport until the test reports are obtained. Passengers can also avail the facility of booking a hotel room inside the terminal where one can spend 8 hours in the hotel room at additional cost.

[Update 14th Dec: Passengers no longer have to wait for 8 hours at the airport. Hurray!! Just take the test and go to your home. Result will be sent on the email and officials will contact you if positive ]

Thankfully, Manasi and I, both tested negative for Covid and our trip ended on a happy note.