Talk with your Animals

I have visited 8 Maldives resorts in the past 6 years and I have now been to Bandos twice and I can honestly say that I shall be going back! I have tried to present an objective overview in this article for anyone considering visiting it, or who is not sure which island to choose.

Bandos received a brand new look in 2005 after being closed for most of the year and has now become very popular for visitors to the Maldives, due in part since it is quite close to Male, and also because on top of a fine resort with great activities and facilities, it is also very family orientated.

There are two main restaurants on the island – the Cayenne Grill and the lighthouse – and I found the food and service to be good in both of them. The Cayenne serves a range of seafood, meat and vegetarian dishes which you can mix and match to your own tastes.

The natural beauty of the island is coupled with great food and service here. The lighthouse restaurant is a focal point of the island, with its striking white peaked spire, making it the only building on the resort that doesn’t have a thatched roof. The lighthouse takes pride of place in most of the marketing pictures for this resort and is split between two levels, with a lounge bar on the top level and offering panoramic views, and the lower-level haute cuisine restaurant serving a mixed menu of Asian and Mediterranean dishes.

There are 3 different category of room on the resort, as is typical with most Maldives island resorts – water villas, Baros villas and the Deluxe villas. The attention to detail and the workmanship is second to none, and walking into these rooms for the first time makes you feel good about arriving – always important for me. There are designer fittings, concealed plasma Tv, quality coffee maker, and more importantly for me, a well-stocked wine cooler.

Each room in the resort is never a stones throw from the beach or lagoon and all have a large verandah complete with comfortable daybed. If you consider that their is a very good 24 hour room service you wont be surprised to hear that I didn’t need to stray far short of taking the odd dip to cool down or go snorkeling.

With a fine and easily accessible reef encircling most of the island the snorkeling is really good here on Bandos (yes I am actually writing this while on the island)!. The PADI dive school is very friendly and offers open water courses and beginners can try an introductory dive in the lagoon. There are more than 30 dive sites you can visit from Baros and with several trips per day even the most avid divers have plenty to go at. There is a Marine Biologist on hand to provide talks and accompany the snorkeling and diving trips sometimes to chat about the local marine life for those who want to know more.

All in all you really are hard pushed to beat Bandos island for a rewarding tropical getaway.

Shelley is a journalist and writes about tropical holiday resorts such as Bandos island and other Maldives island resorts.