Days 67-68 Mahe, Maldives

Weather
90, sunny

Map

First Impressions
The (Republic of) Maldives is a tropical paradise in the Indian Ocean, just southwest of India and Sri Lanka. Made up of 26 coral atolls and over 1,000 islands, it’s one of the world’s top luxury destinations. Think white sand beaches, turquoise lagoons, and some of the best snorkeling. What makes the Maldives even more unique is that 99% of the country is water! The islands are so low-lying that no place is more than 6 feet above sea level. The weather here is pretty much what you'd expect from a tropical paradise: warm and sunny with two main seasons. From May to August, there’s the rainy season, and then from December to March, it’s dry and sunny, making it a year-round destination. Tourism in the Maldives is all about luxury and we got to experience it first hand.

What we did
Leading up to our arrival we enjoyed a day at sea and we did many of the things we usually do on Sea Days, like play Mahjong in the morning, etc.. The Viking Sky cruise ship keeps putting out special meals for us. This time, it was "Giant Pizza Day." They had 3 different, and very large pizzas with some unique toppings. Tom enjoyed it more than Amy, but both were impressed with the over the top effort the crew gives.

We arrived in the Maldives at around 8am and we met onboard with our excursion group at 8:25am in the Star Theater. We had to tender to land as they don't have a dock large enough for our vessel. We then got into a very large speedboat (4-350 hp engines) that held about 60 people to get us to our 1/2 day included excursion titled "Island Paradise at Crossroads." The speedboat that took us to the private island had four 350HP engines, and boy did we make it there in record time! Once we arrived, we were told we had 3.5 hours and that drinks were included. Included excursions can be hit or miss, but this one was a home run! We had to walk a bit but we arrived at a private beach that was beautiful. The waters were crystal clear, turquoise and shallow. The ocean swimming area went out quite a ways and there was a line of large rocks to protect the swimming area and keep it calm. There was also a large and beautiful pool that was only about 4 feet deep. We grabbed a table and some chairs and hung out with other cruise passenger/friends and enjoyed lots of swimming in the ocean, wading in the pool and having good conversations. We had a fantastic time. After, we met at the appointed time, took the speedboat back to the city and then tendered back to our ship. We decided not to go into town as it is still Ramadan and this is a Muslim country; even drinking water in public is frowned upon, plus most stores are closed during the day. Instead, we had lunch on our ship and took a long nap as all that beautiful sunshine we enjoyed in the morning tuckered us out.

That night, we had dinner outside on the pool deck. We love those dinners as they have great surf and turf. Greg and Judy joined us for dinner and we had a really nice time. We often play Mahjong with them on Sea day mornings.