Thursday, November 12, 2009

My Favorite Maldives Holiday - The Bandos Island Resort

By Shelley Swartzer

Out of the handful of Maldives resorts I have visited so far I have to say that Bandos twice is without doubt my most favorite! In this article I have given a general overview for anyone considering visiting Bandos. Hopefully it will encourage you to find out more.

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 other main restaurant - the Cayenne Grill - prepares a range of seafood, meat and vegetarian options to your own specification and serves this at one of the individual thatched pavilions at the waters edge.

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.

The reef runs around most of the island and is easily accessible, making the snorkeling a delight here. There is a PADI dive school here offering open water courses and introductory dives for beginners in the lagoon. With over 30 separate dive sites within reach of Baros even the experienced diver cannot get bored here. The resort even has a resident Marine Biologist on hand, accompanying the snorkeling trips and excursions on the house reef and providing talks on the local marine life.

If you are considering a holiday in the Maldives then I suggest you do look into the island resort of Bandos, I'm sure you will not be disappointed.

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