We left our hotel at 8:35am. Overnight we got a message to say our flight had been delayed until 12:17pm, the original departure time was 11:15. So it was a longer wait at the airport than we expected. By the time we got to the airport the departure time had pushed out until 1:31pm.
We got to the airport at around 9:15am as planned, we said good bye to our new friends of the last 16 days, Hiru, our guide, and Mr Anura, our driver. It was great getting to know them both, Hiru well and Mr Anura, with whom we shared lots of smiles and laughs.
Hiru has organised a VIP departure experience for us, but the guy got tied up with an earlier group, so we put our grown-up pants on and “managed” to go through security and emigration all by ourselves. 🤣
Our only concern was getting our connecting seaplane flight, they have a last flight time of 3pm everyday, our delayed arrival time was given as 2:36pm.
We got some “lunch” at a Starbucks lookalike cafe, possibly the worst sandwich we have ever had, no, make that definitely! Eventually, the flight screen showed our flight as last call. So we hurried to the gate. We were passengers 96 and 97 to go through at the gate.
We were on-board at 1:05 and the flight was in the air at 1:35 for our 1:15hr flight. We got lunch in a box, a sandwich, muffin and a drink, ok I guess, and it hands down beat what we bought at the airport.
We landed in Male at about 2:15, and were on a bus to the terminal at 2:30, the Maldives is 30 mins behind Sri Lanka which helped. We got our bags and were through immigration by 2:50, and then one of our bags was marked for random a customs check, the dreaded red “For Customs Checking” sticker. A quick run through the x-ray machine and we were allowed into the Maldives. A representative from Six Senses met us just outside. After another bus ride we got to the seaplane terminal and were taken to the Six Senses lounge, all by 3:10. After a quick cool towel and freshen up, we were on the move again at the seaplane departure lounge waiting to board seaplane at 3:20.
Onboard the plane at 3:30 and in the air at about 3:45. Our plane was a 15 passenger plane, and only 3 of us on it! The plane was a DHC-6 Twin Otter 300/400 Floatplane.
Our flight south took about an hour. I couldn’t believe how many resorts there are, every small atoll seemed to have a resort on it. And it looks like they are reclaiming more land from the ocean!
There are still lots of small beautiful looking little atolls everywhere. Most are a circular reef with sand built up around the outside and water in the middle. There are almost just as many big atolls, some are huge, oval, circular or big sweeping crescent arms.
It was beautiful looking out the plane window, turquoise blue water around the shallow atolls and the dendritic appearance of the reef. Pictures don’t do them justice.
We “landed”, or is that splashed down at about 4:45pm, the plane taxied to a small pontoon, where we got off and boarded a launch which took us to Laamu Atoll, our home for the next 5 nights.
We got the full VIP greeting from all the management staff and then had a guided tour around the main areas of the resort before being taken to our overwater villa.
Our villa is very comfortable with unobstructed views of the Indian Ocean.
We had dinner at 730 at Zen, the resort’s Japanese restaurant. It was very tasty and so different to the food we had enjoyed for the preceding 15 days.
After dinner we walked back to our villa for a good nights sleep, no plans for the next day, except a late breakfast and relax.
#retiredlyf done our way.
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