Since I was a small child, I always fantasized about my honeymoon after hearing stories and adventures from my parents and grandparents experiences. With the help of the travel agency Stop Over Reisen, my husband and I had the perfect honeymoon I have always dreamed about.
Let us tell you all about our trip to the Maldives that fulfilled our expectations. Welcome to Vakkaru Island.
Vakkaru Maldives is a new luxury hotel in the Baa Atoll, which was opened in December 2017. So what does Vakkaru mean? Here a small side information. As the Island used to be a coconut plantation, they called the hotel after the timber of the coconut: Vakkaru. The hotel has the perfect combination of new technologies and the authentic island feeling. It’s an absolute fantastic place to spend your honeymoon.
LET’S GET STARTED
After arriving at Malé International Airport (the capital of the Maldives), we were picked up by the Vakkaru staff and were brought to the waterplane, which flew us 30 minutes to the Island of Vakkaru. Entering the small plane, we noticed that our captains fly barefoot. Yes, our honeymoon on the Maldives began.
After a beautiful flight over Maldives islands, we landed at Vakkaru, where the General Manager, the Marketing and Communication Manager Maria and our personal butler Sam waited for us with traditional music and refreshing towels. What a welcome!
There was no checking in at the reception because each butler takes care of everything and escort their clients to a golf cart to bring them directly to their villas. What a service! I only realized they had a proper reception at the end of our stay. Our butler Sam was the BEST! He organized everything perfectly for us, also champagne as a welcome in our room.
OUR HOME FOR NINE DAYS
I am still dreaming about this place. We stayed in an “Over Water Villa” at the end of the pier, since as honeymooners, we wanted to have full privacy. And the villa was perfect! Decorated in a very stylish, modern, but still cozy way with earthy and sandy colors with a view on the wide ocean. The whole villa was operated by an iPad: the lights, the air-condition and even the curtains opened with only one swipe. But don’t worry, for all of you, who don’t like using iPads or modern technology, you can also do everything manually. The house, which looked like a wooden hut on the sea, was more equipped with technology then my flat in Munich.
Our terrace had two beautiful nets to lie in and chill, an outside shower and a sunbed to relax. Our villa was located in the direction west, so we had the most spectacular sunsets we have ever seen.
Here some general information about the villas: The island has 59 “Over Water Villas” and 66 “Beach Villas” in different categories. Even though this sounds a lot, the island is big enough with its 1.6 km circumference to provide full privacy. One hardly notices any other guests. But for everyone, who wants to travel in a bigger group and isn’t keen on honeymoon privacy: Vakkaru offers one of the biggest “Over Water Pool Residences”, with four bedrooms, private pool, massage room, private kitchen and a living room with 916 square meters.
Maria, the Marketing & Communication Manager, also spend a morning with us showing us all different kind of villas, they have on Vakkaru. The beach villas were also absolutely stunning. Especially if you have children, we can highly recommend them, because they are also very private, have an amazing pool, the beach right in front of them and direct access to the ocean.
CAN YOU GET BORED ON AN ISLAND?
NO! Many people have asked me “So, what do you do on an island?” Trust me you can do a lot! Each villa has its own set of bicycles, so you are free to move around. However, for all of you who actually don’t want to move a centimeter, you can always call your butler and he or she will pick you up and bring you to the different restaurants or the water sports center. My husband and I, however, did everything with bicycles since it is more fun.
“Splash”, the water sports center, offered many fun activities to do on the island. Each guest gets a two-hour kayak tour for free to explore the surrounding of the island, which is a lot of fun and great to do as a couple. Of course, you can also go waterskiing, jet skiing, dolphin watching, windsurfing, sailing, and many more fun activities.
For those of you who like diving, like me, there is a diving center with people working there from all over the world, which recommend you many cool diving sites. For those of you who don’t dive, but would like to join your partner, there is a diving site with turtles, where you can go snorkeling. What a great thing to do together.
Vakkaru has a beautiful underwater life. Every day my husband and I snorkeled to the two house riffs to find Nemo. Okay, joking aside – we actually found Nemo in the first two minutes. The fish life you can see in the Maldives is absolutely stunning – especially in Baa Atoll, where Vakkaru is located – from baby sharks to turtles, to hundreds of colorful fishes. You can spend hours in the water, watching the fish live their lives.
Nevertheless, it is also just super nice to relax in your beautiful villa, get tanned and read a good book. Just lying in the net of your balcony, seeing the fish underneath you and enjoying a fresh coconut.
LOOKING AT FISHES DURING YOUR MASSAGE
Nevertheless, I think one of our favorite activities was to hang out at the Merana Spa. First of all, I had one of the best massages of my life there. And trust me I had many massages in my life. As honeymooners, my husband and I got a couples massage in one of their beautiful massage rooms, where the floor is out of glass so you could watch the fish swimming under you while relaxing during your massage.
However, the spa also has an amazing chill-out area with two pools with different temperatures, a sauna and a steam room. Sometimes after lunch, we relaxed there and enjoyed the spa. They also have a great gym where they offer complimentary yoga classes at 7.30 am to start the day with the sunrise.
MORE RESTAURANTS THAN OTHER ISLANDS
Since Vakkaru is a bigger island in the Maldives, it has four restaurants and two bars. Which is absolutely great, because every evening you can try something new – unlike some islands which only have one or two restaurants. At Vakkaru you have six great places with different themed foods.
Breakfast was always served at “Amaany” restaurant with amazing multicultural food from all over the world from American pancakes to Chinese Dim Sum or fresh fruits to sweet home-made pastries, which gave us a good start into the day. The service at breakfast was pure perfection, like everywhere on the island. Suzaigie, our host at breakfast, always took extra care of us – with cappuccinos with our name written in the milk and always reserving our favorite table under a palm tree for us. At “Amaany” they sometimes also organized different themed dinner buffets, which were always a great experience.
Mostly for lunch, we went to “Vakku”, which is located directly on the beach with a great view of the sea and the beautiful spa. However, they also have a fantastic dining menu with lobsters, different cuts of steak and many more delicious foods from the grill. There you can also book a romantic private dinner at the beach which is lovely for honeymooners.
Then they have a great Italian restaurant called “Isoletta”, directly located at the pool with great Italian themed interior, like a Vespa as decoration and trees growing out of the dining tables. Right next to it, you find one of their bars called “Cabana”, where you can enjoy delicious drinks, but also sit down and play board games and cards. The Asian fusion restaurant “Onu” is located in the middle of the island with an open kitchen and great Asian food.
Our favorite place, where we also decided to spend our last honeymoon evening at, was “Lagoon Bar”. Located on a jetty directly over the water, which was lit up with lamps, one could see fish playing around and sharks passing. The team working at the bar is very young and cool, like the young mixologist Kavish, who we met there. Not only was he responsible for the whole bar and staff, but also for creating the drink menu. He was always working on new signature drinks, where he combined ingredients to make the most special cocktails. At the bar, one could enjoy also absolute delicious Japanese food. We loved it there!
Here something for all wine lovers, Vakku Reserve (the winery) has over 4700 bottles of wine from all over the world and their sommelier Stephanie from Austria knows them all. One can reserve a wine and cheese tasting at Vakku Reserve, which will be personalized to the preferences of the guests.
SOMETHING GOOD
When we look at hotels or restaurants, we always notice if they do something sustainable and how they do it. Vakkaru, as all Islands of the Maldives, import everything, since they are sand islands in the middle of the ocean so they have no other opportunity than import food, drinks – which isn’t sustainable, but they found a way to deal with it. Since Vakkaru is a very new island they put a lot of emphasis on sustainability. Not only they produce their own drinking water, but they also have an Organic Farm on the Island, which my husband and I loved to visit. From pineapples to chillis, to flowers for the hotel, herbs, or vegetables: They plant everything in the middle of the island. The different restaurants come and pick the foods they need for different meals.
So I think I can’t even go more into detail than this. In overall, we absolutely loved the Island and it was the perfect honeymoon location for us. We can highly recommend Vakkaru.
Photos by Vakkaru Island and Helena Schoeller
For more information – www.stopover.de