When 2020 started, nobody had an idea of how the next one year would look. For me, personally, I had my wedding planned, followed by a long honeymoon in New Zealand. Within one month of returning from New Zealand, the pandemic led us to a lockdown and next 8 to 9 months were devoid of any travel plans.

Finally, India has opened up and people have started traveling again. Along with it, a few international destinations are also welcoming tourists. Out of these, Maldives is acquiring high interest from folks including celebrities. We also decided to pay the fascinating island country a visit.

We started planning our Maldives trip a few months back and were cautiously evaluating the resort options. We shortlisted a few resorts and finally decided on Lux South Ari Atoll Resort.

In this blog post, I share my moments from Maldives along with useful information about planning your Maldives trip amidst this pandemic.

Maldives was all about azure oceans and bright yellow Sun, the White Sand Beaches looked spectacular! It was like we were in paradise!

About Maldives

They say that in the next 30 – 50 years, Maldives may disappear due to the rising sea levels. I hope this is not true because the country is nothing but a slice of paradise! I will not bore you with geography details, you have Wikipedia for that, but here are a few pointers that you need to know

1. The main city of Maldives is Male, which, which has the international airport Valena International Airport

2. The islands close to the main city are North male atoll and South male atoll. There are tons of resorts here, sea plane will not be required here. There are a few resorts which are very close to the city and spoils the ‘in the middle of nowhere’ vibe. So ensure that you read the reviews before considering, some places may have construction going on.

3.  There are a lot of faraway islands and sea plane transfer may be required to reach there. In some cases, a speed boat ride may work. The location of a resort is very important so please confider the same while finalizing your resort. You don’t want to be too close to Male city. But very far is only going to add extra travel and waiting hours to your trip.

4. The Sea plane costs a bomb! It’s best advised to visit a far off resort only if this additional cost is included in your package. We negotiated and had this included in our package for Lux South Ari Atoll

I saw some of my life’s best sunsets at Maldives…

….and some beautiful Sun rises, right from our room

Maldives Visa for Indians

Indian’s don’t need Pre-arrival visa for Maldives. It’s Visa on arrival and that too for free! The immigration is pretty lenient and that’s no surprise as majority of Maldives economy thrives on tourism. The immigration will check the documents mentioned later in this post and will give you a very quick immigration approval. Right now, the immigration queues are not very long in India as only very few destinations are open. But Maldives immigration may take some time as many countries have started travel bubble arrangement with Maldives. Our resort, Lux South Ari Atoll, was booked with 98% occupancy!

About Lux South Ari Atoll

After seeing a few resorts, we decided on Lux South Ari Atoll for our trip. It is located on a far off island of South Atoll, Dhidhoofinolhu. It is required to take a sea plane to reach the resort and the ride is 1 hour long. The sea plane ride was an experience in itself. The panoramic views outside the window was a thrilling experience. The plane ride reminded us of Milford Sound in New Zealand. That flight was also a very scenic one!

Our room in the resort was Romantic Pool Villa category. It had a private pool, a swing and ocean right in the backyard. The room was also very spacious and there was a projector to view entertainment!

Fun Fact, this resort hosted Parineeti Chopra and Rakul Preet earlier.

We paid INR 1.75L for a 4D,3N stay with breakfast plan only along with a few inclusions. Here are my package details

– 4 D / 3 N in Lux South Ari Atoll Resort (Breakfast only)-
– Seaplane transfer & Cycles for 4 days
– 30 minute Head or Foot Spa
– 1 Hour Sunset Cruise
– 30 minute Photo session
– Champaign & fruit platter on arrival

There have a few restaurants (7 to be precise) within their resort. One restaurant (Senses) is an Indian one. So if you are seeking Indian veg food, you can consider Lux South Ari Atoll to be a good bet for you.

We took only breakfast package because for the other two meals, we considered doing Ala Carte. Also, we carried a few ready to eat packets in case we feel like saving money, which we did on a few occasions.

Lux South Ari Atoll Resort offers a wide range of rooms. With a 98% occupancy, it’s advisable to book in advance.

We chose to spend 2 nights in a Romantic Pool Water Villa which was just magnificent! We had our private swimming pool and right behind it was an unending ocean! We got to see stupendous Sunrise right from our private pool. We ordered for some floating breakfast while enjoying one sunrise and it was our best experience from the trip!

The floating breakfast was one highlight of the trip! 

It was an absolute delight to stay in this room for 2 nights. The room rate of this villa was Rs 40-50K.

For the 3rd night, we switched rooms and saved INR 20K per night as the Beach Pavilion Room costs around Rs 20K. You can check out the room categories on their website of on various booking websites.

Activities & Things to do at Lux South Ari Atoll

So you reached the plush luxurious resort and checked in your room. What next? How long will you stare at the unending azure ocean shimmering under the bright yellow tropical Sun? Well you can actually do it all along but let’s look at what the activities are, shall we? It’s advisable to take cycles on rent

Chilling around in the resort is an experience in itself! 

Water sports

A lot of options are available here. Scuba diving, Snorkeling, Parasailing, kite boarding, hover boarding, cruising and many more! You name it and they have it. We opted for their complimentary snorkeling experience. But that experience was also pretty exhilarating. We were taken in the middle of the ocean and asked to jump in. Nikki & I were wearing life jackets as we are not great swimmers. But there were many folks who just jumped in like it’s their backyard swimming pool!

We did see some marine life, but frankly the ocean current was extremely strong and because we can’t swim with a lot of expertise, we didn’t venture out a lot. This complementary snorkeling takes you to what they call as ‘House Reef’, you reach there by boat. You can also just rent the snorkeling kit for free and swim in lot of water bodies around the resort.

We could have opted for a scuba diving experience also but didn’t as our next goal is to do a PADI certification. Nikki & I have done 2 Discover Scuba dives each and didn’t want to do the same again. For the uninitiated, Discover Scuba is the introductory dive of a PADI certification.

If you are an ace swimmer, you can consider Scuba Diving and also Snorkeling at various other sites. They have two prominent snorkeling sites, one to see turtles and one to see Manta rays. These Snorkeling sites are supposed to be great! But there are 200 people snorkeling at one time and we opted out of it due to, yes you guessed it, lack of swimming experience.

We did this complementary snorkeling activity and the ones that were included in our package. They had some unique hover boarding activities, but they didn’t seem to be value for money to me. So we skipped it.

Cruises

They have a lot of cruises available. You can pick from a luxury catamaran sailing experience to a plain and simple sunset cruise. We had the latter included in our package and enjoyed a lovely sunset. They will take you to the middle of the ocean and park the boat there until the Sun sets.

DJ & Dinner Nights

They keep having such events across their restaurants and feel free to check out their schedule at the reception upon reaching. They say that reservation is mandatory, but frankly, it’s not.

Apart from this, they can take your special requests and also set up romantic set ups. One such romantic set up which we saw costed $150 USD! It definitely can get super expensive if you really want to indulge. Funnily enough, another couple who paid $150 USD for the set up was sitting just 10 feet away from us, on the same sand, under the same sky watching the same ocean. Well, good we didn’t spend on the set up.

They also have some good options for messages and relaxation. Feel free to check out their SPA menu.

Cost of visiting Maldives

As mentioned above, we paid Rs 1.75L for our resort stay package. In addition, we paid Rs 48K for 2 people with return and paid Rs 9k for a rapid PCOT test at Mumbai airport. There are a few other costs as well such as food and activities, but that can vary depending on your preferences.

For traveling to Maldives from India you can consider Makemytrip. I generally use them as I have their membership. You can always use the coupon codes & deals to grab the best travel deals on booking hotel, flights, or holiday bookings at Makemytrip.

Maldives is a super expensive destination for sure, but it’s all worth it! 

Requirements of traveling in Covid Pandemic & FAQs

Planning a trip to Maldives amidst the Pandemic can make you scratch your head a bit. But for a travel deprived soul like me, I was willing to go through the formalities.

Here are the important things you need to know before planning your Maldives trip. Please bookmark this post & share with your friends & family if any body you know is planning to visit the enchanting land of Maldives!

Documents needed (India to Male)

1. Web Check in (Mandatory)
2. Covid Negative test (max. gap of 96 hours between sample collection time and departure time)
3. QR code which you get after filling Self Declaration form on imuga.immigration.gov.mv/ethd (to be filled within 24 hours of departure time – Select Arrival on website)

Documents needed (Male to India)

1. Web Check in (Mandatory)
2.  QR code which you get after filling Self Declaration form on imuga.immigration.gov.mv/ethd (to be filled within 24 hours of departure time – Select Departure on website)
3. Air Suvidha Form to be filled on newdelhiairport.in/airsuvidha/apho-registration (Ideally to be filled within 24 hours of departure time)

Do you need negative Covid test to return to India?

You do not need Covid negative report to onboard the return flight from Male to India. However, you will not be allowed to leave the Indian airports without a negative test. The negative test needs to be taken within 72 hours of arrival time in India.

So here are your options
1. Get tested at your Maldives Resort (Costs Rs 9k to 13k depending on the resort, Results in 8 – 10 hours)
2. Get tested at Male city (Costs ~Rs 10k, Results in 8 – 10 hours)
3. Get PCOT rapid test at Arrival Indian Airport (Costs Rs 4.5k, Results in 30 minutes)
4. Get RT-PCR test at Arrival Indian Airport (Costs Rs 850, Results in 6 – 10 hours)

If you don’t want to get tested, you can fill exemption form 72 hours before departure time. But it’s up to the Airport authority to approve / reject your request. Primarily, the requests can be granted to emergency travelers (due to health reasons, death in family) or to government employees or folks on government projects.

While returning, we got our PCOT rapid test done and got our results in 25 minutes. We had a connecting flight from Mumbai to Delhi and this test was our only option or else we would have missed the flight.

If you don’t have an option of taking a direct flight from Male to your city, please ensure at-least 10-12 hours gap in between flights. You will not be allowed to board a connecting domestic flight without Covid negative test.

Do you need to Quarantine after returning from Maldives?

You will be sent to institutional quarantine only if you
i) Test Positive
ii) Refuse to get tested

If you have Covid negative test results within 72 hours of arrival, you can proceed as usual out of the airport. There is no quarantine requirements for folks returning from Maldives due to the travel bubble arrangement.

Right now, it’s the best season to visit Maldives and the resort prices are lower than usual. November to March is the best season to visit Maldives. So when are you planning your Maldives trip?