10 Days in Maldives – Day 01 – Flight, Arrival and The Sunrise

The wife loves holidays on islands with clear turquoise waters and pristine beaches. I’m not really a beach person. So while this is our fifth island-wise vacation as a couple and family – the others being Pulau Rawa, Telunas, Koh Phangan, Club Med Bintan – and you can’t go wrong choosing The Maldives as a holiday destination, I still kept my expectations modest.

As budget flights go, our Scoot sojourn to Maldives went well enough all things considered. It took off on time with everyone on board early even – shocker – and the plane landed at Male International Airport 20 minutes earlier than scheduled even – double shocker LOL. There was quite a bit of rough weather up in the skies though, and with the pilots announcing every 30 minutes that there was turbulence ahead and for all passengers to be in their seats and not use the lavatories, we were pretty much kept to our seats throughout the entire flight.

Before departure, I’d already booked a 4G Data Sim card through Changi WIFI at SGD35 for 15GB data, and picked up another 4G Data/Voice Sim card at the airport for USD20/17GB data after arrival. With the benefit of hindsight, picking up a card through Changi WIFI seems unnecessary: the telco counters at Male Airport served customers briskly, and you save too from not having to pay the additional cost of getting it before arrival.

Since we arrived on FRI night, the public transportation services were closed for the day. So, our only option was a private speedboat transfer, and I ponied up the USD180 for it. Ouch. From the looks of it, most of the other visitors who’d also just arrived on the same flight from Singapore were heading to the resort islands – I wasn’t sure if there were any many others also heading to local islands like us, judging from where the visitors were mostly headed to large boats for the transfer to their islands.

The owner – Sameer – of our first stay @ The Sunrise Huraa – met us, and brought us to the adjacent pier where our speedboat was waiting. That was the first ‘wow’ moment for the kids: when they realised that the airport was on a small island, and the shoreline was just 40 meters away from the exit gate haha. The speedboat transfer was likewise smooth, and in just under 30 minutes, we’d arrived at Huraa.

I’ll write more about The Sunrise Huraa after our stay. But if first impressions count for anything, we were wowed. Sameer prepared supper for us – it was just past 9PM when we got to the resort – and gave us a through briefing on the property, its amenities, his guest house’s activities and programmes, then showed us personally to our rooms and explained how everything worked in it.