Our Day by Design

All of the Water Villas are situated beside the bigger Escape Water Villas {which was the villa type we should have had} at the opposite end of the island to our original residence, connected to the island by a short walkway. Aerial View (Image from here ) We stayed in villa no. 403 {which was actually the original villa we were assigned}, located near to the island end of the line of villas on the right hand side. Each villa is 109m² which is still probably bigger than our flat at home, and it was lovely, although it didn't quite match up to the luxury of our first week! The door led straight into the main living & sleeping area which was one large room. The massive bed looked out to the deck and infinity pool. At the back of the villa was the massive bathroom, complete with freestanding bathtub, indoor & outdoor showers. The bathroom could be open to the bedroom or could be closed over. Since the toilet and shower had their own separate cubicles, we usually left it open...

As you will all know, we were stranded in the Maldives because of the volcanic ash cloud , finally getting home 5 days later than planned. We didn't know anything about what was happening until the 15th of April, when we received a text from my mum saying their flight to London had been cancelled because of the ash and they were going to go on the overnight bus instead. We had never even bothered to switch on our TV until then so we had not heard any of the news reports. We watched it for a while as we heard from mum that the bus was fully booked and they were having a hire a car one way instead. We didn't think too much of it at the time and assumed it would all be over by the time we were going home, which was supposed to be on the next Tuesday the 20th. As the week went on were hearing more and more reports of all of the flight disruption and couldn't quite believe what was happening. On the Saturday, the travel counsellor we had booked our honeymoon through called us...

Our package at the resort only included bed & breakfast. We are not fans of eating the same thing in the same restaurant more than once so we opted out of the half board option which included a buffet meal in the main restaurant every night . Since we ended up having a buffet almost every night in Sri Lanka, we were so glad we had made that decision. The breakfast, served in the main restaurant, was a massive buffet spread with loads of different options whether you wanted fruit, bread, cereals or a full cooked breakfast. There were also two food stations where the chefs could make you an omelette or eggs on one and the other was for either pancakes or waffles, depending which day it was. I absolutely love pancakes so I had loads of them! After such a big breakfast, we didn't really need much for lunch, so we often bought snacks back from the shop. We did eat lunch once, at Stars, on what should have been our last day and enjoyed the burger & sandwich we had but it wasn...

After such a busy first week in Sri Lanka , we spent every day in the Maldives relaxing at our residence . We had everything we needed there so there was no reason to leave. L-R: Sunrise; Sunset We spent lots of time sunbathing, reading or swimming, and generally doing nothing, exactly as we had planned. When the sun got too strong, with the Maldives being so close to the equator, we were able to relax in the shade, in the pool or inside the villa. We saw a few sunsets either from our villa or while eating dinner and I even got up extra early one day to watch the sunrise from our room. Hearing water all around was actually very relaxing and you didnt really hear it at night, except for our first night when it was really stormy. The mini infinity pool was a must have on our list when we were choosing where to go in the Maldives and we used it all the time. While it wasn't massive, it was big enough to laze around in; there was always the sea if you wanted to swim properly! There w...