Maldives

We spent a week here in March.  The Maldives are amazingly beautiful!  Super white fine sand, clear light blue water.  Just paradise!

But with the beauty comes a fairly expensive price tag (particularly compared to other beach holidays in this part of Asia).  We were able to keep the costs under control by staying on an island where a sea plane transfer was not needed.  It also helped that the Maldives are not far from Chennai, so our airfares were not high.  We were also able to find a resort where kids ate free and gave us the option of paying upfront early for a good discount and enabling us to secure a beach house that accommodated our entire family.  If you are visiting the Maldives with a family I recommend looking into this resort - https://www.maldives.holidayinnresorts.com/

When the speedboat transfer costs more than the flights to the country, but your kids spend it doing this.  Ha!

Our beach house.  It was awesome to be able to hang out in the lounge room while watching the girls digging in the sand outside.

Erica enjoying some sandcastle building.  We have sand toys that make different famous buildings.  Erica has made the Eiffel Tower, Sydney Opera House and the Taj Mahal.

A great spot to relax with some music!

On the path walking back to the house.

Another reason we chose this particular resort is because one side of the island has a beach break.  Ethan and David spent a fair bit of time here once the surf picked up in the second-half of the week.

Clara and Erica spent a lot of time in here.  There was also a children's splash pad.  They wore their swimmers to breakfast every morning.  As soon as they had finished eating they were straight into the water.

David and the kids heading out on a catamaran.  I stayed back to pack because we were checking out that day.  They got out to sea and then the wind died down!  They didn't make it back until right before we needed to check out.  They had very quick showers, threw the last of their belongings into their suitcases and then we jumped into the golf buggy to go to reception.

Heading back to the airport.  Clara exhausted after a week of solid swimming.  Clara also had her first experience at snorkelling - where she actually wore a mask and put her face into the water to see the coral and fish.  She has come snorkelling with us before but just swam around while the rest of us snorkelled.  She enjoyed seeing the fish.

Driving around the island.

On the speed boat.

Also on the speed boat.  Going past Male.

I managed to catch a video of David on a wave.