Bandos Island – The Perfect Maldives Holiday
November 12th, 2009 by Shelley Swartzer, under Travel and Leisure. No Comments
Out of the handful of Maldives resorts I have visited so far I have to say that Bandos twice is without doubt my most favorite! In this article I have given a general overview for anyone considering visiting Bandos. Hopefully it will encourage you to find out more.
Bandos was totally refurbished during 2005 when it was closed for the whole season pretty much and reopened as a new and, in my opinion, beautiful resort. The island resort of Bandos is relatively close to Male, and coupled with natural beauty, great activities and facilities, it is also very family orientated.
There are two main restaurants on the island – the Cayenne Grill and the lighthouse – and I found the food and service to be good in both of them. The Cayenne serves a range of seafood, meat and vegetarian dishes which you can mix and match to your own tastes.
The other main restaurant – the Cayenne Grill – prepares a range of seafood, meat and vegetarian options to your own specification and serves this at one of the individual thatched pavilions at the waters edge.
My first impression of the resort was really good and it got even better when I saw my accommodation. The island has three different room categories – 30 water villas, 20 Baros villas, 24 Deluxe villas, and a single pool villa. The rooms are very stylishly done with plasma TVs, designer fittings, and of course a well-stocked wine cooler.
Each room in the resort is never a stones throw from the beach or lagoon and all have a large verandah complete with comfortable daybed. If you consider that their is a very good 24 hour room service you wont be surprised to hear that I didn’t need to stray far short of taking the odd dip to cool down or go snorkeling.
With a fine and easily accessible reef encircling most of the island the snorkeling is really good here on Bandos (yes I am actually writing this while on the island)!. The PADI dive school is very friendly and offers open water courses and beginners can try an introductory dive in the lagoon. There are more than 30 dive sites you can visit from Baros and with several trips per day even the most avid divers have plenty to go at. There is a Marine Biologist on hand to provide talks and accompany the snorkeling and diving trips sometimes to chat about the local marine life for those who want to know more.
All in all you really are hard pushed to beat Bandos island for a rewarding tropical getaway.
Shelley is a journalist and writes about tropical holiday resorts such as Bandos island and other Maldives island resorts.
