Trip to the Maldives – the flights part 1
Trip to the Maldives – the flights part 2
Conrad Lounge in Mali and Seaplane to Rangali Island
Beach Villa at the Conrad Maldives
Euro swimsuits and Turtles
The main pool and snorkeling
Our luggage arrives, Vilu, and the Quiet Zone
The employee strike
The strike ends
Ithaa underwater restaurant, Water Villa, and sunset cruise

At this point, our luggage still hadn’t arrived and we were getting a bit frustrated. I had sent Direct message via Twitter to Delta – and all they could tell me was beginning at LAX, Malaysia Airlines had their own bag tag and they would be unable to track it.

Using Skype, we had talked to the Male airport, Delta Airlines, and Malaysia lost baggage departments without any success. We had talked to our island hostess but it didn’t appear that she had taken any action – but I think it was because she was a new employee rather than she didn’t care. The transportation director also was unable to get any information in regards to where our bags were but he seemed to want to do everything in his power to try to get to the bottom of the situation.

Several times we were told by various people at Conrad and Male Airport that it would arrive on the next seaplane but it didn’t come to pass. We would be out at the pool or out and about and we would hear a seaplane and our hopes would go up that our bags might be on that plane.

Finally we received a call from the transportation director that our bags had arrived on the island and would be delivered to our room. We were so excited that we wanted to actually go out to the seaplane arrival lounge and get them ourselves. Thirty minutes later there was a knock on the door and our bags had finally made it. The Maldivian employee was taken aback when my wife started screaming and smelling the fresh clothes. She told him that she wanted to marry him. I was finally able to shed my Euro form fitting swimsuit!

With our fresh clothes, we decided to try out the breakfast at Vilu. Vilu differs from Atoll market in that you order off the menu instead of having the full buffet. They do have a smaller buffet there as well and after having so many days of Atoll, we were ready for a change.

Vilu is located on the second island that is connected by a bridge to the main island. There is a Dhoni that goes between the two islands that will drop you off right by Vilu.

As you approach Vilu, the setting is absolutely brilliant as it is looking right out to the water.

We were seated in a beautiful location and handed the menu. Plenty to choose from including all types of eggs, waffles, pancakes, fresh fruit smoothies, orange juice. Other guests said they had the best eggs benedict they have ever had. You can order as much as you want off the menu.

I chose the over easy eggs on toast, with hash browns and sausage.

After placing our order we headed over to the mini buffet.

The Vilu breakfast felt much lighter and healthier with plenty to choose from. Vilu also had one or two varieties of champagne to choose from that are included in the breakfast, we can’t remember if this was available at Atoll. My wife liked eating breakfast at Vilu better than Atoll because she is not a big fan of buffets, and she loved the ‘Vilu smoothie’, an original smoothie only served at Vilu during breakfast. Also they had the hashbrown patties instead of french fry style hashbrowns.

After enjoying our breakfast with orange juice and fresh fruit smoothies, we headed over to the Quiet Zone pool. The Quiet Zone is on the same island as Vilu and is intended to be an adults only pool.

We spent several hours at the Quiet Zone pool before heading back to our room to change into our workout clothes. Eating all this wonderful food – it was time to try out the exercise room.

There was plenty of weight machines and best of all – ice cold bottled water in a refrigerator. It is small but adequate as most people run/walk around the islands for their workout. We saw sting rays swimming around in the ocean while we were on the treadmills. Employees are allowed to use the gym which bothers some guests, but it didn’t bother us and I saw them go in the gym but they were never there when we worked out.

We went back to our room, changed our clothes and went to the by invitation only manager’s reception. It was held right outside on the deck of the Rangali Bar and was actually kind of overrated. There was complimentary canapes, wine or champagne (can’t remember) and some unique non-alcoholic fruit concoctions that we didn’t care for. We did get to meet several of the staff but overall it wasn’t that exciting so we split after about 30 minutes.

For dinner, we had made reservations for cheese fondue at The Wine Bar. The dinner cost $65 per person.

The fondue was pretty good but I’ve had better. It was a nice atmosphere. We dined with Russians who are on the Sochi 2014 Olympic committee along with some Brits and Americans and enjoyed talking with them.

The desserts were divine – they included a lime sorbet, cheese in white chocolate, and some ball of heaven that we couldn’t figure out what it was. Sometimes quality is better than quantity. My wife thought they were some of the best tasting desserts she has ever had, and would go back for the okay fondue just to eat these three little bites.