A barefoot honeymoon in the Maldives – with baby

Getting off the plane at Male airport, into stifling heat, I wondered again if
we hadn’t made a terrible mistake. The queue for security snaked to the very
end of the hall, the air conditioning was broken, and the cabin crew had
been so preoccupied with their royal cargo that they had forgotten to give
the rest of us immigration forms, meaning a frantic scramble at the airport
as my husband attempted to write them on my back and our child tried to
escape back out on to the runway. “This place is hell on earth!” he said,
which is the first recorded instance of those words ever being said about
the Maldives.

I felt a bit like crying, but the baby started instead and I thought it would
be pretty pathetic to challenge her. We got through Arrivals, clammy,
tear-stained, stinking and sleep-deprived from the overnight flight, and
were met by representatives of Soneva Fushi, the resort we were staying in.
At this point things started to get better. Much better.

Bryony Gordon and family flew over turquoise atolls in a sea plane to reach
Soneva Fushi resort

They checked us in right then and there, in the middle of the Arrivals hall,
whisking away our bags and taking us to the resort’s private lounge. We were
given cold towels – we were never very far from a cold towel from that
moment on – watermelon juices, and for me and my husband, shoulder massages.
The baby crawled around the clean, cool floor to her heart’s content, before
we were whisked away to the sea plane that would take us on our 30-minute
journey to Baa Atoll. We flew over the Indian Ocean, gasping at the blue
lagoons around islands, the baby mesmerised by the sound of the propeller
engines. Before long we had landed at Soneva Fushi International airport – a
pontoon floating a few hundred yards off the coast of the island. We were
met by a Dhoni – more watermelon juice, more cold towels – and told to
remove our shoes. We would not put them back on again for the whole week and
a half we were there.

When Soneva Fushi opened 19 years ago, it was the first resort in the Maldives
to embrace barefoot luxury. Run by Sonu Shivdasani, an old Etonian who
counts David Cameron and Boris Johnson among his contemporaries, and his
Swedish wife, Eva (Soneva is a melding of their names), it is a sort of
Robinson Crusoe hideaway; the villas, with their thatched roofs, look like
tree houses. We felt a bit like the Swiss Family Robinson in our open-aired
bathroom, with its shower in the garden and a bath (big enough for all three
of us) that overlooked a giant water feature.

Our Mr Friday – all the guests get one – told us that the toiletries had been
made from lemongrass that had been grown on the island. They grow as much as
they can at Soneva Fushi – no mean feat given that the soils are mostly sand
– and everything is recycled or composted in an eco centre that is best
avoided if you want to keep the contents of your stomach.

In a country that threatens to sink below the waves, it felt good to be
staying somewhere that took its commitment to the environment seriously.

But for us, the real sell of Soneva Fushi wasn’t its eco-credentials. It was
how welcome it makes children feel. Given that the Maldives is the kind of
place that couples go to get away from it all, we appreciated that. Our
daughter was given her own cot, her own mosquito net, and her own set of
beach toys, complete with bucket and spade. At breakfast, lunch and dinner,
they would happily purée any fruit she wanted, and we didn’t even have to
provide bibs. She was welcome at all four of the resort’s restaurants and
sampled sorbets from the ice cream room (there is also a chocolate room, and
a cheese room, but they were for Mum and Dad only). We were even given a
tricycle to ferry her around the island.

Soneva Fushi is run by Sonu Shivdasani, an old Etonian who counts David
Cameron and Boris Johnson among his contemporaries

At a kilometre long by half a kilometre wide, Soneva Fushi is big by Maldivian
standards, which meant we never felt as if we were bothering any of the
other guests, though given that most of them were repeat visitors (at some
times during the year, 70 per cent of the guests have been before), we
needn’t have worried. Everyone, from the restaurant staff to the housekeeper
to the couple in the villa next door, was friendly and charming beyond
belief.

Our daughter didn’t get bored, which was a worry given that friends had warned
us there would be nothing to do but sit and read. There was a beach cinema
where she cackled at Despicable Me while eating tomato pasta, and she
spent hours floating in our villa’s pool with her armbands on. Though there
was a team of childminders available to look after her while we went
snorkelling, after a few days we just wanted to stay with her, watching her
delighted face as she sampled this strange new world – a school of fish
swimming next to her, or dolphins swimming past while on an early evening
cruise.

Though there was a team of childminders available to look after our daughter
while we went snorkelling, after a few days we just wanted to stay with her

Then there was the Den, an activity centre for children that was crammed full
of toys and games. Later this year, a new Den will open, complete with pool,
slides, zip line, dressing-up corner and DJ room, for the teenagers. It
might even be worth making a return trip.

On the flight home, our daughter slept soundly, dreaming perhaps of the wild
rabbits that roamed the island, or the curry she had sampled for the first
time the night before. And I knew then that the flight out had been worth
it, and that it was William and Kate who had made the mistake, not us.

ITC Luxury Travel (01244 355527; itcluxurytravel.co.uk)
is offering a seven-night stay at Soneva Fushi for the price of five nights,
plus complimentary half board. Prices start at £2,789 per person based on
two adults sharing a Crusoe Villa for seven nights on a half-board basis,
including return economy-class flight with British Airways from London
Gatwick and transfers. This represents a saving of up to £1,525 per person.
The offer is valid for travel completed between May 12 and July 31, 2014 or
September 1 and October 19.

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A barefoot honeymoon in the Maldives – with baby

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