SandiSplash

I’ve been quiet on the blog mostly because I’ve been too busy dreaming about my honeymoon. When I was a little girl I dreamed of spending my month long honeymoon cruising from Durban to Italy and then spending the rest of my honeymoon in romantic cities like Rome and Venice before jetting back to reality.

A lot has changed in the time I grew up like realising that no one can take a month off if one has to work for a living and that dreamy holidays are really expensive!

What hasn’t changed is my dream for ultimate luxury in a romantic setting. And so I’ve been dreaming about the Maldives ever since I heard about it. All I knew before now was the Maldives is made up of a couple of islands and that’s at risk of disappearing cos they haven’t quite learned from the Emirati how to build their own islands. Oh and let’s not forget the awesome villas on stilts and that there’s not much to do other than honeymoon ;-). You do get villas on stilts in other holiday destinations but they are few and far between. Almost every resort in the Maldives offers villas on stilts! How romantic is it being secluded in your own little house over the ocean with a calm lagoon that’s like a pool right at your doorstep!

Before I get carried away, I realise that the Maldives is expensive. For a villa on stilts, it averages about R100 000 depending on currency exchange rates and the type of resorts just for accommodation only! So my dream honeymoon was simply that to be for a while – a dream. After all my complaining about spending money for the wedding, you know how important it is for me to save my money for a costly wedding. But this is something I really wanted and was really excited for despite the illogical spend of money. Even travel agents were suggesting I do Mauritius – a 5 star resort for less than half of what I’d pay for in the Maldives. And apparently the groom also needed to have a say in the matter *rolls eyes*.

I pretty much hijacked the honeymoon planning from him by looking only at the Maldives and sadly suggesting Seychelles and Mauritius whenever he wanted to get involved. R100 000 is enough to buy a car cash and that is way too much to ask someone to consider so I always had a feeling that the Maldives will never be mine – from a logical-thought perspective.

Luckily enough, I have a fiancé who wants to give me the world and through some tough negotiations with travel agents, Flight Centre finally came through with a quote we just couldn’t say no to. We increased our credit card limits and thought like pre-credit crisis Americans and said, “Let’s book it” – the money to pay back the credit cards will come. And the worst that will happen is a bad credit record…but at least we’ll be able to say we honeymooned in the most romantic place on earth.

After spending practically all my free time googling Maldivian resorts, keeping a spreadsheet of the accommodation costs at various resorts, wondering which accommodation type to choose and speaking to agents, I finally settled on Meeru Island. Check out their website! I simply cannot wait!

After booking and actually being happy to pay so much for a 7 night stay, I was so humbled when I realised just how lucky I am to be able to afford such a lavish honeymoon while having to spend a small fortune on a big fat Indian wedding this year. I truly am grateful to have well-paying job and a partner who earns a similar salary to me. I know I’m one of the lucky few in this country to be able to experience this! Knowing all of that still doesn’t make it easy to get up and go to work every morning :-p

I put the wedding planning on hold cos I was too immersed in the honeymoon dreams so I should get back to that. But I can’t stop thinking about the honeymoon now so if you have any tips on what to do in Maldives or how to prepare for it, let me know.