Maldives, April 24th-29th

The Maldives was absolute paradise! But very expensive. Given that we were travelling for 2 months and had to pay $1000 for a 20 minute seaplane transfer, we challenged ourselves to live off breakfast from the hotel and groceries we bought before leaving South Africa.  After 5 days and a lot of Hilton points, we managed to only spend money on one bottle of water, the sea plane transfers, one dinner (we cracked the last night and got tired of peanut butter and crackers), and part of a fishing trip (we had credit to spend on an excursion for our "honeymoon" stay at the resort). Cost of hotel for the basic room is about $1,000 per night.  Great use of Hilton points before their recent gutting of their award chart.  Robbie says, "Don't bother with Hilton Honors, they are jerks."

 The sea plane we took from the airport in Male to Conrad Hilton on Rangali Island 

View of Male from the sea plane (population = 150,000,  size= 1 mile by 1 mile, a mini NYC!)

 A little hot but the ride was short 

 Our welcome arrival at the hotel!

 The back of our villa leading out to the beach 

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 outdoor bathtub!

outdoor shower! was so refreshing!

 Our own fountain

 Hammocks to relax in 

 clear and warm water 

 The only friend we made

 The spa's outdoor bathroom we saw  (just posing for the photo ) 

 One of the many outdoor restaurants 

 Happy hour! FREE every day at 5! 

 Sunset 

Sunrise 

 Heading over to the of the outdoor infinity pools 

 FREE sandwiches and cookies every day at 4pm! Unfortunately, they decided to get rid of the sandwich part during the middle of our stay. This made our plan of spending zero dollars on lunch and dinner a little more of a challenge. 

 Crossing the bridge that connects the two islands of the resort 

 The hotel treated us to a FREE dinner for our honeymoon! 

 Here is our final bill for the free meal. $23 for a bottle of water!!!! Ouch 

                                       

Snorkeling - clear water and tons of colorful fish! 

 TURTLE!

 TURTLE!

Fishing trip 

 Robbie caught a fish! 

 Robbie is sad he killed a fish :(

 Rena caught a fish! She was happy a nice Asian couple on the trip got to eat it for lunch for next day 

 Thank god for free breakfast for being Hilton Gold. Rena estimated that we should eat 1500 calories per breakfast so we didn't have to get other meals.

Our sea plane coming to take us to the airport. Bye bye Maldives!