Atmosphere Kanifushi - Like others have said before me...paradise

Note: This is really a review of a resort and not a trip report per se.

This was my first trip to the Maldives so I have nothing to compare this to, but...wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. I get it. I understand the allure. I don't think I've ever been anyplace that was so relaxing. Wear shoes, don't wear shoes. Dress up or wear shorts and a T-Shirt. Go swimming, chill in the pool, lay out on the beach.

Lots of others have commented on things like the staff being nice and how the property looks, so I'll avoid that and just comment on some things I haven't seen before. First, here is a video of a sunset water villa with pool. I hadn't seen many of these online, so thought I'd add one.

I also want to say that pictures don't do the resort justice. Not that the pictures look bad, but it looks much better in person. And at night, it's probably the most romantic place I've been to with the swings and lights set up. Honestly if I had one complaint about the resort it would be that whoever does their photos needs to be fired. I sent a friend a pic from there and he said it looks like I just Googled the word "beach" and sent him the first image that appeared.

As for what you can see from the room, let me state there are 2 windows into the ocean. One at the foot of the bed and one in the bathroom. The one in the bathroom is maybe 3x the size of the one in the bedroom, and that is the one we found ourselves looking through the most. From there we saw a giant ray one night along with the normal assortment of fish throughout the day. From the pool we saw (too?) many sharks, squid, and a turtle, again along with the normal assortment of fish.

When I was much younger I went diving in the Caribbean (St. Lucia), but since then have mainly avoided the ocean. Pools are fine, but I prefer water that is heavily chlorinated and has no living things in it. All of this is to say that I snorkeled here for the first time in my life and, not to repeat myself, but wow. And I didn't even take the trip to the reef (again, kind of scared of sharks, etc.). For the first few days I snorkeled right off our deck. Twice sharks swam past me. Each day I went a little further out, eventually maybe getting 50ft from the deck. I know, not very far. Then I started snorkeling from the beach and eventually ended up snorkeling from the jetty where the seaplane lands. While I saw lots of stuff at the villa and beach, the jetty kind of looked like Finding Nemo. You would see a few fish from the top and as soon as your head ducked beneath the water an entire world was revealed to you.

My wife, unfortunately, had an accident there - slipped and twisted/sprained her knee and ankle very badly on our second day there. So, we got to see how the doctor worked. Once we got over seeing a doctor treating patients without shoes, it was fine. In fact, better than fine...the doctor was great. My wife had a walker for a few days, and then a cane, and finally, on the last day, walked unaided. Again, I can't stress how professional and nice the doctor was. And the staff there pitched in to help my wife get around.

The food was amazing. Breakfast is standard fare - pancakes, waffles, bacon, sausage, muffins/Danishes, croissants and other breads, baked beans (for the English), and then a bunch of food I wasn't sure what it was for Indians. Basically, stuff that would make everyone happy. Lunch and dinner was pretty much the same (food for Americans, Indians, and English) but with the addition of another culture (e.g., Moroccan, Russian, Greek, etc.). Sometimes there would be two or more cultures. Then there was pizza (which I thought was just ok) and a pasta station (which was amazing). There was fresh fruit at lunch and a grill station (crab, calamari, reef fish, tuna, etc.) at dinner. While I'm not a vegetarian I noticed many vegetarian dishes (in fact at dinner there was a whole vegetarian section). If you go hungry here it's because you choose to.

A few special comments about the food. First, lunch at the Sunset Grill was amazing. In fact, being the American piggies that we are, we often ate there and then went to the buffet at Spice. Second, the snacks at Liquid were great. Unfortunately we never made it to the fish and chips, but considering the quality of everything else, I assume they were good. We did try Ceylon Bliss but my wife is allergic to coconut and I am allergic to tree nuts so there was very little there we could eat. But what we could eat was very good. Lastly I want to comment on how amazing the ice cream was there. Lots of flavors, but honestly I couldn't tell you about anything other than blueberry as I ate a bowl (not scoop, bowl) of that every lunch and dinner...and I don't even eat ice cream at home. There were also a plethora of other desserts (cakes, bread pudding, etc.). My wife told me they were very good. I couldn't tell because my mouth was full of blueberry ice cream.

There was one (slightly) negative aspect to our vacation - the arrival and departure process. When we landed in Male, there were people there with signs for every resort except for Atmosphere. We had to walk into the airport and ask someone who then pointed us to their rep. From there we were whisked to the seaplane counter, bags taken, and put on a bus. This was all kind of confusing and the procedure not explained very well. Once we got to the seaplane terminal we were told to wait for the Atmosphere rep. This was kind of annoying since we expected to be waiting in a lounge instead of the "terminal". The people there could tell me nothing about when our plane would leave, where the rep was, etc. Eventually I got tired of waiting and found the lounge (the entrance is outside the main building) and just went there to wait. After a while a rep came and we did the check-in process there. She gave us a time to leave for the seaplane, but then ended up getting us 30min before that to go into another building and wait some more. We finally got on the plane (hot and cramped as advertised) and arrived at Atmosphere after making a quick stop at another resort.

I want to say that this was my only "negative" experience and in retrospect it was very minor. At the time, having traveled for 30+ hours to get there, it was very annoying. But an hour after being at the resort it was completely forgotten.

My wife and I are trying Pullman in January, but unless it has some trick up its sleeve we will be returning to Atmosphere after that.

Oh, p.s., if you can, take Qatar air and QSuites there. Best way to fly.