Lisa Bowman

Some of the countries I've visited: Australia , New Zealand, Fiji, USA, Kenya, Bali, Borneo, Seychelles, Brazil, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, St Lucia, Jamaica, Antigua,  Hong Kong, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Ireland, Cyprus, South Africa, France

Favourite places: Bali, New York & Dubai for the nightlife and shopping, and Caribbean for relaxing,

My recent visit to

Centara Resort & Spa

After a surprisingly quick 11 hour flight from Gatwick we arrived on an Island with just an airport and an airport hotel on it, surrounded by beautiful clear waters.  One of the Islands nearest to us is Male the capital hard to believe that this small Island holds approx. 80,000 people, the population of the Maldives is 340,000

There are 27 Atolls and 1190 Islands with 80 of these being resort hotels. Tourism in the Maldives started February 1972 and all transfers were by a dhoni, I am glad things have changed and I only had a 25 minute transfer to Centara by seaplane.

The Island has 112 rooms and is only offered on All Inclusive. I stayed in a Luxury Sunset Watervilla which had steps leading down straight to the water and the Coral below. We had upgraded to include the Island Club which has extra benefits such as a private club area with A La Carte 5 course meals every night exclusively to the club, also a 3 course light lunch!!!

In the main restaurant the buffet food in the main restaurant was outstanding, with only small plates being brought out at a time and always cooked fresh, in this restaurant they offer a Teppanyaki station for a small fee of US25pp we did eat here one night and found the food outstanding. The Thai restaurant on site was outstanding this was opened for lunch and dinner and offer a set menu or a US$40pp credit towards the A La Carte, we had lunch twice on the set menu and ate 2 evenings from the A La Carte food was outstanding on both. They have recently opened an A La Carte fish restaurant where you pay for everything again you do get the US$40pp credit. Again could not fault the food and their truffle mash was delicious!

Snorkling on the Islands house reef was outstanding, one morning we hired a speed boat with some other people and went swimming with whale sharks, manta rays and the crew on board even found me a turtle! This made my day. I’m far from a water baby and was surprised to find myself in the water every day.

We both thoroughly enjoyed our stay in the Maldives, and cannot wait to go back. It is very relaxing and although we were only away for 9 nights it did feel more like 14 nights. The Island has a fantastic kids club and great beach villas and water villas for families.