The Soneva Fushi Resort in the Maledives with Toddlers

My son is in paradise. He’s standing in front of an ocean.

An ocean of Lego bricks, sparkling brightly in all colors and eagerly waiting for him to come and put them together. He can’t believe his luck.

Before I begin, let me tell you the back story: I visited the Soneva Fushi Resort for the first time for my Swiss travel show “SF Unterwegs” (from approx. 25:35).

I was really impressed by the facility’s sustainable and ecological philosophy and, despite its high price, I was determined to return there to enjoy a vacation. This is exactly what we did: once with a baby in my belly and now with our two children. I’ve got a feeling that this time will be a completely different experience. Strolling along the beach for hours on end is a thing of the past with two toddlers in tow, right?

And now back to my son: an entire room in the kids’ area “The Den” at Soneva Fushi is dedicated to nothing but Lego. Another room is home to a full drum set and if that’s not enough, you can also pop next door to dress up as a monster or pirate or make new creations out of old cardboard boxes with the resort’s supervisors.

You might think that the kids’ area was created by children themselves.

In fact, this isn’t far from the truth. When I spoke to Mike Stallwood, the designer of “The Den”, he told me that the children of the resort’s ‘regulars’ were asked to describe their ideal kids’ area before the construction and installation of fittings and fixtures began. As a result, children even have their very own door leading into their kingdom, which made our son very proud indeed (although he did relent and let Mom go through it once!), and their own child-sized toilets (and urinals, aww!)

That’s the wonderful thing about the kids’ area: it’s really made FOR children and not just to impress their parents. Nevertheless, their parents are also welcome to come and explore. We visited the club with our kids virtually every day, mainly because our daughter is aged under four so wasn’t allowed (and didn’t yet want to) play there on her own.

When we visited the resort, the team of supervisors was mainly comprised of locals, working together with a Portuguese woman and the manager, who came from England. They all spoke excellent English and were able to use their hands and feet to communicate with kids who spoke other languages.

Every day, the resort runs a variety of free activities all over the island, for example a kid’s cooking class, a scavenger hunt at the recycling site or a movie night with supper once a week (so that us parents could hold hands without using the other to fish spaghetti out of the sand!).

Because our kids are still small, they needed a midday rest, for which we headed back to our ‘villa’. When we arrived at the resort, we were treated to an upgrade (a pretty nice coincidence given that it was my birthday that day – *wink*) and now had two bedrooms, which we hadn’t expected.

The housekeeping team also gave us a wish list full of baby equipment that we were able to use for free and had already put up a crib with a mosquito net for our little girl. Given that our family gets through huge amounts of milk every day, we were delighted to have a fridge and a drinks corner with a kettle and coffee maker.

And…ta-da!…we even had a pool! At first, I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry as I thought about how I wouldn’t be able to take my eyes off my children for even a second, but by the next afternoon, we all absolutely loved having our own pool. In fact, I loved it the most, especially when Any Working Dad entertained the kids in the water while I, believe it or not, sat by the pool and read my book in peace.

We had so many different family experiences at Soneva Fushi.

Our vacation was full of fun experiences, for example dolphin watching, visiting a local island and exploring our entire island on our bikes. And while having all this fun, we didn’t once have to worry that our children were disturbing anyone – far from it!

There’s no denying that paradise comes at a price. We definitely want to return to the resort one day and are therefore already starting to fill up our vacation piggy bank. For us, experiencing a vacation in the truest sense of the word is well worth the money.*

*Our time at the resort was supported by Soneva Fushi (and I’m happy to provide full disclosure upon direct request). The views presented here represent my own genuine opinion. I am happy to answer any questions you may have.

I would love to read your tips regarding other hotels and resorts in the Maldives in the comments below! zu den Kommentaren