According to Wikipedia, the Maldives consists of 1,192 coral islands that are chained into 26 atolls. Simply put, the Maldives is sectioned into 26 groups of coral islands.
We flew from Jordan to Hamad International Airport in Qatar for an hour or so layover, to fly into the Velana International Airport, on HulHulé Island in the North Malé Atoll, Maldives.
The Velana International Airport was quite possibly one of the easiest airports to get through, with minimal check points! But, hey – where are you going to run to if they catch you with something? What was really cool, is once we were past customs and collected our baggage, arrivals opened up into a busy strip of hotel taxi-boat kiosks. There, at the arrivals entrance the hotel we booked with, Holiday Inn Resort Kandooma Maldives, held a sign with my name, then checked us into our Holiday Inn taxi-boat kiosk.
Next, Michael and I were led from the kiosk to the hotel’s speed boat moored at the airport’s marina, a marina lined with speed boat taxis from other hotels! Our luggage was loaded on the speed boat by one of the neatly dressed staff in sharp blue shirts, who also gave us multi-use glass bottled water and cool facecloths to refresh ourselves before we started the 40 minute boat ride to our island!
We’re off!!
The ride was bumpy with big waves, but that didn’t matter to me! It was exciting!
The entire island is the hotel, or the entire hotel is the island! This is the view of the main beach from the dock!
We were taxied to the main reception building – pictures along the way!
Where we were checked into our room and explained about the hotel and what was offered!
From there, we were again taxied – but this time to our beach villa! 
The bathroom was AMAZING!! 
It didn’t take me long to get to the beach! Our villa was very near the South Beach where the water villas were located! Supplied with free snorkeling gear from the hotel, in we went! The water was actually cool! I was shocked! As well, the visibility poor because of the recent rains and the current was strong – making it very difficult to swim in one place!
Lizards near the beach!
Back at our villa after our snorkel, it started to rain! It was the start of the monsoon season..
Later, we enjoyed dinner at the main restaurant! View from our table!
Exhausted from a full day, we returned to out villa to call it a day!
But not before we got lost..and finally discovered this glowing sign to help us find our way!
S, 🙂
What a beautiful spot! If we was there we would all be racing to the beach. 🙂 That water looks incredible.