Maldives Day 1:
Upon landing we had to go through passport control then get our bags and go through customs (they flagged my grape juice that I brought but after showing it to them, it was cleared). After that we were met by St. Regis airport butlers that took our bags and passports and lead us to an air conditioned SUV (sadly, not the bentley) with wifi where we waited a few minutes for them to arrange our seaplane transfer. One of our bags was definitely overweight and should have incurred about $80 worth of charges but the butler must have took care of it because we weren't charged anything.
When everything was done we headed to The Great Room, an airport lounge with views of the seaplane terminal. The butler takes a picture of you by the St Regis sign here. (This is just speculation but I think they send the picture to the hotel staff so they know your names/ what you look like. Everyone in the hotel seemed to know us by name without having met them before). There's not much in terms of refreshments at the lounge- just a bowl of fruit that doesn't look like it's meant to be touched and a fridge with water and various juices. There are also showers to refresh yourself, toothbrushes, etc. Basically comparable to a nice lounge minus the food. Other than that it's just a room with a bunch of couch areas to sit in and wait for your transfer. There's a nice deck facing the water outside so we sat on some chairs there and enjoyed the sunshine and beautiful blue water. At one point the staff took our credit card and put a hold of $500 per night on it. They also gave us a drink menu with 4-5 options and asked us to choose a welcome drink for when we arrive at the hotel.
We only had to wait about 30 minutes before getting back in the car for a 1 minute (or less) ride to the seaplane (literally would have been a 2 minute walk). They give you little amenity kits with earplugs, mints, and face spray for the plane. The seaplane ride is breathtaking, which is expected. We made one stop at another resort and let people off then continued to Vommuli island.
From the Great Room outdoor deck
Seaplane
Amenity kits
View from seaplane
View of the Iridium spa from the seaplane
Upon arrival there were a bunch of St. Regis staff standing in a row waving to our approaching seaplane. They all shook our hands and greeted us by name (I was known as Mr. Charles the whole trip) then we were given our welcome drink. Our butler Naseeb then introduced himself and took us for a tour of the island and finally to our villa.
Arrival - you can see the butlers waving
Butler Cart
We were originally given a north facing villa with a lot of privacy but little sunlight on the deck. Dw wanted to have views of the light blue water ("why else would you go to the Maldives, we have dark blue water at home") so we asked to switch to one of the sunrise villas (Y’all can debate the privacy/sun on the Master Thread). Our butler Naseeb (he gets an A+) took care of the room switch while we were on a sunset fishing trip. We chose to do the fishing trip on our first day and only mentioned it to our butler in the afternoon but he booked it for us on the spot. We were taken on a boat with 6 others to a spot around 10 minutes away from the island and were taught the traditional Maldivian style of fishing (line fishing). We didn't end up catching anything ourselves, thought we almost did and we lost 3 hooks to apparently hungry fish, but others on the boat caught 4 red snappers, a barracuda, a baby shark, which we threw back into the water after taking some pictures, and a green reef fish. They were able to have their fish for lunch or dinner the next day. I believe the fee for that is $30. After fishing we had our Pom dinner at Alba, the main restaurant. We brought along plastic plates and cutlery but they had extra for the last few days when we ran out of the ones we brought.
North facing villa at around noon - notice the shade
Sunset fishing
Catch of the night - a bunch of snappers and a baracuda
Also caught a baby shark but had to let it go
All in all we had a relaxing first day and were definitely ready for some rest: