After 20 hours of flights, we finally made it to our (almost) final destination. I’d chosen the Maldives to celebrate turning *cough* years old.

We’d had to fill out arrival information (it’s on a handy app) prior to coming to the Maldives which included a yellow fever declaration. Since we’d been in Panamà for more than six days in the previous six months, we had to show proof of vaccination or “other paperwork”. With the proof of vaccination, your health status is cleared automatically. Since we filed an exemption, our health status was rejected – but an inquiry to the Maldivian WhatsApp number informed us that we would have to stop by the health desk upon arrival to get our health clearance.

Sure enough, we were flagged at passport control, and an employee personally escorted us to the health desk. The woman there looked at our certificates, and asked when we had left Panamà. Two days before, we said. She gave us a piece of paper with a telephone number and two case numbers written on it. We had to call the number once a day for the next four days (yellow fever has a six day gestation period) and report if we had a fever or not. Then we got our health clearance, and we were on our way.

It was just about literally that quick. There was no line at the health desk, or at passport control, even though a very large airplane with hundreds of people had just landed. The Maldivian visa processing system is the most efficient one I’ve ever seen.

The sign immediately outside the airport showed that the Maldives is a popular place.

As promised, our first resort (Dusit Thani) had a representative immediately outside the customs and immigration office. One of their employees escorted us to the seaplane check-in where they checked our bags for us. Actually, we didn’t have to physically handle our own luggage from the minute we left customs and immigration for the rest of the trip, which was very nice.

In the prep materials, it was mentioned several times that our luggage had to be under 20 kg per piece because of seaplane limitations, so we took steps to ensure that, When I mentioned that the Dusit Thani representative, she just waved her hand like these things were incidental. Our bags were spirited away, and we were loaded on a shuttle bus to the seaplane terminal.

The terminal building is four storeys tall. The first floor is dedicated to check-ins for the seaplanes, and the other floors are all lounges run by different resorts. Dusit Thani had its own private lounge in the terminal. I’d have taken pictures but we were there for less than five minutes. We were the last passengers to arrive for our seaplane, so we were immediately escorted to the seaplane waiting room.

One of the perks of booking at the Dusit Thani resort was that a seaplane transfer was included at a pretty reasonable cost ($150 round trip per person). I’d never been on a seaplane before, and I think traveling on one is part of the charm of the Maldives.

The fleet of seaplanes is impressive.

And there’s our ride! Each seaplane seats around 18 people, and astonishingly enough, all of our luggage fit in the back.

The view of Malé was impressive on takeoff.

It didn’t take long before the first atolls came in view. This was unlike anything I’d seen before.

While we were there in the rainy season, I was very glad that it wasn’t raining on that day. We had rain several days during our trip, but there was only one day that we didn’t have sunshine.

A rainbow formed when we were almost there. I thought it was an auspicious start.