Anyone been to the Maldives?

Lightweight clothing, lots of swimwear, lots of sunscreen, some good books and an MP3 player.

Big hat and big sunglasses. flip-flops. Sarong.

Travel in layers of clothing, when you get there you can peel a few layers off. It took me about 5 minutes to get rid of half my clothes!

Take a few american dollars in cash for tipping. Everything else in terms of charges to room, do it with a card at the end of your stay.

Have fun. I'm not at all jealous. Oh no.

WSS. An ex-colleague of mine went to Bandos a number of times and loved it.

I would also take lots mossie cream, just in case.

Have fun!

My top tip is to remember to reapply sunscreen. Sounds obvious, but i was so engrossed with snorkelling that i forgot to reapply and badly burnt the backs of my legs - made a very sore flight home!!

Take an underwater camera (or 2) with you as the resorts charge a fortune, also take a good book or something to do when it rains (we had rain every day). Check the prices of the mini bar compared to the resort bar - our mini bar was actually cheaper than the main bar so we got all our drinks from that.

Enjoy, wish i was going back!!

We're thinking about the Maldives for next year but I'm paranoid about the weather - what time of year did you go?

Some website say the rainy season is May - October but others say May - December.

Take less clothes than you think you need. You'll only wear day tops briefly for meals for they go 2 days, evenings are v casual with vests, t-shirts, shorts, skirts & light dresses. Most islands you can go no shoe if you want to - very liberating!

Buy your own snorkel gear from a proper dive shop if you can and get them to fit your mask for you as nothing worse than one that leaks. Get mask, snorkel & fins then you can snorkel when you want to, not wait for resort equipment to be available.

If you have a seaplane transfer, pack a few things in hand luggage as occasionally luggage is delivered by boat later on.

US $ cash for tips, pay everything else on card at end of trip.

I've been to Bandos. Absolutely loved it. No advice that hasn't already been proffered here - just have a wonderful wonderful time. I'm sure you can't fail to. The snorkelling is phenomenal and the food was great. We upgraded to half board, and glad we did too, as it would have been expensive to eat out every night and the food in the main buffet bit was great.

Definitely make all the friends you can, H ended up one night drinking champagne in the open air jacuzzi of one the posh huts with some people we'd met.

They have a brilliant medical centre there. Dive centre very good. It's all good baby. God I'm so jealous..

We might go back as a couple we met there are going to go back and get married there and have invited us. They were brilliantly hilarious, they spent madly and the entire island was waiting to find out what their bill was, and as they were going through it in the bar on the last night they found a bill for the morning after pill for their 16 yearold daughter who was doing the water sports instructor. How they laughed..

Michpuss - we went in July. we had rain for about 3 hours on 2 days. It isn't like british rain though - just hot wet rain that isn't actually unpleasant at all.

The sky is a bit more interesting in "rainy" season too - you get some clouds rather than wall-to-wall blue sky.

Even when pouring with rain (and tropical storms) it's not at all cold.

We went and had a fabulous time.

The water wasn't too cloudy at all.

Thanks HH - we're thinking of November so towards the end of the wet season anyway but I was a bit concerned when I read that it's wet up to December.

Thanks for the tips , we have 4 sleeps left and counting!! Bought H2B underwater camera as a suprise to give him on the plane for treating me to hol. really looking forward, I hope its paradise that I have been dreaming about!!! Makes working these long 12hr night shifts easier, thinking of thursday!!