“Our Island Home”

We’re sitting at home looking back on our seventh fabulous visit and superb holiday on Komandoo with the fantastic champions, and we can’t recommend it enough. We were met off the seaplane by Munish, our island host, and then by Madhah, who was looking after Komandoo when we arrived. The greeting i… more

We’re sitting at home looking back on our seventh fabulous visit and superb holiday on Komandoo with the fantastic champions, and we can’t recommend it enough. We were met off the seaplane by Munish, our island host, and then by Madhah, who was looking after Komandoo when we arrived. The greeting is something we always look forward to. The island itself is beautiful, with gardens which get better each trip – there have been improvements since our last visit two years ago. The green ladies and garden champions do a fantastic job. This time we stayed in an ocean jacuzzi water villa. We were looked after by Azmeel, with a lovely “welcome home” bed decoration on arrival. He also did a beautiful bed decoration on our anniversary, and created something on several other days too - we cannot thank him enough for keeping our room cleaned to a high standard. The sea walls have had repairs done, and an island with trees has been created in the lagoon outside Falhu restaurant. The snorkelling is a highlight for us, and it didn’t disappoint. The reef is starting to show some coral re-growth, which is very encouraging. Amongst the many things we saw were moray eels, lion fish, sharks, octopus, lobster, turtles (of course), and several beautiful eagle rays. A big thank you also to the boat crews who took us through a pod of dolphins on our sunset cruise. On the way back we saw a beautiful sunset. The executive chef, Alex, has further improved the already excellent food, in both Aqua and Falhu restaurants. Earlier this year, he was deservedly promoted to Executive Chef, having covered the post for some time. His passion, enthusiasm, skill and ideas will all serve to further enhance the overall dining experience. We dined in Aqua several times, as part of the all-inclusive, as well as on our anniversary, when Alex and his chef cooked us an amazing meal. Most of our meals were in the buffet restaurant Falhu. The chefs are superb - Kumar and many others. The live cooking station and barbecue are always good. We were looked after by Wahhab in the restaurant, as well as Riza, Ramiz and others, all a credit to the champions. And then there is the wonderful Amarjith. He is always keen to ensure that guests are well looked after, and genuinely cares that they are. He looked after us so well during our holiday. Thank you Amar! There are two bars. Thundi, the sunset bar, is a great place to watch the sunsets, and often has live entertainment. Kandu, the main bar, is a very relaxing place to sit. The evening entertainment is low key - we love Fazeel on a Sunday evening, with his singing, saxophone and keyboard playing. A big thank you to him for entertaining us, and playing our favourits songs. Hope we see you again soon. Friday evening is the Maldivian cultural night, performed by the champions in their own time, when they perform traditional music and dancing. We had a great time, joining in every week. Thank you to all, especially Saeed for his singing, and Sanwar for his energetic dancing. The champions in the bar deserve a special mention. They also serve the lovely infinity pool, which we used quite often. So many have become friends over the years, along with new friends we made this time - thank you to Shimal, Sanwar, Vipin, Susantha, Biji, Santhosh, Dipendra, Ibrahim. Duniye Spa is always a treat and I had a number of fabulous treatments. There are many champions at different levels behind the scenes who don’t always get a mention, and they all do an amazing job helping to make our holiday so fantastic, including, Senthil, Sara, Anoop, Mohammed, Rishan and many more. We were lucky enough to meet up with Solah and Lisa, spending a lovely afternoon with them. Congratulations Solah on becoming Chief Executive Officer of Crown and Champa. We were fortunate to meet the new GM, Beyya, who started a few days before we left. We hope he will continue to enhance what is to us a beautiful paradise island. I’m sure there are things we have missed, so just want to reiterate that each and every one of the champions deserves credit - they all contribute to our holiday! We were very privileged to meet many more of them on this trip. Many of them got up early to come and say goodbye to us on the jetty, so thank you to you all – Beyya, Madhah, Amar, Alex, Munish, Senthil. Can’t wait for the next visit.......

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