Conrad Maldives Rangali Island is a five-star hotel in the Maldives that offers unique and luxurious lodgings in the region’s first underwater bungalow. While most people would jump at the chance to rest in a cozy bed while they watch aquatic life swim overhead, it’s only the sleepers who can afford to pay $50,000 a night who are allowed to do so.
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The bungalow is called Muraka, which means ‘coral’ in the local language, and by the time it opens at the end of this year, it will have cost 15 million dollars to build. Architect Ahmed Saleem thinks if you’ve got the dough, it’s well worth the experience:
‘‘The Muraka promises a unique experience that is not available anywhere else in the world”.
Guests of the Muraka are offered more than just a bed underwater; each guest is flown to a private seaplane and picked up in a speedboat that they are allowed to use for the duration of their stay. Unlike the rest of Conrad’s beach villas, the Muraka is completely set apart from the other bungalows. They designed it this way so that if guests don’t want to see anybody or do anything other than lie in bed with their partner, they don’t have to.
Some people might think this is all a bit…much — but the overseer of Hilton’s luxury lifestyle brands doesn’t feel that way. He says, “It’s a perfect example of the out-of-the-box thinking that meets guests demands before they even have them,’’. He continued, ‘‘The Maldives is indeed a competitive destination, but also a destination where guests expect the best,’.
For (wealthy) folks who want to add an underwater nap to their bucket list of unique sleep experiences, the Muraka is not a bad place to start. In the mean time, all we can do is hope that other hotel companies will be inspired by this aquatic sleep space and design something a little easier on our budgets.
Featured image: @conrad_maldives