There is so much to say about Sun Island, that I have created spearate pages to tell you my feelings on:

• Accommodation
• Gay Travellers
• Service
• Food & Drink
• Activities
• All Inclusive
  
• Sting Ray Feeding
• Spa

Please use the links to the right, or email me if you have a question you would like answered.

Internet Access at Sun Island

A quick note about internet access at Sun Island.   Sun Island has a Business Centre, but makes no attempt to pretend to be a business venue or conference hotel.  Luckily.

Mobile phone reception was SUPERB (im with 02) and i used my phone to get my email and this worked fine without changing any of the setup options.

You can get online two ways at Sun Island - in your room, or in the Business Centre ( dont let the name fool you - read on....)  There is NO wireless connection!  Its a superb relaxing island, well suited to business and conference use IF it offered a broadband wireless connections.  It doesn't.

Leave your laptop at home, coz it aint gonna be any use to you what-so-ever at Sun Island.  ( you COULD bluetooth to your phone, dial up a UK access number and use that connection, but the cost of phone calls from your mobile back to the UK mean its probably cheaper to fly the person over to meet you rather then send them an email)

Internet access in your bedroom

All rooms have a very very slow internet access through their TV - costs about 50p for 15 minutes.  Even at this price, its not good value for money.  It is so dreadfully slow, I feel it would be quicker to fly back to england, check my email and then fly back to Sun Island.  Its worth looking at Sky News or the BBC homepage if you are missing the UK, but dont plan on doing any work or accessing company intranets from it.

Internet access in the Business Centre

"Ok boys, what were going to do is stick 8 low spec pc's in a room sharing a 56k dialup connection with a networked printer and call it a "business centre"  Job Done."

There are small charges to use the Business Centre - about a quid for half an hour - but even at this price, its not good.

Its *meant* to open a few times during the day, including from 2-6pm.  Most days at half past two i went to Reception to ask if any of the staff were going to bother unlocking it...

I wanted to do 3 things -

• Check my Yahoo email
• Read Skynews.com
• Log into my work email

Now the fun begins...  They have eight pcs running Windows but with NO security software that you would find in an internet cafe, so the operating system files are vulnerable.   Anyone who has used the pc before you can put on a keylogger or trojan or set up proxy servers to capture all the information entered on the keyboard. To prove the point, i made a fake .dll file, and saved it on one of the PCs /system32/ folders.  My dll file was just a text file saying "hello" but anyone with other intentions could have infected the pc.

It aint safe to do any "business" here, but you should be ok checking your personal email, if it wasnt for the point below -

Internet speed

The Maldives is a very anti drugs country.  It shows.  Even the internet connection could really do with a line of amphetamines.

It took me 15 mins to log into Yahoo.  It took 10 mins to have the full Sky News home page.   I gave up after trying to log into to my work email after 20 minutes.

If you have a day to spare and wish to check your email, you can do so, but dont expect to be able to do any internet based work here.

I really do appreciate this is an island in the middle of the indian ocean relying on satellite connections.  But the cell phone network is SO good here, its only a matter of investment to turn this to a 3G network and offer faster satellite connection speeds, which in turn mean the whole island could offer wireless connection and then appeal to a lot more "business type" people.