Soneva is ready to welcome back guests from around the world, implementing a "new normal" at its single-resort islands, ensuring the highest standards of safety and wellness for guests and hosts.
Soneva unveiled its new guidelines, processes and procedures in the wake of COVID-19 with a video, The New Normal: Soneva's Response to COVID-19. Soneva's goal is to ensure that each of its private-island resorts is COVID-19-free, so that guests can relax in the knowledge that everything is being done to prevent COVID-19 from reaching its shores.
Upon arrival in the Maldives—which reopens to international tourists on July 15—guests will be greeted by a Soneva airport host and escorted to undergo a COVID-19 test using a Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) Test Report machine. Once arriving at either Soneva Fushi or Soneva Jani, guests will be escorted to their villas, and are requested to remain there until the test results are received and are negative, a process that takes between six and 24 hours. As soon as a negative result is confirmed, guests are free to roam anywhere in the coronavirus-free island resort.
In cases where the COVID-19 test result is positive, the resort will ask COVID-positive guests, as well as those traveling with them, to isolate in their villa. In this case, Soneva will waive the daily room rate of the villa for the next 14 days. Should any guest develop severe symptoms and have to be hospitalized, a COVID-19-experienced hospital is just 10 minutes by boat from Soneva Fushi.
Soneva has also implemented enhanced cleaning and sanitation protocols across each resort in collaboration with hygiene certification organizations. All Soneva hosts are required to undergo the same COVID-19 testing procedures as the guests, while all materials and produce brought onto the islands will undergo intense cleaning and sanitization prior to being brought on site. The Chocolate Rooms will now be manned by pastry chefs, who have moved there, so guests can watch them make (and serve) the chocolate. Soneva's breakfast and lunch buffets will remain, but with Soneva's hosts doing the serving.
Good to know: This July Soneva Fushi is unveiling eight new Water Retreats. These one- and two-bedroom overwater villas are among the largest in The Maldives, created with sustainably sourced materials. Each has with its own pool, retractable roof and water slide that leads directly into the Indian Ocean. Soneva has also launched a series of new "conscious experiences" to encourage guests to travel for good, including participating in beach clean-ups, visiting local island communities, bringing turtles back to the open waves, and installing coral fragments to the ocean.
Tip: Guests can buy out the entire Soneva Fushi island resort at a special rate, starting at $100,000 per day. This "Castaway Buyout" offer is valid for stays from now until July 25, as well as from September 1 – 30, 2020. A minimum three-night stay is required, and the package rate is based on the room only.
Related Articles
Soneva Fushi to Launch Overwater Villas in the Maldives
Anantara Hotels, Resorts & Spas Offers Private Island Buyouts
Small Luxury Hotels Announces “Stay Small, Stay Safe” Initiative
Shangri-La Group Debuts New Hygiene Protocols at All Properties