Early impressions as follows (but we only arrived on Boxing Day) - here until the 5th so no doubt my views might change plus I’m yet to experience NYE here yet!

The most noticeable difference has been that the place is genuinely busy. They always claim it’s at full occupancy in August but you can reliably book any restaurant only hours before and always get a seat on the beach in the bar etc and frankly the place feels extremely quiet with few people around at times - I guess somewhat lacking in atmosphere but very peaceful as a result. The last couple of nights (but it is festive season rather than simply December/January so I’d imagine I’m seeing an even more extreme version) have been by contrast extremely busy - hard to find a table on the sand in the bar to watch the sunset, some restaurants saying they’re full but they’ll find a way for us. The happy hour and aftertea absolutely max’d out.

The difference is also exaggerated by the difference in clientele. August seems to have couples and foursomes, with the odd kids and few large groups. This time of year seems to have more groups of 6/8+ than smaller groups and as you can imagine a lot of kids. However, strangely in terms of noise it’s rather quieter! Mainly Europeans and Japanese, so I guess stereotypically more reserved compared to the natural culture of the mainland Chinese who seem to dominate the bookings in August. It’s also very noticeably obvious that people here this time of year are vastly more wealthy. Our room (just a RWV) was $53k (versus about a fifth of that in August) for the 10 nights at rack-rate, which thank God we didn’t have to pay, so I guess it’s not surprise that we’re seeing the generality being people are sitting on the beach drinking the premium wines, playing continuously on the jet-blade, filling the restaurants etc rather than the buffet.

In the dozen or so August years we’ve come here we’ve only had a few days where the water has been like a flat sheet of glass. Equally it rarely noticeably wavy but nonetheless the difference between flat-calm and rippled water is huge when you’re walking along the oversea walkways and looking down into the water. It’s only a sample of a couple of days but people are telling me this time of year is normally like this. It’s a lot more humid and the sun feels stronger, but neither unbearable at all.

I’ve never eaten in the buffet here and was pretty anti the thought of doing so for NYE, but the staff we’ve got to know here over the years know us well and are telling us it’s pretty special and we’ll love it and it’s what we should do. Different in itself from August where the whole game appears to be to upsell people. So, we’re going to give it a go! I’ll let you know on Jan 1, but unlike MaldivesFreak who likes to be tucked up in bed by 8pm, earplugs inserted, determined to resist any fun, and laying in bed jotting down his notes on noise ready to be up at 6am and go complain on Jan 1.... we fully intend to ensure we are the ones being complained about for falling in the bushes giggling on the way home at 4am... so I may not post until Jan 2!

Also, the water sports guys have continued to come up with new things/ideas. They had new underwater jet skis in August which are lighter and faster... and today that came and found me and talked me into going outside the lagoon with them tomorrow for a couple of hours to play with dolphins chasing them along under water on them, which apparently the dolphins quite like! I’m pretty competitive so I hope to report back that the humans were victorious!

Using the jet blade this time of year appears to be out of the question though as the 8 year old kids doing it for their first time ever just seem to pick it up straight away and be brilliant at it... so you just look like a fool as an old person following them - and they stay and watch and laugh at you and of all the cheek then start coaching you from the beach!!