Originally Posted by
evergrn
Thanks for the link.
No, not a done deal. The hotel booking is cancellable, but I haven't yet booked the flight.
I've seen the seen the advisory from US State Dept... seems not too different from what I recall reading last year prior to our trip to Maldives. But this UK one I'd not seen before, and that does look more worrisome. Just when I was feeling relieved by dav662's info that there're no private firearms in Maldives...
If it were up to you, would you feel comfortable going to Maldives later this year in spite of UK's travel advisory?
I recognise there's a threat of terrorism just about everywhere, but I don't want to be paralysed by fear so If I am drawn to somewhere, I'll go. At my last place of work we paid the fees of a company that assessed travel risks, and we were mandated to follow the advice given: but for personal travel I never accessed that facility.
But I'm not a dare-devil, and placing myself in an isolated resort populated by (mainly) conspicuously wealthy westerners in the midst of a troubled region would be a step too far - at least a step that required a particularly strong incentive to overcome the unease.
For you that incentive exists, and i certainly don't knock your wish for dream fulfilment. And the odds on you enjoying a trouble-free vacation are very high, but with the caveat that the (highly unlikely) downside is catastrophic, maybe deadly, rather than annoying.
Anecdotal advice on the lines of "I was there and saw nothing untoward" isn't useful to risk assessment. If we are thinking terrorist attacks, these have a history of coming out of the blue as far as victims are aware. If governments know of threats they'll likely keep that knowledge under wraps. There were plenty of warnings of trouble brewing in Sri Lanka before the attacks last easter, which included the Shangri-la among three Colombo 5-star hotels. Some of the warnings Sri Lanka received were quite explicit, but for many reasons nothing much was done, no clear warnings were issued.