It takes discipline and dedication to do nothing.

Maldives is a classy "fly and flop" destination offering no expectation of you other than to do, well, just nothing.

We get it. This a choice for people exhausted by their existence, cowered by their corporate world and wanting to blow a fortune on, well, doing nothing. Our fellow guests do not seem to be honeymooners as we had expected, rather older, high end vacationers.

The full force of the monsoon has arrived early with sudden, short lived, heavy squalls and rain. It makes exciting watching from the shelter of our veranda, our airconditioned room or in the resort restaurants. It has the result of fellow guests only ever appearing at meal times. Occasionally there is a siting of fellow guests snorkelling or sunbaking in a moment of rare sunshine and calm.

We carry on regardless. Our daily stroll around the island takes about twenty minutes if we go slow. We see no one else taking a constitutional. We walk past the gym and it is empty. Guests are eternally "flopped" and glued to their phones.

We do have TV - of a sorts. We watch Fox Crime and National Geographic and the BBC as the monsoon howls. The delightful BBC is a reminder to us that in Australia we are insulated from real world news. Nobody does it quite like the BBC with their posh accents and understatements.

By day 3 of 7 we were making enquiries as to borrowing scrabble. This was met with a slightly incredulous look and an offer of a battered incomplete monopoly box or a chess set as our only choices. We have of course brought books and crosswords. We've had a massage each and fitted snorkelling into our "busy" schedule. Being a captive guest on a small island has the feel of a cruise ship but without all the things to do or the shore escapes.

We've managed way too well on our included half board of breakfast and dinner, but not so well on alcohol given that the cheapest red wine, a very average bottle of red is $US70 ($A93)! Luckily, having emailed ahead that we were celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary, we were given 2 bottles of a rather delicious French red wine and this has been carefully rationed and enjoyed in our room. It gives us a feel of being teenagers pre-loading before a party.

We've had enough of doing nothing now. Our 25th wedding anniversary has been well and truly celebrated and we are looking forward to a very busy next two weeks in Sri Lanka.