//Summary//
Unsure how anyone could rate this hotel anything less than 5 stars. It’s the best example of paradise I have seen and judging by the steer amount of ‘returners’ (people who come back year after year), I’m confident the vast majority would agree (more on why they come back later).
The staff are extremely friendly and polite. Our waiter Ilham was very attentive, lovely to speak to and generally a great laugh, Irham who tidied our room every day, went above and beyond whenever he could and Avoy was extremely friendly and welcoming every day at breakfast. All the other staff we spoke to were lovely and are a credit to the resort.
//Break Down//
-Weather-
Our biggest concern going into the holiday was the weather. A lot of information we read was conflicting and the local weather reports didn’t look good.
We arrived on the 31st October for two weeks and after the first two days, the weather reports showed showers and/or thunderstorm for the remaining 12 days of our holiday.
Completely ignore these reports! During that time we only had two sets of short showers during the day and one persistent set of rain on the morning we left (last from 9pm until 11am).
-Money-
Everything is priced in US Dollars. It’s important to note that you don’t need any physical cash unless you want to tip. Everything is put on your ‘room’ to be settled in cash or card when checking out. To give you a steer on the cost, we spent £740 on a whale shark trip, nurse shark trip, turtle trip, a manta ray trip & two fridge magnets at the shop (all trips for two people). Not cheap but we’re all worth it (will attach some photos).
-Travel-
A quick note on travel, the sea plane trip lasts around 30 minutes but you might be unlucky (like we were) by having to wait 3-4 hours at Male airport for the transfer to the resort. It felt fairly brutal after travelling nearly 17 hours from the UK after a brief stop in Doha.
-Hotel/Island-
The resort is small. Only 900 meters long by 50 meters wide. Considering the hotel was 85-95% full while we were here, it felt incredibly quiet and peaceful. Other guests were quiet and reserved (not once did I hear shouting or music other than the main entertainment). Saying this, the average age of people on the resort is older so not exactly club 18-30 😂
The resort seems particularly popular with Germans and Swiss guests. I think the next largest majority would be British.
After speak to one German Couple (for context, they have been back 8 times here after visiting 7 other islands), they said they come back here as the island is nice and small (some other islands are rather large), the resort has its own coral (more on this later) and generally the other guests tend to be German/Swiss who they can speak to in German or English.
-Food-
Food was great and we felt like we had great choice each night (they having a themed night for each day of the week).
My partner is a vegetarian and she had no issue at all.
If you have any allergies then they seem very accommodating and all the food is clearly labelled (including if it’s suitable for vegetarians/vegans and how spicy it is).
The only shame for me personally (I know this is being picky so shame on me), the chicken almost always had bones in it which put me off having the curries which were delicious.
As part of our stay, we could go to the Asian resturant twice. We went once and enjoyed the view (worth going at least once), but we generally preferred the food at the main resturant (that was just our personal preference and the food at the Asian Restaurant was good).
-Wild Life-
If you love wild life (like we do), then this is the place for you. I’ll start with the non-trip wild life that you get to see around the island.
Herons - They are everywhere (and even take a dip in the pool). They are fairly tame and normally let you walk within a few meters of them.
Fruit Bats - Hard to take a photo of as you only see then flying (they fly around during the day).
Lizards - See them typically around the trees near the beach.
Geckos - Will likely see them in your bathroom (more why later).
Various tropical fish - The resort has its own coral (which a good number of other islands do not). You can see them all in abundance (clown fish, angel fish, parrot fish).
Sharks - You can easily see them swimming close to the shore (they are only small and are very cute). Hard to see them snorkelling as they are quite skittish.
Rays - If you keep an eye out, you should get to see some sting rays and eagle rays. We saw a sting Ray around the Asian Restaurant and around the beach outside villa 125 several times, typically early in the morning. Do watch out as they can sting you if you step on them as they tend to lie and semi bury themselves close to the shore. They are more afraid of you so just ‘shuffle’ your feet when walking into the water as this will scare them off before you stand on them. For Eagle Rays (have beautiful spots on top) we saw one while walking along the water villas (early in the morning, around 7am) and we also snorkelled into a group of 3 while snorkelling at the coral just outside our room (as soon as they saw us, they swam off very quickly, will as a picture of the blurred gopro footage I have).
Turtles - You will likely see turtles come up for air around the island (we only saw this along the south east of the island where our room was) however, it’s rare to see them in the water as they are so camouflaged and only seem to be out in the early morning (6.30-8am).
We were however lucky enough on one occasion to see a Turtle whilst snorkelling in the water (will add a photo).
Trips (General)
As a general tip, we split up all the trips as much as possible. Your group tends to be smaller, you have break it up more over your holiday and you don’t have to spend the whole day wet. It’s also worth noting that it’s not uncommon to go out and not see anything at all so I would prepare yourself to have a ‘no show’ trip which you still have to pay for. We got lucky and this didn’t happen but we were aware of this happening to other people.
Whale Shark Trip - If you have never seen them before, then I highly advise that you go. For anyone worried about deep water, you can can see the bottom when looking at them (around 15 meters deep). It took around an hour to get there, an hour in the water (in and out) with an hour back.
My biggest advice is to ‘be on the ball’ and get off the boat promptly. You will very likely have other groups of people on boats trying to see the same whale shark as you (it was us and 3 other boats so maybe around 40 people total). It would be easy to get into the water last, be stuck behind everyone and only see the whale shark when it has swum downwards (they tend to swim down slowly when too many people are around). Don’t worry if you get unlucky on your first attempt (like I was). You will be getting on and off the boat around 5-7 times as the boat tries to catch up to the same whale shark again or another one.
Turtle Trip - Funnily enough happened on the same day we saw the turtle in the morning around the resort. Lovely short trip, was only us and one other couple. Only 20 minutes on the boat to get there and saw 3 different turtles. You could just sit there and watch them. Truly amazing. Would be a great trip for weaker swimmers.
Manta Ray Trip - This was personally my favourite. They are HUGE. Out of all the trips, these were by far the hardest to see and they also swim very fast, so more than anything, you need to be on the ball to get a good view but you do get on and off the boat several times to see them so there are multiple opportunities. The visibility on our trip wasn’t as good (unsure if this is standard or not, could have just been the weather that day). Like the whale sharks, be prepared to get on and off the boat several times and be quick to get in the water.
Out of all the trips, I think this would be the worst one for weak swimmers.
Nurse Shark Trip - Probably my least favourite out of the trips but still loved it. It takes around 75 minutes (via speed boat) to get there. You arrive with other boats who are feeding crabs to the sharks so you see plenty very easily. You travel another 10 minutes to see a ship wreck which is fairly cool.
-Room-
We have an a-joining beach villa. I was concerned about hearing people next door but I didn’t hear anyone once over two weeks so this is nothing to worry about. The air conditioning works very well and the mini bar is very well stocked (even with cold coffee!)
Do be warned that the bathroom is ‘outside’ meaning that basically half the bathroom area is open air (surrounded by a 8ft-9ft wall). You do get used to this and you actually learn to love it (a bit odd at first though). This is why you can’t fly drones on the island.
Regarding the ‘best’ rooms, here’s my advice. I will refer to the rooms as North West, North East, South West & South East so you will need to look at a map.
Personally, I would avoid rooms on the South West of the island as they have little to no beach. These villas tend be the adult only/jacuzzi.
The North side of the Island has biggest beach however, the water is typically covered in stones and coral so it’s not that great for paddling (it’s the more beautiful side of the island though).
The South East (where we were) was perfect for us. You get a great view of both the sun rise and sun set on the beach, the coral is literally 10 meters away (on the other side it’s more like 30-40 meters away) and the beach is lovely. The ONLY downside is that there are white painted concrete blocks to protect the beach. On top of this, one of the main swimming pools (which has a pool bar) which is usually quiet is very close to the middle of this beach (and was directly behind our room of 111). It was perfect to swim in after a snorkel.
-Other-
Meals - You are allocated a table at the start of your holiday which is yours for the whole visit. We were very lucky (kind of, will explain in a minute) to be sat at the front to see out of the restaurant. If you don’t like your table, I would ask if you could change first thing.
Footware - The resort is 100% sand, I didn’t wear any shoes, socks or flip flops for two weeks (amazing). On that note, I never wore trousers either, always shorts.
Wheel Chairs/Buggies - Even though the resort is all sand, in reality, the majority is sand covered concrete (you only notice this now and then when it’s rained and has washed some of the sand away).
Mosquitoes - They love me, whichever holiday I go on, they find me once it has gone dark (even when I put spray on). Sadly it was no different here. They mainly got me when I was eating at night (the downfall of having a nice table at the front). It didn’t ruin my holiday, just a sad reality of reacting badly to them. My partner barely gets bitten by them and only had around 5 total across two weeks sitting in the same place and putting the same spray on.
