Our family (including two older teenagers) enjoyed a truly excellent stay at Dhigali in late December into early January. We rated it very highly in all areas, with only a couple of very small issues (and one slightly bigger disappointment). All-in-all a great stay on a beautiful island, enhanced by consistently tremendous staff throughout the resort during our stay.
Travel:
We opted for seaplane transfers and we were well looked after on arriving in Male. We had only around an hour wait in the comfortable lounge and enjoyed the hour or so plane ride (with a stop in another resort on the way). The welcome at Dhigali was warm and check in was smooth with a good briefing. We arrived early afternoon and our rooms were ready, which was very welcome.
The return journey was pretty stressful though; I think the seaplane times are outside the hotel’s control, but we eventually arrived into Male airport only an hour before our 9am scheduled Emirates flight to Dubai and then had to navigate the slightly chaotic airport. Lots of others seemed to be in the same boat luckily so the flight was delayed and we made it, but watch out for the return transfer times.
The resort:
Dhigali is a stunning island. It’s about 2km to walk all around; not too big but also not too small. Just right for us. The beaches are beautiful and it’s picture perfect. The facilities are well spread out, and apart from the new year’s eve dinner, it never felt at all crowded which was a real bonus given it’s a really popular time of year.
We walked around almost all of the time but there are two buggies rotating the island which generally aren’t too far away from you and you can track on the Dhigali app. The app is actually pretty useful – you get logged in at check in and you can check/make restaurant & activity bookings, see what’s on each day, check restaurant menus etc. Definitely worth a look before arriving.
We had great weather most of the time, though it was really tropical on new year’s eve. There was the odd, usually short sharp shower throughout our 10 days but generally great and very warm. If you’re looking for 100% guarantee of no rain, even in dry season, then the Maldives isn’t the place.
Accommodation:
We stayed in two adjacent deluxe beach bungalows on the south side of Dhigali – a short walk from the Faru restaurant/Haali bar and the spa. The bungalows were excellent – modern, high quality, decent amount of space, nice outdoor bathrooms and the rooms were well made up and turned down each day. The inclusive minibar is topped up daily and has a good selection of drinks and snacks and is a nice touch. There’s a nice terrace outside leading to the lovely beach (with sunbeds). There are a couple of beach towels in each room (which you don’t need to take to the main beach).
The rooms are designed to be doubles not twins, so one of our boys enjoyed the double bed whilst the other got landed with a foldaway bed – not ideal but he coped fine. A twin option would have been nice.
Food & drink:
We very much enjoyed the variety and quality of food and consistently excellent service across the four restaurants. We did a mix of them all and would do the same again. Not normally huge fans of a buffet, but the quality and variety of food were really good. In the a la carte options there are a few items which attract a supplement beyond the all inclusive but we never found the need to go near them. You can check the full menus on the app (and our boys managed to get sides of fries everywhere if they didn’t love some of the sides). Nice to be able to get bottles of wine from a decent wine list.
Breakfast is at the main Capers buffet restaurant and was great – huge choice and temptation every day. Lunch was either buffet at Capers (very good) or a la carte at Faru (also very good) which was a bit more sedate than the buffet.
We used the pizza takeaway a few times – excellent quality and a useful option.
There are two main bars – the east bar next to the main beach and Haali bar on the opposite side. Different options and both excellent. Great range of drinks and very friendly, personal and excellent service. The views and setting at Haali are as good as the pictures make out. Also good beach drinks service at the main beach.
And we had coffees, smoothies and the odd sandwich at the coffee shop (near reception) which was also good.
We stayed over new year’s eve so part of the package was the gala dinner. I think the supplement per adult is $300 or so, so it’s not a cheap night out on top of the standard daily rate (though really common and there was a pretty grand party planned). The weather was terrible all day, so management had to radically change the plans and for us it led to a really disappointing evening. We queued for 45 minutes to be seated for the meal (partly in the rain); there were other problems too and it really didn’t feel anywhere near good value. But we sympathised massively with the staff who had to work really hard to adapt to the weather. It took the edge off the evening but definitely not the holiday. Some of the buffet food options (steak, lobster, crab etc) were really, really good.
Activities & entertainment:
We found the snorkelling to be sensational – the variety and quantity of fish plus the odd ray, shark, turtle, eel within and outside the rock walls at the drop off were just amazing. We loved it and did loads of it across the resort. We found the best bit to be between Haali towards the dive centre but good everywhere.
The all inclusive package includes a glass bottom boat trip and a choice of a longer dolphin or sunset cruise. The glass bottom boat ride was OK but nowhere near as good as the snorkelling. The dolphin cruise was great.
There’s generally entertainment (DJ, violinist, saxophonist, singer) each evening somewhere in the resort and we found it OK. Some was very good and some comically bad!
The gym is decent (3 treadmills, couple of cross trainers, rower, some weights) and there's a games room next to it. We used the spa only once but found it very good.
Summary:
We loved our holiday in practically every way. Dhigali is a beautiful, high quality resort with great accommodation, food & drink, lovely beaches and really consistently terrific staff (we also saw and spoke to the resort manager Chris regularly and he’s very present). We very much miss every part of being there! We’ll most certainly return to the Maldives and whilst there’s a lot of choice, Dhigali would 100% be on our shortlist.
