Honeymoon in the Maldives

[K50 DEL]

For reasons best known only to my drunken alter-ego, I have told my sister and her other half that I will pay for the their honeymoon when they get married later in the year.

They've decided on a week in the Maldives, but as none of us have been there before, I'm looking for some advice on where exactly to send them....

I'd like it to be fairly close to the airport (I've heard stories of 5hr transfers, don't fancy that much)
I'd also like it to be a little villa / hut type thing over the water.

Beyond those 2 criteria, I'm not sure.

I've been looking at Cocoa Island, Kurumathi and Mirihi Island so far, but they're all on different atolls and I have no idea....

HELP!

[Rgee]

Me and my other half went to the Maldives for 7 nights in the first week in December and it is without doubt the best place I have ever been to. Like you I was at first clueless about where to go as not all resorts are the same and there are soooo many to choose from. But luckily stumbled on maldivesdirect.co.uk who gave me excellent advice/options and booked half board at Constance Halaveli in the North Atoll. The resort is 5* plus and it was a bit more than I wanted to pay but the deal was too good. The island was heaven on earth, pure white sand and you could walk round it in 10 minutes. We stayed in a water villa with its own plunge pool and balcony with steps straight into the lagoon where you could snorkel in the clear waters. Venture a bit further to where the water deepens and we saw reef sharks and rays. Although there were around 88 villas (with 60% occupancy at the time) we hardly saw anyone, most times we had a whole beach to ourselves. If you really have deep pockets they have a 3 double bedroom presidential villa for $10k per night!! And Roger Federer stayed there last year and it has its own kitchen, gym, spa room so they come to you.

As for the flights there are a number of options. BA fly direct (more expensive) to Male international airport or Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways fly with one stop over in their respective countries. We took the Emirates route with a 3 hour stop over in Dubai outbound and 1.5 hours coming back. This splits the journey up to 7.5/3.5 hours. Depending on the flight options you take you can have a longer stopover. If I was to do this again I would probably have a couple of nights in Dubai. Once you get there, depending on where you stay, you either transfer to the resort via speedboat or seaplane. We took the latter which took about 25 mins and just added to the experience.

Best time to go is around Nov to Mar. I chose start of December as the monsoon season should have ended by then. In the week we were there the temperature was about 30 degrees, it rained (heavily) a couple times during the night but come morning you would not have known. We only saw rain once, on the last evening and boy did it chuck it down. Never seen anything like it.

Good luck and hope it turns out to be an unforgettable experience for them.

Edited by Rgee on Sunday 30th December 17:26

[0000]

We enjoyed Komandoo, via Emirates using Kuoni.

[m3jappa]

I'm going in febuary to vilamendhoo, I spent weeks researching and this one came out on top with regard to price, house reef, accommodation etc.

No doubt there is a lot better but then the price will be significantly more! For us we wanted nice accommodation and an excellent house reef. It appears there's places with superb accommodation but poor house reefs and nothing to do.
Went through Thompson, direct flights to male then a sea plane ride for about half hour.
Let's hope Thompson are ok....

Fingers crossed its all good. The last holiday we went on to Florida was pretty much ruined due to extreme rain

I think though that from research that by and large everywhere is nice.

[amir_j]

0000 said:

We enjoyed Komandoo, via Emirates using Kuoni.

Same here, nice song they have

Op - would recommend you getting them somewhere with a sea plane transfer rather than boat. View from above is fantastic and enhances the experience.

Also some islands are adult only, if a honeymoon then those may be the ones to choose.

[Mastodon2]

amir_j said:

Op - would recommend you getting them somewhere with a sea plane transfer rather than boat. View from above is fantastic and enhances the experience.

I'd definitely agree with that. The second time I went with the Mrs, our seaplane transfer back to the airport took off in a monsoon storm (we were there in June), what an experience. The plane even had tiny little windscreen wipers going, but there was so much rain hitting the windscreen as we climbed towards the clouds, they might as well have not been there.

When we went, both times in June, it was hot, damn hot, we were drinking like fishes while were there just to stay hydrated. It rained a few times, as you'd expect in monsoon season, though we didn't have any "rainy days", just some days where it would go from blue sky to cloudy in about 30 minutes, rain like hell for 10 minutes and then the sun came out again. Quite unusual compared to what we are used to in the UK.

[amir_j]

One more tip, we split our time between the cheaper huts on beach at start with last nights in the more expensive water villas.

Both OH and I actually preferred the beach huts as can open the door and be on the beach, a few steps from the sea. , whereas with the water villas, yes had the steps into the water but was a trek to the beach.

[0000]

amir_j said:

Same here, nice song they have

amir_j said:

One more tip, we split our time between the cheaper huts on beach at start with last nights in the more expensive water villas.

Both OH and I actually preferred the beach huts as can open the door and be on the beach, a few steps from the sea. , whereas with the water villas, yes had the steps into the water but was a trek to the beach.

Likewise. For me there was something about having your 'own' bit of beach from which to watch people under the midday sun hopping barefoot over the wooden walkways to get to the restaurant that seemed preferable! Can't think I'd complain though if someone else shouted me a water villa!

[JQ]

0000 said:

We enjoyed Komandoo, via Emirates using Kuoni.

We did the same. Possibly going back there for our 10yr anniversary.

[clarkey]

We had our honeymoon at Kuramathi. It was OK, but probably not quite up to what I expected.
negatives:
3 hour wait for a sea plane transfer
food OK at best
not that much to do evenings
expensive if you want a hut on stilts

positives
great beaches
amazing sea life
good value
ideal for a honeymoon

We'd go back, but that's some way off now as we have two boys, 2 and a half and 6 months old.....

[K50 DEL]

Now that's the sort of thing I'm trying to avoid... a 3hr wait for the plane would put a real dampner on the whole thing I would think.... I wonder if all the seaplane transfers involve a wait of that length? maybe best to arrive by speedboat and leave by plane if so.

[0000]

I don't remember waiting particularly long to get on the seaplane and certainly not on the way back!

Gave me a chuckle waiting for the seaplane on the way in though when the ear plugs were handed out and after watching people figure out how to use them they then played the safety video - with everyone else trying to listen through their ear plugs.

It was very much part of the experience for us.

[JQ]

K50 DEL said:

Now that's the sort of thing I'm trying to avoid... a 3hr wait for the plane would put a real dampner on the whole thing I would think.... I wonder if all the seaplane transfers involve a wait of that length? maybe best to arrive by speedboat and leave by plane if so.

We waited around 40mins for the seaplane transfer. As others have said, the sea plane transfer is part of the whole experience and definitely worth doing.

[CooperS]

JQ said:

We waited around 40mins for the seaplane transfer. As others have said, the sea plane transfer is part of the whole experience and definitely worth doing.

Agreed, Sea Plane was a cool experience although I felt for the guys who had to be in that building with one bar for more than the 30 minutes we had to wait.

I stayed 12 nights in a water villa on Chayaa Lagon. It's not the rangali in luxury but it is very peaceful, great food and nice huts. Some of the other bigger Atolls are too busy for me and lose the charm of being on a secluded island.

[Rgee]

Taxi!!!



From what I could work out there are no set times to the islands. They get the number of passengers and destinations the day before then work it out from there. If you are lucky, like we were, your island is the first stop otherwise it could be some island hopping. Some resorts have their own lounge and lay on their own mini bus from the main airport to the seaplane port, which is only a 7 minute ride otherwise you wait in the main hall. From leaving the main airport we had a 35 mins wait in the lounge then a 25 mins seaplane journey.