What we would skip in the Maldives
This is the article that costs us money, and we write one for every destination we sell.
The Maldives is a country where almost everything is optional and almost everything is expensive, which makes the skip list unusually long and unusually valuable. Nothing below is a scam. Most of it is competently delivered. It is simply not worth what it costs, and we would rather you spent the money on the parts of this trip that are genuinely extraordinary.
| Skip | Spend it on instead | |
|---|---|---|
| The room | The overwater villa on the wrong island | A beach villa with direct reef access |
| The board | Room-only on any resort island | Half board, or full board with children |
| The transfer | A seaplane to an island a speedboat could reach | Two more nights, or a better room |
| The evening | The underwater restaurant | A table set on the beach |
| The trip length | Four nights as a standalone holiday | Seven nights, or five after Sri Lanka |
Things we would skip outright
The four-night standalone trip
If you are flying from Europe or North America and the Maldives is the entire holiday, four nights is not enough. You get two complete days: the arrival day goes to the transfer, and the departure day to an eleven o’clock check-out and a flight that leaves at midnight.
Four or five nights is excellent as the second half of a longer trip. As the whole of a long-haul holiday it is a poor use of the money and the flying. See how many days do you need in the Maldives.
Room-only, on any resort island
The most expensive false economy in the country. A room-only rate looks competitive against half board, and then you discover there is no other restaurant, no shop, nowhere to walk to, and that lunch, dinner and drinks for two at resort prices run $240 to $500 a day.
We price half board as standard and show you the room-only comparison so you can see the arithmetic. The only case where room-only wins is a small island with several good restaurants and a traveller who intends to eat lightly.
The overwater villa on the wrong island
Roughly half the overwater villas in this country are worth the supplement and roughly half are not, and they cost the same.
What makes one worth it: deep clear water beneath the deck, open sea in front, privacy from the neighbouring villas, and reef you can reach by swimming from your own ladder. What makes one not: shallow sand under the deck, a view of the back of the next villa, a public walkway passing the door, and a fifteen minute walk to breakfast in full sun. Every photograph of both is taken from the one angle that works.
On the second sort of island, a good beach villa with direct reef access is a better room for less money, and we will say so by name. See the Maldives for the first time.
The underwater restaurant
There are several and they are impressive engineering. They are also a $200 to $400 per person set menu of food that would be $60 anywhere else, eaten in a low-lit acrylic tube in seventy-five minutes because the next sitting is waiting. If you want to eat surrounded by fish, snorkel before lunch. If you want one memorable dinner, ask for a table on the beach, which most islands will do for a fraction of the money.
The floating breakfast
A tray of food in a raft, pushed into your pool, photographed, then eaten cold while you try not to capsize it. Swim in the pool and eat at a table.
Learning to dive on a seven night trip
An entry-level course consumes three or four days in a lagoon and a training area, which on a seven night trip is most of your holiday, followed by a no-fly interval that removes the last day. Qualify at home and come here to dive. If you want to try it, do a single introductory dive and spend the rest of the week snorkelling, which in this country gets you the whale sharks, the mantas and the turtles anyway. See diving and snorkelling the Maldives.
A seaplane to an island a speedboat could have reached
A seaplane round trip is a large per-person cost, it flies in daylight only, and it involves waits of one to three hours in both directions. Worth every part of that when the island at the other end is genuinely better. Worth none of it when a comparable island with an equal house reef sits forty minutes from the airport by boat. The saving on a couple is often $700 to $900, which is two extra nights or a room category. See what a trip to the Maldives costs.
Booking on the strength of drone photography
Every island here looks identical from 200 feet (60 m). What the image cannot show you is whether the coral is alive, how far the reef edge is from the beach, which way the villas face, how many other guests there are, and what the water does at low tide. Those five things decide your week, and none of them is in the photograph.
Things we would skip most of the time
Maafushi, if you want quiet
Maafushi did more than any island to open the Maldives to independent travellers. It is now the most built-up inhabited island in the tourist economy, with dozens of guesthouses, construction and a busy public beach. If you want cheap, convenient and social, it works. If you want a Maldivian village, go to Dhigurah or Fulidhoo. See local islands versus resort islands.
Two resorts on a seven night trip
A second transfer costs money and most of a day. On ten nights or more, splitting is often right. On seven it usually is not, unless one half is a local island, which is a genuinely different experience rather than a second version of the same one.
Night fishing, on most islands
A dhoni, a hand line and an hour and a half. On some islands, with the right crew, it is a good evening on the water. On many it is forty people catching three small fish. Ask how many are on the boat, and if the answer is vague, skip it.
The resort spa, at resort prices
Competently delivered, and $200 to $400 for a treatment that would be $60 in Colombo or Kochi. If a spa day is central to the holiday, choose an island where it is included. Otherwise it is the easiest place to spend a large sum on something available elsewhere for far less.
The Christmas and New Year fortnight
The most expensive fortnight of the year anywhere we sell, with supplements, compulsory gala dinners charged whether you attend or not, and minimum stays of seven to ten nights. The weather is genuinely excellent, which is why it is priced that way. If your dates are movable, the first half of December and the second half of January give you the same weather for much less. See the Maldives month by month.
Timing a whole trip around Hanifaru Bay
If mantas are the reason you are coming, build the trip around Baa Atoll between August and October. But if you want a beach holiday and would enjoy mantas as a bonus, do not organise your dates, your island and your budget around an aggregation that follows the moon rather than your itinerary.
Things people tell us to skip that we would not
A night in Malé or Hulhumalé when the flights demand it. It reads like a wasted day and it is the opposite: the difference between arriving rested and missing the last seaplane. And a couple of hours in Malé is the only time most visitors touch the actual country.
A local island stay, on the grounds that it will be uncomfortable. It is simple, not uncomfortable, and it is the best value in the country. See local islands and Malé in 8 days.
Half board over all inclusive, on a good island. Where the restaurants are worth eating in, half board plus paying for what you want beats a package that excludes them.
The green season. Statistically wet, frequently excellent, half the price. A gamble, and a well-priced one.
A liveaboard, if you dive. More sites in a week than a resort reaches in a month, and often cheaper per day. See diving and liveaboards in 10 days.
Combining with Sri Lanka. Ninety minutes of flying turns a beach week into a complete trip. See Sri Lanka and the Maldives in 14 days.
The one thing we would never cut
The house reef.
Every other item on this list is a preference. This one is structural. On an island with nothing else to do, a mediocre house reef is the most expensive disappointment available here, because there is no alternative beach and nowhere to go. A cheaper island with living coral you can swim to beats a more expensive one with a sand shelf, in every case we have seen.
If we have to choose between the room and the reef within your budget, we choose the reef, and we tell you that is what we have done. See classic Maldives in 7 days and boutique Maldives in 7 days.
Related
- The Maldives: the complete guide to planning your trip
- The Maldives for the first time
- What a trip to the Maldives costs
- Local islands versus resort islands
- All our Maldives trips
Frequently asked questions
If you skip all this, what is left?
Are you saying luxury resorts are not worth it?
Is Malé worth visiting properly?
Will you actually tell us not to book something?
Plan a trip to The Maldives, where choosing the island is the whole decision All The Maldives, where choosing the island is the whole decision trips
