Desert island picks
The choice of hotels in the Maldives has never been greater
When the Maldives first made it onto the tourist map 45 years ago, it was all rustic huts and rough-and-ready liveaboard dive trips. But fast forward to 2017 and you will find superyachts, ice rinks, luxurious overwater villas with butlers, expansive spas, great chefs and feats of engineering, such as the world’s largest underwater restaurant.
The Maldives has diversified its activity holidays too. Pro surfers have tackled the waves around the Four Seasons Resort Maldives at Kuda Huraa, which has its own annual surf competition and a Tropicsurf school. Tropicsurf also operates out of resorts such as Anantara Dhigu, Como Maalifushi and Gili Lankanfushi, while over at Four Seasons Private Island at Voavah, there’s a motor yacht that can sail you to a number of secret surf breaks you’ll most likely have to yourself.
When it opened at the end of 2016, the sevenbedroom private island of Voavah was billed as the world’s first exclusive-use UNESCO hideaway, given its location within Baa Atoll, a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve since 2011. But if all that privacy gets boring and you want to be more sociable, you can use the hotel’s motor yacht to cruise over to the nearby Four Seasons Resort Maldives at Landaa Giraavaru and hang out.
At the Four Seasons you can put your name down for “Manta on Call”, a service that contacts you wherever you are in the resort and whizzes you by speedboat to manta ray sightings. Since 2006 the resort has been the home of the Maldivian Manta Ray Project, and through its initiatives such as Manta Researcher for the Day and private manta “seafaris”, you can get to know more about these incredible creatures. They especially love Hanifaru Bay, tempted here – particularly from May to November – by the huge amounts of krill and plankton. If you happen to be there around full moon, you could see as many as 100 mantas congregating.
If marine life is what fascinates you, you’ve clearly come to the right place. The whale shark is the world’s largest fish, and plenty of these gentle giants are resident in the Maldives year-round. May to September is their most active time, and one of the best places to see them is South Ari Atoll. Excellent resort options around here include Constance Moofushi – which also offers a great all-inclusive plan. There is also the W Maldives; supercool Lux South Ari Atoll; and the expansive Conrad Maldives Rangali Island, which boasts Ithaa Undersea Restaurant, the world’s first all-glass undersea restaurant.
IN WITH THE NEW
With 1,200 islands dotted around 26 beautiful atolls, there’s always a new resort just opened in the Maldives.
These include St Regis Maldives Vommuli Resort, where the luxury starts as soon as you arrive at Malé International airport. Suite guests are collected by the resort’s Bentley, luxury SUV or multi-passenger van, and taken from the airport to the seaplane terminal.
The other big headliner is Soneva Jani, where 25 villas exist in a mini archipelago of islands, one of which is home to the Maldives’ first outdoor silent cinema. Most of the overwater villas have slides running down from their upper deck straight into the sea, plus retractable roofs – so with a simple flick of a switch, you could be lying beneath the stars.