Safari Island

Fabulous 2 weeks on Safari. An excellent easily accessible house reef; together with the reason we would return ….. their unique safari boats that you can privately hire with a crew of 3 for an exploration of the area. We spent time with some stunning sea life. It’s very well worth the overnight 2 day trip cost. Our room was rustic and lovely. A semi overwater villa with a perfect sunset view and direct access to the reef on one side and lagoon beach on the other. We felt it the best of both worlds. What wasn’t so great was the overly hot restaurant, at times, canteen style queuing for food; and fixed tables which could mean you were sweltering in the sun for breakfast and lunch. The food while good and plentiful was not the high standard of other Maldivian resorts we have stayed at. We like to enjoy leisurely meals with a few glasses of wine. Here it was a case of 20 min in and out to get back to a cool breeze elsewhere. The solutions are obvious, but our final day departure experience sums up managerial attitude. The all inclusive ends at 1200 on your last day irrespective of your arrival time. Meaning no lunch or drinks before a late afternoon flight…. Bizarre. We were told we needed to buy lunch and drinks including water. Having only had 13 lunches we queried this and were allowed a lunch, but no drink…. Shame we had to ask. The reef and boats made it for us. It is a stunning island and nature wise it’s in our top 3 that we have visited. We may return for this reason, but some disappointments.

The island was small but stunning. We had a water bungalow which was beautiful and clean with gorgeous views across the water to the beach. The staff were very friendly and couldn’t do enough for you. There was a lot of variety in the food choices. You could only get beer or wine at the restaurant and the wine wasn’t very good. However, the pool and palm bar had excellent cocktails and the staff were very entertaining. I had two spa treatments when I was there and the therapists were very good and caring. They went above and beyond what was expected of them as they even put ointment on my many insect bites which was definitely not part of the treatment. Would thoroughly recommend the spa. We went there for a relaxing holiday but there were trips on offer, a diving school and a football pitch / tennis court so there were things to do. Not much to do at night apart from the bars but they did have crab racing and a live band once. Stunning place.

I had always dreamed of a holiday in The Maldives, and my husband and i visited in May for our 25th wedding anniversary. It didn’t disappoint. We stayed in a semi water bungalow which gave us the best of both worlds- direct stairs into the water, but also a perfect “icing sugar” beach a 20second walk away. The room was very big and the bed extremely comfortable. It was kept exceptionally clean. The staff treated every guest like royalty. We took the overnight whale shark boat trip and the crew were phenomenal. We saw dolphins and a couple of turtles from the boat, and after various false alarms and much persistence from the crew, my hubby and I got in the water with a whale shark - it was beyond wonderful!!! Especially as the crew were very clever and got us in without drawing the attention of the various speedboats-so we had the shark to ourselves! On the island we saw manta-rays, nurse and black tipped sharks and all variety of fish! Snorkeling is not to be missed! The food was fantastic-something different every day. Our anniversary dinner on the beach was postponed by a day as a storm hit (the storm was amazing!), but the room decoration and bottle of fizz delivered to the room made up for that! 10/10 loved every second and would recommend as a holiday to remember. Many fabulous memories made.