Holiday Island Resort****

When you look at what this resort has to offer and compare the price you can pay for it, you must conclude that it is one of the best value for money resorts in the country. It is very large and doesn’t look particularly "Maldivian", but it has all the ticks in all the boxes, plus for almost all our guests the services they received from "Holiday Island" is second to none.

All 142 rooms are the same and are individual bungalows except for 18 put together in pairs, with an adjoining door, for families. They are each spacious, well built and perfectly maintained. Top quality fixtures and fittings (from Singapore) are used throughout. There is a minibar, a hairdryer, a telephone in the room and the bathroom and a wide-screen satellite television with big speakers. The bathroom has an open-air part with a powerful hot shower duplicated in the inside bath. Unfortunately the single painting in the room is of dubious taste.

One door from the room opens to the beach and another opens onto the winding path that runs all the way around the inside of the island. Inside this paved path are carefully tended shrubs, flowers, palms and other fruiting trees and everybody a group of women from neighboring Maamigili are brought over to sweep the earth pristine white sands.

At the end of the paths, at opposite ends of the island, are the water sports center and the dive center. The water sports center, comprehensively equipped (including parasailing) and enthusiastically run by a young team, is perfectly placed on a fine, wide beach with a sharply sloping lagoon. The dive center has its own small jetty and is busy with three boats heading out twice a day. This is the most renowned region in the Atoll for diving, with a wide array of different dives sure to please. The popularity sometimes means meeting up with other groups from neighboring resorts or safari boats.

Though the island is quiet large, when the resort is full you are not going to get the beach to yourself either, but on the other hand you will never be cramped as the beach extends almost all the way around the island (some erosion in the northeast corner). The south facing beaches are particularly good and, of course has the sun all day. The north side is a series of small beaches between small, low groynes. The lagoon is too large for access from the beach but there are four trips a day to the reef edge and once a week further a field for snorkelers.

Other, exercise options include billiard, table tennis, volleyball, basketball, badminton, tennis and a gym – plus a sauna and steam bath to finish. Then there is the fishing, night fishing and early morning trawler fishing

In the evening the entertainment does continue. Twice a week there is karaoke and disco, once a week a live band, a crab race and a beach party. In the main bar drinks are served until the last person leaves. In addition, there is 24-hour room service.