For the first resort of the trip, I chose Dusit Thani Maldives. I wasn’t familiar with the brand name; Dusit Thani is a Thai based chain that has most of its locations in Southeast Asia. There’s a dizzying array of resorts in the Maldives. I gravitated toward Dusit Thani for two main reasons: it was close to Hanifaru Bay (where the mantas and whale sharks congregate) and it was said to have a healthy house reef for snorkeling. While the larger fauna attracted us, we knew we wouldn’t be seeing them every day. So I wanted to stay someplace that had a good house reef that we could snorkel every day.

Summary

What I liked:

• The food! The a la carte restaurants were good (especially The Sea Grill), but the buffet was outstanding with the diversity and quality of the menu items. You would have to try really really hard to not find something you liked at each meal
• The staff – well trained, and friendly. Having a personal butler was a nice touch, and something I could get used to
• Our villa was great. Plenty of room, sparkling clean, with thoughtful little touches throughout
• The spa is lovely. In contrast to the dive centre, treatments were reasonably priced
• The plunge pool, something I never knew I needed before I had one
• The house reef was great, and pretty healthy
• The mocktails were delicious (call out in particular for the Lemon & Pine)
• Snorkeling with mantas was a wonderful experience

What I didn’t like (none of these are big enough that I wouldn’t go back!):

• The buffet restaurant was only open for breakfast and dinner. I’m not sure if that was because we were there during shoulder season, but it did mean we ended up going to one of the restaurants for lunch every day, which had fewer choices than the buffet
• The prices of the excursions were WAY too expensive. I understand location provides a premium, but, this was a little beyond. It definitely affected how many excursions we took
• We had bad luck with the cocktails we tried. We learned to stick to a glass of wine with dinner
• I’m a little sad we didn’t get any communication around our sunset cruise that never happened, though weather may have played a part
• There are pockets of beaches on the island, but the area in the featured picture was about the only large beach area on the island

The details

When our seaplane landed, it taxiied to the welcoming dock, where the resort manager and his staff were there to greet us with cold drinks and necklaces made of palm fronds. Most importantly, each necklace came with a voucher for $50 off a spa treatment, which I put to good use later in the week.

It was at that point we met our butler, Danil. Danil was our guide for all things Dusit Thani. We’ve never had a butler service before, but it’s something we could get quite used to. Danil gave us a tour of the resort/island (have I mentioned resorts in the Maldives are on their own islands? It’s awesome). The island itself is 800 m long by 300 m wide. The tour was given on an electric golf cart, the vehicle of choice for most of the staff. Danil showed us where the restaurants, the pool, the fitness centre, as well as the dive centre were located.

Finally, he stopped at our villa, number 609. I’d opted for a water villa, which meant it was built on the edge of the island over the water. That’s not to be confused with an overwater villa, which is a villa out over the water needing a longer boardwalk to access.

Inside was quite comfortable, and exactly what was pictured on the website.

I didn’t take a picture of the bathroom, but it was quite large, with a double vanity, a stand up shower and a large soaking tub. All the regular accessories were there, including a small jar of aloe vera just in case we got too much sun.

One of the perks of our package was a welcome bottle of sparkling wine,

However, the main attraction of the room was through those double doors.

Of course the view was amazing. Not pictured is the outside shower, and off to the left were steps that descended right onto the reef. That was one of the reasons I’d chosen the water villa instead of the overwater – you could snorkel right out onto the reef from your deck. The overwater villas weren’t located over the reef.

I’d never had a room with a plunge pool before, but found that I quite liked it. It got to be a little routine: come back from snorkeling, rinse off at the outdoor shower, take off our rash guards and relax in the pool.

Danil provided his WhatsApp number, and that was the way we communicated for our whole stay. He showed us the features of our villa and walked us through the daily schedule. He provided a sheet as to which restaurants were open when. In addition to the buffet restaurant, there was a Thai restaurant, a vegan restaurant, and a grill located near the pool, which had its own bar. We’d bought an all-inclusive package, so everything was included except for a few select items in the restaurants, which were well-marked. Danil informed us that the buffet restaurant was closed for one of the evenings there, so he had taken the liberty of making reservations for us at the Thai restaurant, and would that be acceptable? It would indeed.

Danil said that we were also eligible for a sunset cruise, and that he would coordinate that when it was scheduled. Sadly, that’s the last time we heard about it. During our week there, the weather didn’t really cooperate for sunsets. We had abundant sunshine every day except for one, but by the evenings the clouds had mostly taken over. It was also quite windy many of the days we were there.

We had mentioned that we were interested in snorkeling with whale sharks and mantas, so Danil told us he would put us on the list for notifications. Instead of having regularly scheduled excursions, the dive center monitors whale shark and manta sightings. When some are seen, a departure is schedule approximately 45 minutes later and a WhatsApp alert (“30+ mantas nearby. Departure in 30 minutes”) is sent to those interested. We were advised to keep a “go bag” ready for if/when the alerts came. The one downside to this was the cost: for a manta snorkel, it was $290 US per person. For a whale shark snorkel, it was $320 US. Ouch! On the plus side, if you were on an excursion for mantas or whale sharks and you didn’t see them, you didn’t have to pay.

Danil encouraged us to contact him with any questions during our stay, and to let us know if there’s anything he could do to help. I brought out the paperwork we’d received from the health office about checking in once a day to fulfil the yellow fever requirement. Danil took a picture and told us he would make the daily calls for us, or perhaps the onsite doctor would. Indeed, for the next four days, I received a text from him asking how we were feeling, and I never had to think about those calls again. Danil did a good job of checking up on us at least once every day, many times just materializing when we were having lunch or dinner.

Room keys are provided as bracelets. The only downside of them is that they’re not waterproof.

Then it was time to explore. There are bikes available for each villa for guests in case they don’t want to walk.

We never used them, preferring to walk everywhere. We logged at least 6,000 steps a day doing so (according to our phones. We walked many places without them). There’s one main ring road around the island that’s impeccably groomed – maintenance staff rake it every morning.

It’s difficult to get lost, but if you do, there are helpful signs everywhere.

There’s a garden onsite that provides many of the herbs and vegetables for the restaurants. Tours are provided once a week.

There’s a fitness center – actually, two. The indoor one we found to be rather lackluster – a few treadmills and some free weights – in other words, a typical hotel gym. The outdoor fitness center was a 600 m trail that had different exercise stations. Fun, and a real workout, especially with the heat and humidity. There were fitness and yoga classes offered, but we didn’t take advantage of them.

I did visit the spa while I was there – taking advantage of those $50 vouchers. While the lobby was on the ground floor, all the treatment rooms were small villas constructed in the trees. Cost for a 60 minute massage and 60 minute facial was around $240.

One of our favourite places was the pool, which is flanked by one of the a la carte restaurants (The Sea Grill), and the bar. It’s supposed to be one of the largest in the Maldives, and features an large banyan tree. Even when we didn’t go to The Sea Grill, we would often wander over for sunset, as the best views were had there.

We ended up spending time almost every day at The Sea Grill. The buffet restaurant was only open for breakfast and dinner, and since we had a full board package, we needed someplace to go for lunch. We tried the Thai restaurant for dinner one night, and while the food was delicious, the portions were ridiculously small (we ended up going to the Sea Grill afterwards to supplement it), so we didn’t want to try it for lunch. So the Sea Grill it was. The manager, Anil, and his team took great care of us every day.

I should talk about the buffet. It was spectacular. There were so many stations. For breakfast, there was a chef handling omelets and scrambled eggs, and another one managing pancakes and waffles. There was everything needed for a full English breakfast. There were also items provided for a Maldivian breakfast, and even more stations dedicated to Asian breakfast. The Chinese food was amazing, and we both learned that we really like Chinese food for breakfast! Additionally there were all the usual baked goods, fruits, etc.

For dinner, it was more of the same. Stations dedicated to the specials of the night (there was a theme every evening) that generally included a barbecue. There were multiple hot dishes, including Maldivian flavours. We learned that the biggest portion of Maldivian tourists are Chinese, and it showed in the buffet with extensive Chinese offerings every night. We really liked Chinese food for dinner, too! There was a dedicated sushi chef. The dessert spread was massive, and included custom flavours of homemade ice cream and sorbet every night.

I am sad that the buffet was not open for lunch, though we did enjoy our views from The Sea Grill every day.

My birthday happened to fall on a day when we were at Dusit, and they did not disappoint. Instead of dining at the buffet restaurant, Danil made reservations for us at The Sea Grill, where we had a poolside table that was beautifully laid out with flowers and custom tied napkins – a rose for me and a suit for Mr. RO (alas, the lighting prohibited taking pictures). My birthday dinner was wonderful, and the staff surprised us with a custom made birthday cake for dessert and sang Happy Birthday to me in Maldivian.

Back at the room (did I mention that there was twice daily housekeeping?), there was another small surprise.

It’s a beautiful property. There’s a small army of staff – I wouldn’t be surprised if the staff:guest ratio was around 1:1. The resort felt very quiet. Some of that was likely because we were there during rainy season, but I suspect that even during high season, the only way we’d tell there were a lot of people would be when we ventured to the bar or the a la carte restaurants. As it was, any time we were at a restaurant it was less than half full.

I listed things that I didn’t like in the summary, but really, none of them were big enough issues that would prevent me from staying there again. I would just plan on not doing much in the way of excursions. I’ll write more about our manta adventure (the whale sharks eluded us here) in another post, as well as some of the other denizens that we found on the island.

I’ll finish this post with some pictures of the rest of the property. And, of course, a sunset.