Diamonds Athuruga Maldives Resort & SPA

25 years after our honeymoon we decided to return to Athuruga. This is just an amazing experience to visit this beautiful island, you get a transfer from Male Airport via seaplane where you get views from above of islands dotted about in the Indian Ocean on your way to the South Ari Attol where Athuruga is located. From the minute you step onto this island you’ll realise you are in paradise!! You are treated exceptionally by all the friendly staff from the moment you step off your seaplane where you are met by your welcome team ( we were met by Gabrielle who was fantastic with us throughout our whole stay) right through to management, chefs, waiters, bar staff, water sports team and entertainment staff ( Jadda has the most amazing singing voice). The accommodation we had was a beach bungalow with private outside shower, personal sunloungers to use on beach or at the waters edge if you wish? The room is immaculate and maintained twice daily, mini bar is replenished daily also with water, soft drinks and beer. We stayed in a water bungalow on our last 2 days where we had our own steps into the blue crystal water only a couple of metres away from the beautiful Coral Reef where you can snorkel with clown fish (Nemo) needle fish, angel fish among many others, black tipped sharks, eagle rays and turtles. The quality of the water bungalow experience is very high and you can enjoy breakfast delivered and set up at your own table on your private decking. The water sports range from paddle boarding, canoeing, catamaran sailing, wind surfing, guided snorkelling round the island reef and scuba diving centre, all run by knowledgable/friendly instructors. The food is very varied with a different theme every night ranging from Italian, Chinese, BBQ, Mexican to Local Maldivian nights. The quality of food whether it be breakfast, lunch or dinner is to a very high standard and is delicious and cooked by extremely talented/friendly chefs. Our waiter (now friend!) Mohammed served us for the duration of our stay and was extremely professional and friendly and it was a pleasure to get to know him and chat about our respective families/lifes with each other. Make sure to get up early at least 1 morning to see the sunrise and watch the eagle rays and sharks play at the waters edge feet away from you… it’s breathtaking! Sunsets are just as good! You can make your holiday as relaxing or busy as you want with excursions available to fisherman’s island (free of charge) which is a local Maldivian island you travel to by Dhoni boat where you can purchase some hand crafted gifts to take home! You can also take trips to spot dolphins, manta rays and sharks and even snorkel with them if you wish and you will find these are at a reasonable cost. We must give a special mention to the following people who all made our return experience one we will treasure…. Personal waiter: Mohammed Entertainment/Welcoming: Gabrielle and Jadda Bar: Sabba Scuba Diving Centre: Philip and Jessic

Everything about this place is special, we couldn't wish for anything better for our honeymoon trip! Food was delicious, water willa was always clean and cosy with breathtaking views each morning, afternoon and evening. People was kind and helpful. It is not as big of a place as the others islands are, but it wasn't a problem for us - it was a treat. Because of it there were no kids, no loud people- it was just perfect. I really hope for getting back to this magical place some day.

We had a great time staying at this resort. Service and food were lways excellent (thanks to our waiter Mohamed and the whole kitchen and bar team) Diving with Davide, Jessica and Bas was always great fun. A very engaged crew and great dive spots. They were really open to my wishes and made sure that dives lasted as long as possible for everyone, by having small groups only. Equipment is also state of the art. Would book again:)

This is unusual for me, as I'm writing this review whilst still at Arthuruga. The reason being that the weather is unfortunately so bad and I have time on my hands. This is our seventh visit to the Maldives and our 9th resort. Arthuruga is a beautiful island, small intimate,with a real remote feel. No groynes etc to spoil the view. It has many strengths and a couple of weaknesses. The reef here is stunning, the coral is beautiful a real joy to see it so healthy and colourful. A plethora of fish plus Sharks, Rays and Turtles. The food has been outstanding, from the buffet to the over water restaurant, absolutely delicious and so many options. The chef's really go above and beyond and we truly feel that it is incredibly important to them to achieve perfection and they certainly have, Thank you !. The staff !! Well I don't know if it's just luck, but we have always had lovely staff in The Maldives and Arthuruga has been no exception. Everyone has been so polite, so friendly and it's really made our holiday special and although we never like to return to an island, Arthuruga has definitely touched our hearts. I cannot think of the names of all the staff , I have a thing with names !! But from the chef's, wait staff Raushan and Nasoch, I hope I have spelt them correctly , forgive me if not,The bar staff, our wonderful room attendant Nazeer who rescued us on a stormy night and the lovely young man who has driven us in the buggy in the unruly weather, we thank you all, and all the staff who work so hard just maintaining everything, well done you really are a credit to the resort and you definitely make it the special place it is. We are in a water suite, it's very large and has a wonderful panoramic deck, you can see for miles on a good day. The bed is large and comfortable, plenty of closet space. We were hot overnight when we first arrived and mentioned this at the cocktail party to Jaco and his wife and as if by magic a lovely big fan was in our room when we returned, Thank you so much. Arthuruga is not a ultra modern swish resort, there are no TV'S, no super duper technology. The rooms are a bit jaded and yes you can see that it is an older resort and I hope that in time this is brought up to the standard of the overall quality of everything else. Now as I said at the beginning of this review, the reason for me writing it now is unfortunately the weather. We have had literally the worst weather we have ever had and we always visit in June July or August. Obviously the weather is not the resorts fault, it's just a real shame and rather disappointing as we are unable to sit on our beautiful deck of fear of being swept away! I hope tomorrow,our last day is kind and we see the sun and no gale force winds 🤞but I think alas we will be disappointed. But as our time at Arthuruga comes to an end, we have had a truly beautiful time, brilliant sunshine for the first 2 days, a wonderful romantic meal on the beach, which we really appreciated, it was so amazing

The diving here is the best we have had in the Maldives - Manta’s, Sharks, Turtles and much more, the coral reefs is in a better condition than some other islands we have visited. Thank you to the iDive diving team to showing us the best places to dive. Snorkelling was also excellent - large sharks, turtles on the house reef and sharks visible from the jetty in the evening. Staff were very friendly and helpful across all teams, the boat team, dive team, restaurant including the chefs, water sports, cleaning, ground staff and guest services. Thank you!

This kind of review is unexpected for me, as I never had such an experience in my solo travels or travels with someone else. First of all, I'd like to pay my respects to the stuff of the water restaurant, as they were always very polite, cheerful and willing to do the best for their customers. Also I'd like to thank you the instructors from water center, as I had great experience with them during whale shark safari. In general - I've stayed in water villa, which is very nice and has everything what can people need. The resort has a very small spa of a third party, however they provide nice service too, and I had 3 massages of different kinds. And the weather was great first 5 days of my staying, so I had my time with the sun and snorkelling, after that the weather got bad, with raining and strong winds, however as October is still a rainy month, so that was expected. Now, I'd like to share the worst part of my staying which totally ruined the experience of what was supposed to be a great holiday for my birthday. I usually put of valuables in the safe box. During first days I've noticed the safe box was opened, which I was sure I closed. I've decided to count the money and found out the one banknote of 50 euro was missing. My thinking was that probably I was mistaken and I didn't have it. After several days the situation was repeated. The safe box was opened and another banknote of 50 euro is missing. To say that it was total shock, it is nothing. So I reported this situation for the manager at the reception, who told of course that they never had some incidents before, but agreed to refund. As I was in total shock and was feeling extremely uncomfortable and not sure what to expect as I was staying alone and someone obviously was having key to my villa, I told all this to the manager, who said they totally understand and they will do everything for my stay and changed the guy who cleaned the room. However, the holiday for me was already ruined, at that moment I had 4 more days of stay, which I spent being nervous and not happy at all and was really relieved at the check-out day. This was really frustrating for not having the dream holiday because of some person who totally ruined the resort reputation for me and probably did it because I was travelling alone. Anyway, I've got the refund eventually, as I had unpaid shark safari tour of cost around usd 200 and they allowed me not to pay for it. With this review I'd like to pay attention to this situation of the general manager and make a full investigation with understanding that the resort reputation is on display. Of course, I cannot recommend this resort, not matter how many positive things I had there.

We visited Athuruga in November 2023. It was our 17th stay on our favourite Maldivian island, and it did not disappoint. We were delighted to be given our preferred water villa, no. 18 on the reef side, with the resident octopus in a rock below the front door. We arrived to a ‘Welcome back’ message in flowers on our bed and Husnee kept our villa spotless throughout our stay. Thank you, Husnee. The water villas had started to show their age, so we were pleased to see the gradual replacement of worn plastic blinds with smart white wind breaks. We ate most meals in the over water restaurant, with its interesting menu and tasty, attractively presented food. Our waiter, Abdul (Ameen), had only been there three weeks but he did a great job, quickly getting to know our food and drink preferences, and entertaining us with his poems and chat, ranging from the meaning of life to Taylor Swift. As always, we found the Athuruga staff warm and welcoming, and were touched to be greeted by name as we walked around on the island. The weekly Maldivian dinners were as good as ever, and it was nice to bump into our waiter from the year before, Ali. Finally, of course, there was the house reef, with its wonderful variety of colourful marine life. We are counting the days till we return in October this year – beautiful wildlife, comfortable and relaxing surroundings, delicious food - well worth the five and a half thousand mile journey. We can’t wait. Jonathan and Margaret

This was our 7th trip to the Maldives, and we did lots of research before booking our holiday to Athuruga. The research paid off and Athuruga did not disappoint! We were whisked through to the new sea plane terminal in Male, and arrived at Athuruga after a short 30-minute flight. Our bags came on a later seaplane, so we were pleased to have packed the basic essentials (swimming gear, toiletries etc) in our cabin bags, so we could get in the sea as soon as we arrived. We booked a beach villa and were allocated room 8 which had some cover from trees, and small beach frontage. Like all Maldivian islands, Athuruga has suffered from beach erosion, so some beach villas have little or no beach, and access the sea from steps. Management have opted to not build concrete barriers or pump sand onto the beaches, which we are happy with. Our room was well appointed, but with no unnecessary extras such as TVs. The open bathroom was provided with good quality toiletries and it was helpful to have a clothes line to dry swimwear etc. We did have quite a few very large ants which took a liking to our WC, but these were dealt with by the room attendant. There is no WiFi in the beach villas, which we were aware of before booking, but wasn’t a problem to us as free WiFi access is available in the main bar. The island has a reef on three sides and a lagoon on the other. The reef and snorkelling was excellent, and better than we had anticipated. We saw a vast array of fish, sharks and rays daily when swimming from the over water villas and jetty. The weather was a constant 30 - 33⁰C, with just a couple of heavy downpours and one very dramatic thunderstorm. There are daily boat trips, and we booked to go on the Ari Safari. There were just 6 of us on the trip, with 4 staff lead by Miriam the marine biologist. Our first stop was at Kalughiri where we snorkelled on the reef. Next stop was a walk on a remote sandbank – quite a unique experience. We also swam on the reef at Emboodhoo, an uninhabited island. An unexpected bonus of our trip was sighting manta rays, and we were able to stop and spend a magical half an hour swimming with 5 or 6 large mantas, with no other boats from other resorts. We have previously taken part in an organised manta trip at another resort which we said we would never do again, as it was chaotic with so many people fighting to see the mantas. Our experience on this occasion was a complete contrast, and a privilege to experience and swim with the amazing animals in such a peaceful setting. A big thank you to the boat staff and Miriam for making this possible. The Ari Safari trip then heads to Athuruga’s sister island, Thudafushi, where we enjoyed a delicious lunch. Which brings me onto the food. Food is a very important part of deciding where to book for us. Our preference is for a good selection of authentic Maldivian and Sri Lankan spicy food, and seafood cooked on a BBQ. We were a little concerned that Athuruga may have a little too much Italia

This was our second visit to Arthuruga, the first being over 20 years ago. We wanted a place that held fond memories to celebrate a milestone anniversary and birthday. We’ve travelled to many lovely places, including a number of other Maldivian resorts but thought we should go back and see if it really was as good as we remembered it. Maldivian resorts have changed in recent years and if it’s the high end, super luxury corporatist experience you’re seeking, then Arthuruga is probably not for you. It has changed, water villas and beach suites have been added, sand floors have been replaced in the dining and bar area and there is wifi! What hasn’t changed is that everything feels genuine, from the infectious exuberance of Gabriele greeting us on arrival in the tropical storm to the last dhoni out to the landing platform when we left. Our accommodation was a junior suite which was very roomy with two AC units and the obligatory outdoor bathroom. An advantage of the low season travel was that we had the whole beach to ourselves, it was like a private island, with just Thomas, the many herons, for company! A big thank you to Hasan, the housekeeper, who kept the room immaculately clean and decorated the bed twice during the stay with anniversary and birthday greetings. One of our memories of the previous visit was the vast range of food available. Understandably, in the low season, there was less choice but the meals were always freshly cooked with choices of grilled fish, meats, chicken, pasta and speciality evenings, and why have one portion when three will be better! A special thank you to Nasooh, who waited our table for mostly all of the stay, he was friendly, attentive and exemplary in all he did – a credit to the resort. The review wouldn’t be complete without a shout out to the entertainment team, ably supported by the marine biologists and iDive crew. It wasn’t easy with such a small audience and the epic karaoke evening will live long in the memory – there ain’t no party like an iDive party ! They say, never go back, but we’re glad we did … thank you Sweet Arthuruga ,,, so good, so good, so good !