Patchwork baby blue and turquoise streaked waters, framed with white sandy beaches and softly swaying palm trees, the Maldives is the closest thing to an earthly paradise. Which is why I’ve travelled to this glorious sunshine destination six times over the past 15 years staying at over 10 different resorts. I’ve visited as a honeymooning couple (Paris Hilton also honeymooned here when she married Carter Reum in 2021), all bright-eyed with my dream of a sparkling future laid out before us, then again as a getaway from the stormier weathers of a period of IVF, and now twice with my young family in tow. At every stage of life, this country, with its hundreds of small, sandy islands dotted through its transparent waters, has offered an antidote to city life and a true desert island getaway.
So this time, back to where my love for this country started: The Conrad Maldives Rangali Island, where we honeymooned all those years ago. The island has lived rent-free in my dreams ever since, somewhere I’ve always been keen to return to. And I couldn’t wait to see if this hotel was as beautiful as I remembered it – a barefoot luxury paradise made up of two palm-treed islands (plus one for the staff who live on their own island): one adults-only; one for families. They share the candy floss-streaked skies and golden sunsets, along with multiple restaurants which offer cuisine from Chinese to Italian.
John Athimaritis
My memory doesn’t disappoint me. It was every bit as magical as I’d remembered. As the first global brand to have opened in the Maldives, it was once described as ‘the best hotel on earth’. And though many others have followed suit, the hotel has remained as something truly special. It was also the first hotel to create overwater villas and an underwater restaurant and more recently, is the first to create a spectacular underwater villa, named ‘The MURAKA,’ a James Bond style villa, on it’s own small sandy patch, where you can wake up literally under the sea, surrounded by glass walls it’s like a natural underwater cinema with baby sharks, Manta Ray and multicoloured sea life swimming over your head. No surprise, it’s been hired out by royalty and rockstars along with honeymooning couples all looking for a once-in-a lifetime experience.
Beach villa or overwater villa?
We stayed in both a beach villa and an overwater villa and actually, each experience felt so unique it was like having two different holidays. The beach villas are secluded, larger with both indoor and outdoor showers, a separate mini villa for our children separated by an internal courtyard and, it’s own small private pool (optional). Not that you need it with a secluded white sandy stretch of beach on our doorstep and just a few metres away from the teaming sealife – we grabbed our equipment every morning and went for a pre breakfast snorkel. If you have a young family, this is the option I’d choose.
The water villas, on the other hand, are otherworldly and where we stayed when we were honeymooning – imagine living in the middle of the sea, with incredible 360 ocean views from your bedrooms, veranda and a bathtub which is so huge it’s almost a pool in itself. We stayed in a recently refurbished two-bedroom sunset villa (there are also sunrise villas), which enabled us to watch the orange blossom sunsets at night and to step down into the sea every morning from our veranda, to swim with small shoals of fish and baby sharks. We were lucky enough to snorkel with a Sting Ray right next to our villa. We also spotted an Eagle Ray. The baby blue, transparent water was shallow enough for my eight-year-old to touch the floor, but it’s not recommended for young children and especially those who aren’t strong swimmers.
