you are kind of stuck i am afraid. there is a cafe though, we just sat there & played cards. and did a lot of walking round & round & round!

Christine,

There is a great airport island hotel where you can book a room - they have a pool, and a restaurant so you can have a meal, grab a couple of hours sheep before they drop you at the terminal around midnight - I wouldn't really reccommend sitting around the terminal till your flight at 2.30am. For a start, they won't let you enter the actual terminal until approx 2.5 hours before your flight so you'll have to sit outside untill then.

Why not consider flights with Srilankan - service is as good as emirates and you can fly direct to Male on the outbound leg from Heathrow - the inbound leg has a quick change on planes in Colombo for 85 mins. Their flights leave male at 9am so you'll catch the first sea plane from the island (around 6am) and get to the airport around 7am in plenty of time for the flight.

You could always look at hayes and Jarvis who also use First Choice flights which are direct both ways. Their seat pitch at 33" is better than BA or Virgin and equal to Sri Lankan and Emirates.

Tracy

word of warning, if you are booked on the morning one, check that you can get the early mornign seaplane.
we WERE booked on the 9:30 flight & was told there wasn't a seaplane transfer early enough to get us there & they wanted us to fly to male the night before reducing our stay on our island by 1 night. a couple who were on the same flight were fine getting the 1st plane off the island, cos they had business class tickets allowing then less time to check in

cynical- any idea where 1st choice fly from direct. cos we would prefer direct flights next time

thanks

They fly direct from Gatwick and manchester. Gatwick on a Sunday and manchester on a Monday or tuesday (can't remember which I'm afraid as we flew from gatwick).

We've never had any problems getting an early morning seaplane and we've never flown business class (I wish!!).

thanks cynical!

can't believe virgin- we had a right old todo with them about it
insisted that we had to cut short by 1 day, well i will know better for next time

Thanks for the advice, really dont know what to do now, the reason for flying emirates was to fly from Glasgow we are in Scotland, bit panicy about doing a Heathrow due to connections and missing the plane!! Will need to give it some thought, I suppose to get to paradise you need to make sacrificies somewhere, hanging around outside airport for 8 hrs does seem a bit much though!

Any other suggestions welcome.

Any other islands you could suggest that wouldnt have the transfer problem??

Nothing springs to mind that gives you all the things that you are looking for (all inclusive etc) as the islands further away have the best snorkelling (especially those in the South Ari Atoll). All of the ones I know of are in my opinion too close to Male or not of the right quality (eg only 3 star islands).

Don't worry too much about the transfers if you have to get the Emirates flight. If it comes to it just book the airport hotel - only approx $150 (not too much extra in the big scheme of things).

Tracy,

I think you are spot on, the way to do it is to book the airport hotel, at least then we can relax and have a shower etc, instead of clock watching outside the airport, when the seaplane lands can you walk to the hotel?

now that we have sussed out how to get there and back -Thanks to your advice, it is now back to deciding which island, and of course checking availability, knowing my luck I will make up my mind then it will be fully booked.

Tahnsk again

Christine

If it is of any use - Monarch are upgrading both there A330 aircraft in November from a 29'' seat pitch to 31'' which will make the flight a lot more enjoyable (Monarch the money grabbing gits, Didn't even put a premium cabin in as they thought it would have been a better idea to cram as many seats in as possible)

....... Just a bugga we are going in October and will be a little cramped up

We went to Makunudu Island in May this year for our 10th wedding anniversary. It was a fantastic holiday. It's a very small Island with only 36 rooms. Transfer from the airport only by speedboat and it takes approximately 1 hour. It is perfect for what you are looking for. I have added a review on it. We met a couple there who flew with Emirates from Scotland (think Glasgow) and they were extremely happy with their flights.

Hi Christine,
Banyan Tree is the best! Food, beaches, service, everything. It's not all inclusive, but full board. And it's cheapest out of proper 5 star hotels in Maldives. There is a sister hotel Angsana, or something like that. Don't even bother with this one. Nothing beats Banyan Tree. The spa there is so unbelievable and so unique, and not pricey at all. I stayed there for a week, had 21 meals in total - all of them were mind-blowing! No TV in the villas, but you won't need it there. Don't bring any shoes either - everyone's barefoot.

Hi, I was on Angaga from 3-12th July this month and the weather was great. Clear and sunny when I arrived, overcast the next day with a huge, beautiful storm that night, then a few clear days and perhaps one overcast afternoon. When it was overcast it was still 32 degrees, so I just went diving or snokeling. When it was clear it was really hot - 35 or so had me getting a tan after 30 mins or so!
It does vary hugely from what I have heard - personally I wouldn't risk it for a honeymoon, but I would for any other holiday.

Good luck if you do decide to go there!!

Hello just returned yesterday from the maldives.

We had one hour of rain in the day the whole two weeks we were there
the other 13 days were scorching!

sun-seeker --------- Hope you had a good time, weather sounded that it was good for you...

Which island did you go to ?

Have you considered doing a review for the benefit of the forum
WHOOPS, forget above - I have just read your review.... sounds like you had a great time

Hi ya Daz we went to Biyadoo, had the time of our lives

We stayed at two resorts for our honeymoon last year. The first week was at Taj Coral Reef resort last year and it was great. There are only around 40 villas on the island so it is very quiet. Transfers are by speedboat and take about 45 minutes and the good thing is they run 24 hours a day. The second resort was Kerudu which is a much bigger resort and almost seemed like too big with around 300 villas this needed a Sea plane transfer. If I could give one bit of advice it would be to try and find a very small resort as the level of service is much better. We booked through Hayes and Jarvis and flew with Sri Lakan airways changing in Colombo both way, the flights were very good with the on-board service and staff being excellent.

Very nice pics. Brings back the memories of Velavaru.

One thing though, those aren't mantas, least of all giant ones. You would never be able to hand feed mantas.

Everest ---- Trust me you can hand feed the mantas, we did it EVERY night