Maldives honeymoon island selection was a great success! Raffles - Haa Alifu Private Island
We chose the Maldives for our honeymoon. It was our first time going to the Maldives, and after a long time of researching islands, we finally chose Raffles. The main reasons were:
- Top-notch snorkeling island
- Small island with few people, only 38 rooms in total, rooms spaced apart, 100% privacy 💯
- Large rooms: 200 sqm for beach villas, 230 sqm for water villas, with 3-meter-wide beds
- Water villas have pools and net beds
- High cost performance, includes dolphin cruise and a series of honeymoon perks
- We liked the Raffles brand, though this changed after rebranding
When we learned about the rebranding, we were actually sad and considered switching resorts, but the hardware at Raffles was just too excellent, and the service team remained the same, so we decided to stay.
The experience was amazing!! The hardware was exactly as we expected, no difference. We could feel the entire service team working hard to provide us with comprehensive care. The food was also very good; each meal lasted 2 hours and we were always very full. We got addicted to snorkeling and went into the water 5 times in total.
We were prepared to just relax, but the actual itinerary was very rich, and they gave us many extras: dolphin cruise, 45-minute massage, guided snorkeling, floating breakfast, afternoon tea, as well as champagne and bubble bath.
Let me emphasize the service: from room allocation to our departure from Malé, one big takeaway is that you have to talk a lot to get an extraordinary experience.
- We emailed in advance requesting a beach villa with a large beach and a water villa far from the jetty with good privacy. The beach villa we got was almost on the widest beach on the sunrise side, and the water villa was the outermost one. The adjacent two-bedroom villa was blocked during our stay, so we had absolute privacy (though it was a bit far…)
- We were probably the most talkative guests on the island, so our butler could hear our needs from various staff, for example:
🐢 On our first guided snorkeling, we didn’t see any turtles. At dinner, when the butler manager came around chatting with each table, we mentioned that we hadn’t seen any turtles. He told us to just tell the butler “I want to see turtles!” Later, when the butler picked us up, he said he had heard about our wish to see turtles and took us snorkeling the next day. He was amazing, seemed to know exactly where each turtle was active. We saw three or four turtles in a row! What shocked me most was that the turtles stayed right under us and didn’t hurry away, showing how well the hotel protects the ecosystem. The turtles there are not afraid of people at all.
🎁 On the last day, while wandering on the island, we met a staff member whom we didn’t even know. We chatted and said we were leaving and that we had some time at Malé airport in the evening and wanted to go to the city to buy souvenirs. He immediately said to leave it to them! So when we arrived in Malé that evening, hotel staff took care of our luggage and arranged a guide to take us shopping for souvenirs, accompanying us to each store, and finally sent us back to the airport!
I can say this trip gave us the best service experience ever. This is what making money is for, it’s so hard to quit. We just got back and are already thinking about going again.