Reethi Beach Resort, Maldives
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feeding time. rays, fish, and sharks.
approaching the sunset bar
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the famous sunset bar. we chose reethi beach after seeing pictures online of this bar. it's a great place to hang out and share stories of your snorkeling or diving adventures. it's very social, but you can also quietly chill out and watch the sunset.
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the sunset bar at night. it closes at 8ish.
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a few afternoon drinks. don't forget to buy duty free cigarettes, but if you do - the bar sells them for $5 a pack, cheap! we really wanted one of these coconut ashtrays, and in the book it said you can buy them at the gift shop, but not so. we couldn't even buy one from the bars because they said they don't have enough of them. to get one, you have to order days in advance of departure so they can make you one. so we left without this choice souvenir.
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the reethi grill is a great place to have a quiet nice dinner. we ate here once and had the grilled lobster - 400grams each, a $40 bottle of wine, and an appetizer... about $130. the other fine restaurant is called, saima garden. we didn't eat there, but it's a romantic-knotch up from the reethi grill. if you order the lobster it comes together with a multi-course meal.
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this is the main bar area. we didn't spend too many nights here. we preferred the low-key nights at the villa bar. the main bar is open all night, but we were usually ready to go back to the room by 11pm, and you can always get one for the road before heading off.
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villa bar at night
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nighttime on the patio - lights in the water.
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the dry season is january through march. we got a couple days of hard rain and wind for mid september.
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view from the sunset bar of a storm coming in.
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sunset bar after sunset
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captured!
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many fruit bats on the island. they fly around just like other sea birds.
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from the sunset bar before sunset
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the buffet was okay. it's about a 7.5 or 8 on a scale of 10. a couple nights had great food, but for me the atmosphere of even the best buffets can zap your good spirits. so we started gravitating to the other restaurants after about a week of the buffet.
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night snorkeling. it should be mentioned that snorkeling is THE thing to do on reethi beach. there are special spots marked with yellow buoys where the reef drops off dramatically revealing the dark blue abyss - it's like hovering above a cliff with crazy colored animals flying all around you. buy a dry snorkel, so you can dive under water without getting a mouth full of water. we bought the 'oceanic ultradry snorkel'.
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the pier the leads to reception.
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the excursion dock is close to the dive shop. you sign up for dive/snorkel related excursions at the dive shop. we went on the turtle reef snorkel trip - $40 each and 40 minutes by boat. we saw two huge turtles and and endless reef 30-40 feet below. the depth makes it a huge contrast to reethi.
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the villa bar is just behind the light.
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the rooms are cleaned twice a day. they do a nice turndown service. tipping housekeeping is standard. we tipped $10 after the first 4 nights, then $10 after the next 4. we tipped a few dollars as we went along, then gave $20 each to our main buffet waiter and our favorite 3 bartenders on the last night.
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a little treat on the day of checkout. we had an 11pm flight out of male, and we had to leave reethi on the 4pm flight (seaplanes can't fly at night). once you checkout, they give you a 'dummy' room number so you can continue to eat and drink. then you settle the bill before getting on the plane. the dummy room number is funny because all the staff know by the number that you're leaving that day. it's like the number of doom and everyone offers their sympathy.
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final picture waiting for the plane. if you have any length of time before you're able to check your bags at the airport in male, i highly recommend going to the hulhule hotel to hang out. you can see the hotel from the departures area. walk there or take their shuttle. male airport is not a particularly pleasant place to hang out at if you can't get into the proper terminal beyond passport control. it's particularly bad because you just came from paradise. the hulhule hotel has a nice pool area with a bar and serves food. the restaurant is also nice. another bit of advice, once inside the terminal, there is a business class lounge that you can stay at for $50 each. it's a lot better than the uncomfortable seats that everyone is trying to sleep on in the terminal.
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