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.
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.
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.
If you are travelling with children, but are still hoping for some honeymoon-style time, the great news is there are two kids’ clubs on Rangali - one for younger children aged 3-eleven, one for aged 12 upwards. Both offer enough exciting activities and a wonderful childcare team that meant my children ran in there daily of their own accord to enjoy canoeing, pedaloes, pancake-making, tie-dyeing T-shirts (at an extra $30cost), table tennis, lessons on sea life from the on-site marine biologist, arts and crafts and XBox consoles. Their movie nights were all well timetabled and thought-through, ensuring we had plenty of time to enjoy time alone as a couple, in the spa, as well as a family.
While Conrad Maldives Rangali Island is extremely family friendly, I personally didn’t want to take my children to the Maldives as a whole, until they were strong enough swimmers. You are literally living on a tiny island surrounded by sea, and when you’re not in the sea you’re in the swimming pool. The joy in the Maldives is the sea life – the snorkelling, the diving – so it was wonderful to go when my children could experience this without a fear of them not being able to swim.
Water safety apart, the Maldives is incredibly safe for children. The only way on or off the island is by boat or seaplane, so they had the run of the island and could enjoy the kids club, walk or call a buggy to travel around the island. The staff knew them all by name and went out of their way to make sure my son’s gluten and dairy allergies were catered for - everyone knew before they even came to serve us what we could and couldn’t eat.
July and August are historically monsoon season in the Maldives, but I’ve visited in at this time of the year, and both times we’ve had better weather in the summer than we had at Xmas, when it once rained non-stop for two days. The truth is, the weather in the Maldives is tropical. It’s wise to assume there will be some moments of showers and potential thunderstorms whatever time of the year you visit and factor that in. More often than not, the rain disappears as quickly as it appears and the sun is back shining within 30 minutes. It can be so hot, around 32 degrees that sometimes the rain is welcome. Even in the rain, it’s hot! So no long sleeves required. And one of my favourite experiences here is swimming in the rain!
And there are benefits to travelling to the Maldives during the U.K. summertime - low season means better deals and a quieter hotel, contributing to that ultimate desert-island feeling.
The food is spectacular with 12 restaurants and bars to choose from including one underwater restaurant where you can eat fish, while watching the fish (quite a bizarre experience!)
But what did blow us away, was the Sunset Grill which is based near the main reception, along a planked overwater walkway. The food is cooked in front of you in the central octagon shaped kitchens. It was my personal favourite, not only because it offers a great vegetarian menu for me, serving roasted eggplant confit cherry tomato, pickled garlic, curried chick pea salad and gazpacho soup, and also great yellow fish tuna tartar and grilled tiger prawns, thyme and lemon marinated corn fed chicken, grilled beef for the fish and meat lovers. But more incredibly, it gave us our first up close and personal audience with three Manta Ray, who danced under the lights of the plankway for a good five minutes, delighting everyone in the restaurant. And then a team of seven medium sized sharks followed suit, just for good measure. It was one of the most magical experiences of our lives.
This North Atoll where the Rangali is situated is known for its plentiful Manta Ray population and yet they’d escaped me until now, even though I’m told they often frequent the lighted areas under one of the bridges at night and almost all the other guests we spoke to had seen one.
We spent most of our lunches and dinners at the Rangali Bar, which served consistently great food - our favourite being the Maldivian fish curry, Thai curry and grilled reef fish and chips, which we ate for lunch and dinner daily. We also loved Villu, the Italian restaurant, which along with more traditional pastas and fish, is known for its grilled lobster and beautiful beach setting.
I will never forget the so-called romantic doubles massage we had on our honeymoon and how my then new husband, giggled like an embarrassed child the whole way through it. There has been a second spa built since I last visited but we had to try another double massage to see if he’d matured over the years (he hadn’t). But the doubles amethyst stone massage was equally wonderful as were the glass bottom rooms that mean you can watch the fish swim under you as you enjoy your treatment. The other spa on the family island has nine rooms and a restaurant serving healthy food.
It really felt like a full circle moment!
Rates start from $560 (approx £461) per night for a Beach Villa at Conrad Maldives Rangali Island.
**For great deals on your next flight or package deal, book with Virgin Atlantic. **
