Special holiday to Maldives with kids

[fleurdolease]

Can anyone recommend somewhere special to stay in the Maldives with kids aged 4 and 6? It's been a difficult year for many reasons and we will be celebrating a special birthday so happy to blow the budget for a special trip. We wouldn't be looking to put the kids in kids club all day or anything like that but would be good if there were some activities they could do for a few hours so we could enjoy a nice lunch together or something like that. Thanks in advance

We went to Bandos in 2009 with our then 2 & 4 yr old. It was really wonderful for our children.

Can't speak for now, but they were extremely kid friendly, to the extent that one of the waiters kept giving the children bread to feed the fish.

Thank you I'll check this out. I keep seeing various resorts come up on Instagram from travel bloggers but I don't know if they're freebies so it's hard to tell if they're genuine reviews

We went to kurumba with our five year old as it was the first time we had flown properly long haul with her and it has the shortest transfer. Good house reef. Decent kids club. The downside is being close to male there is some plane noise and on one side if the island you can see the capital so it doesn't have the desert island feel of some of the other islands.

Some very child friendly resorts:

Bandos
Kuramathi
Lux
Centara Grand

Bandos, Centara Grand, Kuramathi have good house reefs for easy snorkelling. Lux doesn’t, you have to get a boat out at set times. Lux and Centara need a seaplane from Male, Bandos is a shortish speedboat ride, Kuramathi can be either a long speedboat or a short seaplane.

If you want more luxury you could look at the Conrad Rangali which I believe is good for kids but ££££. Constance Halaveli is somewhere in between price wise and also family friendly. Both these are a seaplane from Male.

Oh yes Amilla and Soneva are also supposed to be fabulous but again ££££

Thanks everyone, really appreciate the suggestions and info. We've stayed at a Constance resort before, I think Moofushi which was great for honeymooners. The JA Manafaru resort has been recommended by friends, has anyone reading here visited? I did come across Kursmathi on instagram so will have another look at that one. I'm sure they are all amazing but good to get some recommendations 😀

JA Manufaru is fairly new - as I recall the accommodation looked lovely, couldn’t find much info about the reef but there will be more reviews now.

Do you want accommodation with a separate bedroom for the kids - if so that will narrow your choices. Kuramathi has 2 bed villas but they are 2 storey with an external staircase connecting the two so that may not be great for younger kids.

Moofushi is on my wish list, lucky you!

Angelfish and Simply Maldives had good info and deals iirc. Magic of Maldives too.

@minipie our kids always seem to end up in bed with us anyway 🙈 being honest, we're not too fussed about the reef. We just want to escape to paradise for a week and get away from it all a bit.

Moofushi was lovely but I did feel it was lacking in atmosphere a little bit if I'm honest. I think we would probably be more suited to a bigger island with a few more activities on offer but it depends on what you're after. Also, it wasn't a problem at all but there were loads of huge Italian families there with 4 or 5 kids and I kept thinking how are they affording this 😂 but it was nice that it was a mixture of couples and families

Mmm I would say a lot of Maldives islands don’t have a lot of “buzz” as so many people go there for the desert island feel. Kuramathi has a bit more going on or perhaps Hard Rock or one of the Sun Siyam resorts? The Sun Siyam are mostly man made so no reef but if you’re not fussed about that… One of their resorts has villas with slides into the sea, those looked amazing!

Kuramathi for sure. We’ve been twice with kids and it’s really good.
You’ll find Kuoni dominates Kuramathi unfortunately but independent travel agents do offer Kuramathi

@Kapalika it does look great for kids. I'm from Essex myself but the only thing that slightly puts me off is that I've seen the Towie lot go there en masse 😬 assume it doesn't have that kind of vibe though?

@minipie the kids club at Soneva looked out of this world but unfortunately so was the price 😂 Finolhu and the St Regis also come up a lot for families. I know what you mean about atmosphere, I wouldn't want anything too lively more just a nice bit of background music as you're sitting having a cocktail. Although as I'm writing this I'm remembering one very random night at Moofushi where they had a disco 🙈

Hi all.
Any feedback on kid friendly resorts
Villa Park
Holiday Inn
Villamendhoo

Also any tips on how to make sure to keep costs down?

thanks!

We stayed at Kurumba last time, we only had 4 nights and chose it as someone already said it's close to the airport, has a la carte dining and a great house reef for snorkeling off the beach. It's lovely but it's not the deserted island feel you might want from the Maldives, the same company own Kuramathi, so I'd be tempted to go there if we ever went back with more time, as I liked the set-up at Kurumba. Bandos is close to Kurumba, we used their boat for paragliding, I think it's 4 rather than 5 but maybe being 5 minutes further away from the airport is better. Also lots of Russians at Kurumba, they have Russian speaking staff in the resort, menus are in Russian as well as English etc. Not sure if it's the same in all the Maldives resorts.