Canareef Resort

Victoria Richardson

A truly wonderful holiday. Our Superior, Sunset, villa with hot tub was amazing. So clean, spacious, and absolutely gorgeous. The staff in resort were lovely, and the food was superb. The bookable trips to see dolphins, and snorkelling were awesome - Highly recommended. The island is the longest in The Maldives, and we enjoyed using our bikes to get around. The buggy's also came in handy too. I would return again, as it was such a chilled, beautiful, friendly resort.

Tola Balogun

Picturesque Lush Paradise Location! The staff were very friendly and professional. Special thanks to Mohamed Shiruhaan who was super helpful and made sure that our honeymoon was very memorable. Great variety of food with every meal. Great system to organise every part of our stay at the resort. Great long beaches for relaxing walks. Amazing weather, even when it rains! Regular buggy rides to get us around the resort whenever needed. Large villa that was cleaned very regularly, with soothing bed and lovely jacuzzi whirlpool. Massage was amazing! Lovely swimming pools and atmosphere around the resort.

Greg Campbell

Came for 10 days but could quite happily have stayed longer. The staff were really friendly and always willing to help. Highly recommend the dolphin trip and make sure to go to the fish feeding on the pier. On the down side take insect repellent and bite relief cream as the mosquitos pack a mean bite. There is a shop on site but only sells tat.

Saikat DasModak

Overall the experience has been quite good. The hotel has a wonderful beach at the south of the island, the water is Cristal clear in there. The rooms are spacious and comfortable, great AC and facilities to enjoy yourself. The staff is always helpful, sometimes they're a little bit overwhelmed by the amount of guests on the island, but they always have a good disposition to to their best to help you. Things that need to be improved: 1. There's a part of the island that is "abandoned". A few houses haven't been maintained and 2 restaurants are closed as well. My understanding is that this has to do with a water permit and the hotel is still waiting on it. Until then those rooms/restaurant will stay closed. 2. Prices are frankly abusive. I don't like the feeling of seeing the hotel as "abusive" but honestly the prices for things such as a beer, or even water at the restaurant is too much. I paid for half-board so I was expecting to have at least water at nights (dinner is included) and because they always leave a couple of bottles of water in your room. Based on that it should be kind of obvious to think that they can give you water for free at the restaurant, but no, they charge 4usd for 1LT of water. Others: Once you get to Maldives (Male) you still have a long way to go until you get to Canareef, about 5 hours (waiting for the layover at Gan, etc.) so keep that in mind if you plan on coming. I'd definitely recommend coming if you take into account the daily expenses for food/drinks. Lovely place.

A.N. Other

Paid circa £6.5k for an AI holiday beach lodge for 2 here. Takes an age to get there re: additional internal flight from Male airport circa 1.5 hours on the back of your flight to Male. Rooms fitted out ok, building exteriors need a lot of restoration and maintenance. Sea shore/beaches heavy in corals so be sure to wear something on your feet when bathing. Went all inclusive, food was mediocre at best and buffet style, very limited in choice and on cyclic repeats. If you want to eat at the beach bar for a change (e.g. a light lunch without the inconvenience of a 1.5km each way golf buggy ride to the buffet restaurant using the intermittent shuttle buggy service, which will take quite a while out of your day), this will cost you extra on a pay as you go basis (e.g. burger and fries for 1 circa $20 US). All inclusive drinks quality was shockingly poor, to the extent that we couldn't drink any of their alcohol as it gave us splitting migraine headaches and visual disturbances within an hour of drinking them, very concerning for your health and definitely something not right there. Saw plastic waste on the shoreline at times. Plenty of mosquitos about so make sure you take plenty of repellent and bite treatments. Not a lot going on here or much to do, and general environment lacked 'atmosphere' and vibrancy. There are a number of activities available but most appear to be additionally chargeable (see notice board pic). For the return leg of your journey to the UK, expect to leave your room around 01:30 to start travelling back, two internal flights to get back to Male airport should see you get to Male by around 07:00 and then wait around until circa 11:30 for your main flight back which will take circa another 11.5 hours if your flying direct, killer journey! Not the Maldives heaven or experience we were expecting, so definitely won't be going back, you can get far far better vacations and far more interesting destinations for your money.