Fun things to do in Maldives

Having the possibility to have a massage was one of the reasons we choose Helengeli for our Maldives holidays.
We were not disappointed.
Duniye Spa has a branch on Helengeli and a bigger one on Meeru. The women working there are Thai and really know what they are doing.
They offer a lot of different Massages (Oriental, swedish, aromatherapy, thai, 4 hands, hot stones ...) as well as wellness packages such as body wraps and scrubs and manicure, pedicures, hair treatments etc.

Before you get to have a massage, you are offered a water with lemon, as well as a cold towel to refresh. If you are a couple, you can reserve the treatment to be iin the same room for both.
After the treatment you get a fresh lemongrass ginger tea.

The prices are higher than the ones you pay in Thailand, but still ok. You can save a little by booking for special times (between 11 and 14 o'clock) or get discounts by making reservations for 3 or 5 treatments - what exactly you are going to have, you can still decide later.

4 more images

GOING DOWN !!!

Euro Divers operates full PADI courses and has a fantastic 1-day intro course for about $100. In the morning you get the training video and instruction on dry land (good idea). Next you take your training into about 5 ft of water and practice your new found skills. In the afternoon you get to dive one of the most picturesque coral reefs in the world. This is a full hour to explore and see: stingrays, barracudas, whale sharks, soft coral, sea turtles, manta rays and a huge host of other colourful fish. If you enjoy the first day, you can carry on and earn PADI certificates.

The gift shops in every resort sell disposable underwater cameras for $25, but they are only good for shots within 5-7 meters of the surface. After that, you don’t have enough light to capture all the great colours

Bathala is a beautiful island in the north Ari atoll, about 56 kilometres from the airport. You can reach it by speedboat in 90 minutes or by seaplane in 20 minutes. Bathala, in particular is a natural island: no trees were cut to make room for the beach - no nasty walls were built to protect the beach from the sea. And It's tiny: it takes seven minutes to walk its perimeter. What did I like best? The white soft beaches, the different colours of the sea and especially the fishes: I spent the best part of my days with my head underwater, snorkeling. Wonderful, colourful, amazing, curious and friendly little fishes.

The photo flight is definetly the highlight of the trip, the views from the top are stunning and beyond words to describe it.

The cost of a 15 min photo flight would be $110 pp. The resort only operates this excursion if there are only 14 people doing this.

If your hotel is far from the airport then the transfer is usually by sea plane.

I ended up chartering a sea plane for $600 as 14 people were not ready in the resort for this trip. It was worth it definetly a life time experience. If you are a big group going then chartering the plane would fall much cheaper.

Our resort offered a submarine ride for 1 hr for $105 pp, the views were disappointing, they give u a brouchere showing you what to expect, the submarine basically goes down about 120 ft and you can see the fishes and corals. The Submarine trip in Pattaya is much more entertaining, A big disappointment felt it was a total waste on money

This is a tour where in you visit a near by island (resort) spend about 45 mins there, followed by a visit to a local fishing island to see of the local maldivain people live their lifes, one can do some shopping there as it would much cheaper than the souveniur shops on the islands. The final stop would include a deserted island where one can go for swimming and snokerling followed by a barbeque lunch, the cost for such a excursion would cost $70-$80 pp

If you like fishing then you can try your hand at big game fishing, day fishing and night fishing, the cost for this trip would be USD 30-40 pp and last for about 2 hrs, all equipment and baits are provided by the hotel

It is true that the maldives offer the best diving sites in the world, a great place for those having a PADI certificate or for those who just want to snorkel, we had taken a 2 hr snorkerling trip offered by the island, they take us by Dhoni a local motor boat to a place abt 10 mins from the island for snokerling.

The view was Ok nothing great, i would say the snokerling in Phuket was much better

I am sure that there are better sites in Maldives but the Hotel would take us to the nearest spot as it would make more economic sense to do it. The cost of this trip was USD 35 pp