Holiday Inn Resort Kandooma Maldives by IHG — Hotel in Malé Atoll

Memorable! Beautiful! Unforgettable! We took the Maldives Trip from 21st to 26th Oct 2025. It rained the first two days and then was hot the other two days.

From the moment we arrived at Velana International Airport, the staff guided us to the Holiday Inn Counter from there everything was taken care of.

Big shout out to Chef Sai, Bala, Fathooh, Rabina, Joby, and Anushka for making our trip indelible and incredible!

We eat Jain diet so the food choices usually gets limited even though the buffet spread was huge. Chef Sai understood the constraints and made us delicious jain meals. Mr. Bala served us with a warm welcoming smile each meal and always happy to get us our favourite food on the clean tables, kids kept calling him with joy! We are grateful to Ms. Rabina who in the absence of Mr. Bala immediately took over and served us our meal with so much care and warmth too. Mr. Joby was very kind in giving us a listening ear when we had some concerns and made the meal memorable on the occasion of my friend's birthday! The team also made yummy eggless cake and desserts for all of us. He's a great listener and makes things possible!

During our stay we met a wonderful person who worked there called Mr. Fathooh. A very big shout out to this young man. He has a talent in spotting the nocturnal sea creatures. He showed us baby sharks, sting rays, leopard rays, sea cucumber, lion fish etc. He made our stay at the Ocean villas totally worth it. Both the nights when we stayed in Ocean Villa we enjoyed spotting the different sea creatures. He was kind, patient, knowledgeable, friendly, warm, helpful and connected with kids and adults instantly. The other times when Mr. Fathooh was off duty Mr. Sangam helped us spot the sea animals sometimes too.

We learnt Snorkeling in the pool with the staff and tried in the ocean. We really enjoyed Snorkeling in the sea and were able to spot an Octopus too! Totally recommended to try snorkeling if you have never done it before.

Rooms: We stayed 2 nights in a beach villa and 2 nights in an ocean villa. They both are awesome and totally worth experiencing it. Beach villas are spacious and the shower in the nature adds an amazing touch to the rooms. The walk outside the balcony from the beach villa was so peaceful and beautiful that the words can't describe it. You have to experience it yourself! And the rooms of the Ocean villas are totally fancy, spacious and gorgeous too. Both the rooms had very comfortable beds and were clean. A little issue we faced at the beach villas were of ants in the room. The in room chair could be more comfortable like a wooden ones. The one provided was looking good but was not practical to sit on. Both rooms provided clean linen, in room slippers, beach bag to carry beach stuff and towels. Have a locker for your valuables too. The view of the beach every morning was unforgettable and so was the view of the ocean each morning and evening!

Service: Very kind and attentive staff. Mr. Nawaz showed me personally the place where they serve coconuts on some days. He was kind to share his bycycle for a short ride of 10 mins in the property too :) Overall We felt welcomed by these wonderful people who always wore a smile on their face and were determined to make our stay wonderful 😊

My friend and my nephew bruised themselves but the in house doctor was there to take care of them. Thank you :)

Thank you Holiday Inn Kandooma team for making Maldives memorable for us! We loved it and will recommend the place to our friends and...

I came to Kandooma for my honeymoon, i did my research and found that when you are on a budget and you want to indulge in a lot of activities in Maldives, the best place is Holiday Inn. Hence I decided to stay here for 7 days and 6 nights. I was so happy with their service,i have never been so happy to put a review for a place.

Therefore I must mention the people who took great care of us.

Starting at reception Haath and Amina, they are perfect and patient with dealing with customers and Haath always has that smile and is calm to hear what you have to say for instance someone had put our room number into their spa bill when i told her it was not ours she was quickly able to identify the person who did it and rectified the error and I must say without any ruckus. Because I have seen people always making a big deal out of it, but she just dealt with everything so calmly, i was not worried.

We took the full board option and therefore we tried all the 3 restaurants in the resort. The breakfast and most of our dinners were in the main restaurant Kandooma cafe. I must mention Rabina,she is definitely one of the hardest working person i have ever met. My wife actually called her omni present she is just everywhere. The breakfast and dinner buffet is often crowded but I don't know how she does it, she just runs around with a smile taking the orders,collecting the dishes etc.She is definitely an asset to the resort and we were so happy to have met her. Bhoopathi was also good and knowing we were first time in Kandooma basically helped us in planning our stay. Now when someone goes out on their way to help you that's just for me is class.

The highlight of our trip was always our lunch in "The Kitchen" restaurant. It was my wife's first international trip and first stay in a 4 star resort and have never tried any international cuisine. But after going to the kitchen restaurant for the 1st day for our lunch, we just sticked there for the rest of our trip. Not only because the food was good but the restaurant supervisor Sreeju was so good at explaining and suggesting new dishes everyday it kept things interesting for us. We actually fell in love with the Vietnamese food because of Sreeju. I must also say the service was really very good as we started becoming a regular we sort of got our own table and it was ready as soon as we came in. It actually felt so nice we decided to come there over and over again. The other staffs Sooraj and Sangeeta was always there helping us with our needs. To be really frank "The Kitchen" is something that anyone who goes there must try and we really glad we met such an amazing guy like Sreeju.

The sunset bar is something you would chill at the evening. Ratheesh with his smile,funny conversations and wonderful cocktails just made it more better. Especially the long island that he made is something i would suggest anyone to try.

Now talking about the water sports centre everyone they so professional and helpful. We could rent the snorkeling equipment and also life jackets from there. The resort has 3 beaches where you could snorkel and there is plenty of flora and fauna to see.

Now if you are a surfer from what I saw it is a surfer's paradise. Its now like gaint waves but good medium size waves to surf.

Overall my stay was really good, both in beach villa and then the water villa. The food was really good. The staffs just awesome and the place just heavenly. I would definitely recommend the resort to anyone who just wants to have...

This is one of the resort closest to the airport, main island. I am currently staying in this resort. I arrived here on a late flight a few days ago. The immigration at the Velana airport was pretty fast. Once I got out of the arrival luggage area, a Holiday inn personnel greeted me right outside, we were waiting there for a while before walking to the marina across the street from the airport to board a speedboat for a 45 minutes ride to the resort. The speedboat round trip is 150/person. It is a very comfortable boat with room for 20 people. It is a pretty smooth ride. Once we arrived the resort, a room key was given and the buggy took us to our beach side one story villa #77 right in front of the beach. The beach is literally about 20 meters in front of our unit. Our unit is close to the over water villas. This is best beach in this resort, they said and I agreed. The water is so clear and clean, the beach has white sand , coral and bursting with marine life. There are corals about 15 meters further out which is great for snorkeling. The beach is safe to swim and play on the sand. We encountered small stingray and baby sharks and a variety of colorful fishes swimming around. This is paradise one might say. The next day we woke at 5am and the beach is so pristine so quiet and so beautiful, I feel like it is just us and the ocean. There are a few units occupied in this entire secluded area , if you are looking for downtime, enjoying and clamoring for a quiet beach with only you, this is exactly what we are looking for. You will stay carefree, enjoy a great time here away from civilization. My booking includes breakfast only, you can buy the meal plan or go a la cart. The breakfast buffet is great, they serve it at huge open air cafe. You will find egg station, crispy bacon, pastrami, prosciutto etc and a wide variety of breads., a large salad bar, fruit, juice,cereals etc. They also have Chinese dumplings, Vietnamese egg rolls and many other options for Indian, Chinese dishes. The next door is a restaurant which serves foods until 11pm, their nacho 12usd is delicious, their 8 slide pizza 24 usd is also a good choice. We also tried the seafood plater for 2 person 82 Usd lobster included, delicious surf and turf for 45 usd. The foods are very good overall. For a few days if you go with a la cart options, there are plenty of other dishes like Wagyu burgers, club sandwiches, spaghetti, kebabs with pretty reasonable prices at the kandooma cafe. This should help you plan your budget. They also have a restaurant which serves Vietnamese fusion dishes, they are also delicious. As far as activities are concerned, there is kid pool and water park, you can do paddle boat, pickup a snorkeling kit and explore all the small coral reefs on different beaches on the island. There are isolated beach for people who want not to be found. More than one times, I found myself swimming or snorkeling among school of fish including baby sharks, small stingrays. I have done snorkeling in many places like Cozumel, Jamaica, Hawaii but this is way better because you can do it all day long at your leisure, no boat ride, nothing; just grab your mask and fin and let the good time roll. Pack your bags and head here to enjoy lazy time in this resort, the service and staff are great, the foods, the sceneries are impressive and impeccable. This is a sustainable resort, very well maintained, great staffs and they are well trained to serve in a very discreet way. This is a true paradise awaits your...