The Residence Maldives at Dhigurah — Hotel in North Huvadhu Atoll

We stayed at The Residence for 9 nights in March. A hotel rep greets you at Male airport, assists with checking in for the one hour flight to Koodoo before taking you to the lounge to relax. This is a great service and so helpful. Met at Koodoo by friendly staff again who help with luggage and on to the 7 minute boat trip to our final destination. Zhanna met us and went through the registration process before driving us to our villa.

We chose this hotel based on the size of the island and the spacious 2 bed villas. Being connected to Falhumaafushi by a bridge also meant we had the freedom to move around using the bicycles provided. We kept busy - cycling between islands, snorkelling (house reef, Castaway Beach), paddle boarding and using the glass bottom kayaks. The sea life is amazing - sharks, turtles, rays and so much more!

Our sunrise 2 bed beach villa was beautiful and huge! Stepping out the door to the pool and then to the beach - bliss! Housekeeping were fab as well as the lovely gentleman who filled our mini bar on a daily basis. We went with the standard all inclusive option and it was definitely worth it.

Back massages at the spa were amazing (for myself and my daughter) and then relaxing on the balcony afterwards meant we didn't feel we had to rush off immediately.

Dining: The Dining Room – We have travelled extensively and can honestly say the buffet options at The Dining Room (Dhigurah) is the best we’ve experienced. The food is freshly prepared, a different theme each evening and the staff are amazing. The chefs station is incredible – freshly grilled seafood (tuna, calamari, prawns, mussels, rock lobster), various meats and then other options depending on the theme for that day (pasta, egg fried rice, quesadillas etc – the list goes on). The breakfast was varied and provided for everyday tastes as well as a few Maldivian speciality items. My husband loved the curry area. They were very happy to prepare anything that you couldn’t find – we had the dosa for breakfast on a few occasions – amazing! The staff are what make the experience though and we’d like to thank Kyra for her friendly greeting and always making sure we had a table near a fan to keep cool, Sajith for your extensive knowledge of wine and pairing our wine choice to our evening meal, Hafiz – possibly the happiest person we’ve ever met, so warm and welcoming (and thank you so much for our specially prepared ‘last night on the island’ meal – traditional curry dishes, loved it!), and then Navin (thank you for always offering to make my daughter a mocktail), Dinesh, Lateesh, Juaeid, Virin. The list goes on but unfortunately, I forgot to take note of all the names.

The Beach Bar (Dhigurah) – we would end our days at this pool to relax with a late lunch. My daughter loved the chicken panini, my husband the burger but I worked my way through the seafood choices which were all amazing (especially the squid ink risotto!). The team here are friendly, always ensure your drinks are topped up and go out of their way to ensure your holiday is a relaxing one. Thank you to Atul, Pratik, Abilash, Thong and the rest of the team. The evening DJ was fab – great selection of music so we’d often pop in for a drink after our evening meal.

Long Island – This is the Italian restaurant which you need to book for (I’d suggest on arrival as it is quite popular). We had a lovely meal here, a very relaxing evening with truly delicious food. Jony and Ayu took care of us. Note they do insist on long trousers for men but if you wear shorts they’ll give you a long sarong to cover up.

The Falhumaa – The French restaurant based at the end of a long pier so the views are amazing and the food is superb. The set menu which is part of the all-inclusive package was varied and the food was worthy of its reputation. The Caesar salad and scallop starters were particular favourites of ours. Afzal and Kavendra ensured that our experience was pleasurable.

We loved every moment of our stay at The Residence and would...

Where do I being with The Residence Maldives Dhigurah.. What an incredible incredible place! This is a 5** resort/hotel. Wow. Me & my husband absolutely LOVED it. We had the best time ever. This place is slightly further out (you need to take a domestic flight from Male to Kooddoo (The hotel will sort this but you will have to pay), however the journey was still worth it. We were welcomed with music and handmade necklaces (made with the palm trees). We were taken to the lobby area and our guide was Jannah who was great! She gave us all the information we needed + had a print-out of the reservations we had made previously. (I would highly recommend making restaurant + excursion reservations beforehand to avoid disappointment). The room - we had the lagoon pool villa (sunrise view) and omg. It was incredible. The room was so dreamy, the pool was a great size, the bathroom was insane! - EVERYTHING was sooooo good! Out of this world. The food & restaurant options were out of this world. Our favourite restaurant was Li Bai BUT every single restaurant was just incredible including the Dining Room (Dhigurah), I wasn't a huge fan of the Dining Room Falhumaafushi. Breakfast was lovely, there are just so many options - you'll be spoiled for choice. We did the sunset dolphin cruise however sadly we did not get to see any dolphin (there is a 50/50 chance of seeing dolphins). We initially booked snorkelling but were told if we were not the best swimmers, we shouldn't do it, so we ended up cancelling the excursion. Instead we were given snorkelling equipment and went to the sea outside out water villa and did it ourselves which was quite cool. We saw sharks under out villa, crabs, a tortoise and fish! Kayaking & stand-up paddle are included in the all-inclusive on a first come first serve basis, highly recommend everyone to give it a go! For our anniversary we booked the FIRE private dinner which was on a castaway island and it was incredible. I think our waiters name was Zanit Khan (not 100% sure) but he was great! The food was insane, thanks to the chef! There was so much food, the best drinks - it was amazing! However, we were not able to have a fire lit due to the wind but that was ok. The SPA. woah. I feel asleep 2minutes into my massage (for a whole 90mins). I felt incredible when I woke up. It was the BEST massage I've ever had. Highly recommend. We were given bikes + used the buggy service countless number of times. All the buggy drivers were great! We're very grateful for the constant calls. We did go the the other island Falhumaafushi, which was nice. I don't think Falhumaafushi is as great as Dhigurah but I guess Dhigurah is newer and I heard Falhumaafushi will close soon to be refurbished. The Falhumaa restaurant is also nice with great picture spots near the swing. The staff at Dhigurah are great. Everyone is SOOO lovely! Everyone made us feel welcome. I didn't manage to get everyone's name however these are the few that I remember: Hafiz - Dhighurah Dining Room (Helped sort out out FIRE dinner)|Jony - Li Bai Restaurant - he was so lovely! Made sure we were ok throughout|Hussain Abdullah - Our room cleaner, he was so thorough and did a great job with cleaning, making the bed, creating different designs on the bed|Nimaal - Watersports: so much laughter and jokes. Really allowed us to have a blast!|Ayu & Abhimanyu - Our masseuse: both were incredible (The Spa by Clarins)|Lawrence & Milton: Were great with out flight arrivals and departures (they helped with luggage's from the get-go, thank you!) We had a large flamingo float that we left outside, which likely blew away. We were very confused as to where it went, as I really needed it to enjoy my time in the pool (I can't swim). We called reception who sent the life guard over. Would you believe the life guard + team looked EVERYWHERE including the SEA to find our float. I was so grateful! Honestly there are so many great things to say about this place, but you must visit to see it for yourself! PLEASE BOOK...

UPDATE: I've contacted the hotel several times since returning home and they only responded once. They said this stuff happens and that there is nothing they could do to help. How about refund some portion of the thousands of dollars we spent at their hotel to make up for the 10k+ that we had to spend as a result of their negligence. My tripadvisor review disappeared, which tells me they have found a way to get bad reviews removed. Our situation happened to several others the day we were traveling, so I'm sure it happens on other days, too, yet you don't say those reviews, which is concerning. Seriously, stay away....

REVIEW: It pains be to write this review because the staff at the resort itself are lovely, but the resort management is horrendous and we are out $10,000+ because of their negligence. This resort offers better prices than other resorts because it is SO FAR AWAY. You need to take an actual domestic flight (Maldivian Airlines), not a sea plane or high speed boat like the other resorts. This means that you are at the mercy of the tiny airline's delays, cancelations, and other issues. The hotel books the flights for you (you have to pay) and you have no control over the schedule or anything. They booked our return flight to Male way too close to our international return flight. That flight got so delayed that we missed our international flight. The hotel representatives handled this in the worst way possible. They initially said they would help us with rebooking and costs incurred, but once we got to Male they said that could not help us in any way. They made us no-shows for our international flight, which meant we couldn't get the money/credit for it, despite it not being our fault. They had reps at the Male airport and had our passport information and knew our flight was delayed, yet, they weren't competent enough to speak to our international airline and make sure they knew we were NOT voluntary no-shows. They cherry on top is that we later learned our international flight was also delayed and we could have made it on the flight if we had gone straight to the ticketing counter. However, the hotel representative told us we missed it, there was nothing we could do, and to go wait in a lounge while they helped us (no help was given). We are still waiting to hear back from them and I will provide an update if so, but so far, they have not taken any accountability. We live in the US so getting home from the Maldives is not easy, so to have been left stranded there with no way home was horrifying. We ultimately found new flights, but very expensive and out of the way. This was entirely their fault, I would have never booked a domestic flight connecting to an international flight so close, yet they did not allow me to pick the time. They had our international flight information from the time we made the reservation more than six months in advance. Besides the awful and dangerous return experience, our arrival was also unpleasant. Again, they had our flight information for months. Yet, they booked us on the domestic flight from Male to the resort to be six hours after we arrived. There is nothing to do at or near the Male airport, so we just had to wait six hours and waste an entire day. We got to the resort at night. The domestic flight is on a small, very old and uncomfortable plane. You can't even fit a regular sized backpack in the overhead bin to give you perspective. Like I said, the staff that work day-to-day operations at the resort itself are kind and helpful. They took good care of us during the heavy heavy rain and winds that we encountered for most of our stay. They resort is beautiful and spread across two private islands. However, it was not worth the awful travel experience there and back. I hope to hear from them and receive some sort of compensation for their negligence because it is still hard to wrap our minds around how much money, time, and wellbeing we lost as a result of...