Reethi Faru Resort

We spent 6 wonderful days at the Reethi Faru Resort (- Raa Atoll) and from arrival to departure it was a pleasure. Very friendly and professional staff, comfortable villa (- we had a Deluxe Beach Villa) with own pool. The resort had a beautiful house reef with an abundance of colorful fish and we also encountered both sharks and tortoises when snorkling. The main restaurant at the resort (- Vakaru) offered a great variety of food and at an exceptionally high quality.

Stayed for a week - 2 overwater villas. We were on an all inclusive package including drinks. Rooms really nice with comfortable bed, air con, bathroom has outside shower and villa has been angled to give as much privacy as possible. We tried all of the restaurants - favourite was over the water and second the grill but the vegan restaurant worth a try food was delicious. Staff very helpful , breakfast buffet plentiful and included cook to order eggs and fresh waffles/pancakes Pool area has plenty of sun loungers and there is some other loungers by the beach but areas very quiet think most people stay by their villas. Would recommend - island is small and very chilled. Just a note if sea plane cancelled because of weather staff will help you but it will be at your expense to book alternative accommodation (this happened to us as we were trying to travel out to the resort)

For me personally the resort was perfect. From the moment I arrived on the Island and being greeted by Robbie to the point where she wished me a safe journey home at the sea plane to leave the island. The place is chilled, friendly, no snobbery. Everyone went above and beyond to make your stay as pleasurable as possible. I would love to name everyone who made my stay what it was but the list would be to long. But Robbie greeted everyone she knew when she saw them and inspired you to enjoy your stay by introducing you to everyone on the island she knew. The bar staff, the waiters, the dive team, the spa personnel, the cleaners, every one and even one off the director I met at the bar were naturally welcoming. I never even used the spa but I became to know them through Robbie in the main bar/ entertainment area when they had free time just like you. They say, what makes a good holiday is the people you meet, excluding the other great tourist i met, the staff alone would have made it a perfect holiday. Don't change what's not broken see you all soon xxxxxxx

We stayed for exactly one week in July, two of us, in a Garden Villa. Writing this in detail because the resort deserves it and the team there genuinely works hard. The food — the single best reason to come here Let me be blunt: the food is outstanding. We were there a full week and not one day repeated itself. Every evening had its own theme, and not in the “they swapped the labels” sense — it was genuinely a different cuisine each time. And this isn’t about a buffet having lots of options. It’s about the kitchen consistently putting out dishes at the level of a good high-end Moscow restaurant. Not Michelin-style chef’s cuisine, but a solid top-tier restaurant standard — every single day. On the meat specifically: the filet mignon here was better than in almost any restaurant I’ve had it in back home. Cooked exactly right, excellent quality, properly presented. The American night was superb. The French night wasn’t a box-ticking exercise either — it was a properly worked-out menu: real Marseille bouillabaisse, ratatouille, mushrooms in Burgundy sauce, a cheese board with honey and nuts, chocolate charlotte, mille-feuille, nonnettes de Dijon with orange marmalade, and crêpe Suzette. Live stations run throughout — pasta made in front of you, a grill with fresh fish. All the baking is done on site. Desserts hold up, and the krokant is excellent. The fruit deserves its own paragraph. The papaya was simply unbelievable — I’ve never had it that good anywhere. The nectarines were among the best I’ve eaten in my life, no exaggeration. The pineapple was outstanding. Everything ripe, everything fresh, every day. The sea, the reef, and who lives there The water is genuinely clear. Not “clear for a busy resort” — honestly transparent. The beaches are clean, the sand is soft, and getting in is easy. You snorkel straight off the beach, no arranging required. The Sea Explorer dive centre also runs a free guided house reef snorkel every day at 11:00. What we saw over the week — all of it with our own eyes, and nearly all of it on the house reef: • Turtles — plenty of them, regularly, and some clearly live there permanently. • Blacktip reef sharks — a great many, especially close to shore. • Spotted eagle rays — a couple of times. Stunning animals. • A giant moray eel — a resident of the house reef, out at the drop-off. • An octopus — also found on the house reef. • Titan triggerfish — huge, and more than one. All calm, none of them aggressive toward us. We ended up with four triggerfish species in total: Picasso, orange-lined, clown and titan. • A cuttlefish — small, shifting through every colour of the rainbow. A genuine wow moment. • Clownfish, needlefish, cornetfish, unicornfish (these actually follow you around), porcupinefish, boxfish and sweetlips. • Shoals of small baitfish bursting out of the water in a silver wave in the sun, hunted from below and from above at the same time. A spectacle in its own right. Dolphins even came in toward the house reef — too far out to reach, though. They move fast. Excursions Dolphins. The dolphin trip is a must. We saw well over a hundred spinner dolphins. And they don’t just jump — they throw genuine somersaults, several full rotations, a metre clear of the water. When we went out on the jet ski we ended up right among them, and we got to swim with them. They moved off quickly, but it happened. Underwater you hear the clicks — a lot of them; we even recorded them. One of the strongest impressions of the whole trip. Mantas. The manta trip absolutely delivered — we saw them, and saw them close. One came straight at us and passed within one or two metres. I saw another at roughly a metre’s distance at a cleaning station, with the cleaner wrasse working over it; it let us get remarkably close and simply stayed put. Wildlife on the island itself The island is green and alive, and that’s a pleasure in itself: • Flying foxes — big, with a rust-coloured collar, out over the palms in the evening. You can hear them clicking their wings. • Kan’bili (the white-breasted waterhen, the national bird of the Maldives) — the little “chickens” running around the grounds. Completely unafraid, they walk right up to you. • Asian koels — you hear them before you see them: a rising “a-wow”, about five times over, getting louder each time. The males are glossy black, the females spotted and streaked, and both have red eyes. • A grey heron — we met it once, a bit battered-looking but full of fight. The local terns kept trying to run it off. • Black-naped terns — slim, loud, and hunting the baitfish that break the surface. • Geckos clicking away at night, and garden lizards doing push-ups at each other like they’re in a gym. Honest about the downsides Mosquitoes. They got us a bit on the first two days — we were in a Garden Villa, which is in the garden zone. After that it was a non-issue. Still, bring a decent repellent (we used Gardex Extreme) and the problem disappears entirely. It is absolutely not a deal-breaker. Everything else is minor and doesn’t touch the overall impression. Verdict Reethi Faru is a resort where the kitchen and the reef are equally strong. In one week we put together a wildlife list that would take a month to assemble elsewhere: turtles, sharks, eagle rays, a moray, an octopus, titan triggerfish, a cuttlefish, mantas at arm’s length, over a hundred dolphins, flying foxes, and half of Maldivian ornithology thrown in. A separate thank you to the staff. They are genuinely engaged — they help, they explain, they tell you where to look for what. The Sea Explorer dive centre are true professionals. Would we go back? Yes, without a second thought

We had the most incredible time at Reethi Faru ☀️ We've been home two weeks and miss it already. We met the lovliest people, spent time under the water seeing amazing creatures and exploring on land in awe of the natural beauty of the island. The food was just fantastic and I was so well looked after, being vegan, nothing was too much trouble. The staff were all so lovely and friendly and made us feel so welcome. To name a few (but by no means all) Janeesh & Jinu from Dhiyavaru who looked after us on many occasions, Rishi from the dive centre - a wonderful instructor, Musalih who kept our villa immaculate, chefs Sakir and Rajesh from Vakaru, Bruno, Milton & Pari who looked after us so well at Veggie Vegan, Reethi Grill and Haruge Bar, Sateesh at Vakaru, Devita, Tika and all the ladies from the spa and Roberta, who literally was the spirit of the Island and always made our day with her wonderful smile and positivity. Looking forward to our return visit 🏝