We’ve been going to Maldives since 2003 and have been to around 20 different resorts in several atolls. Canareef did not ask for any feedback at the end of the trip.
When you land in Male you need to take a further 90 minute flight. There are 3 or 4 per day so you may have a bit of a wait in Male, possibly longer than for a seaplane. We were very lucky that our wait was only about an hour.
This island does not choose to be 1 hour ahead of Male time, thankfully.
Important to know about your departure. If you have an international return flight which leaves Male in the morning, you’ll need to get up at 2am, wait in reception, take a speedboat at 3am for a domestic flight around 4.30am which gets into Male around 6am. It possibly links quite well with some international flights but the BA to London leaves at 11.40am so it’s long wait. We opted to take the internal flight to Male the day before and stayed in Hulhule airport hotel to avoid this.
Arrival at Canareef itself was fine, we got a cold towel and a coconut drink, but there was an overlong explanation in reception of island activities and what was eligible for all-inclusive and what wasn’t etc. When you’ve been travelling for 19 hours you don’t absorb any information. They would be better to make it available in the room to read when you’ve had a chance to rest up.
It is huge by Maldivian standards. There are 2 buffet style restaurants - You are allocated the nearest one to you. This was an issue for us because as divers, the dive centre is in the middle of the island and our allocated restaurant was a 25 minute walk in the other direction, so we couldn’t possibly have had breakfast at 7.30am when they open, and arrived at 8.10am for the diving. The reception staff didn’t mind that we asked to change to the other (Kihli). And actually Kihli is nicer because it partly faces the sea, whereas Keyma does not and it feels darker and more humid.
In both restaurants we felt that staff were rather unfriendly compared with all the other resorts we’ve been to, with the exception of Rahul who always smiled and sorted out our drinks and cutlery.
Unless you’re in the villas that are near the restaurants you will be walking long distances. You can go to the bike rental area and you can get a free push bike. They are a bit run down, so test the brakes - and there’s not much suspension either. Importantly they have no lights. If you use them at night you’re not visible. I saw a number of near misses. The golf buggies don’t all have lights either. I feel it’s an accident waiting to happen.
The golf buggies run from South to reception and North to reception and you should be able to wave them down as you’re walking but there aren’t enough of them running. Almost invariably we ended up walking. You can order one from your room, the restaurant or the bar. They tell you it could take 15 minutes and a smaller bespoke one should come for you. But we tried 3 times on 3 different days and waited 30 minutes on each occasion and they never appeared. I found this tactical thinking about how I was going to get somewhere quite tiring.
There is no malaria but there are flies that bite. Staff fog the island every afternoon, but bring plenty of insect repellent. You’ll also see and hear a wonderful array of birds and bats and there’s a very friendly cat around villa 621 who adopted us and appreciates a bit of turkey ham from the buffet.
Breakfast: No fresh juice. Orange, mango, grape and guava drinks all taste a bit cheap. If you ask for ‘coffee’ you get a cup of something foul - make sure you ask for a latte or cappuccino - they have a fairly good machine and it tastes a lot better. The omelette station is fine and the bread and pastries are OK too.
Dinner: I don’t agree with other reviews who said that 7.30pm is too late for Europeans to have dinner. We like to go late - around 8.45pm because we’ve been diving and like to have an aperitif to watch the stars - which are phenomenal. The disadvantage is they are reluctant to refill the buffet. I often found platters were empty and with 45 minutes of service still to go, they refused to even half-fill it.
Each night is themed eg Asian, Italian etc, but we found the themed food a bit bland. Really the best food is the curries. Particularly the vegetarian options are excellent: Aubergine (Brinjal), Aloo gobi, Chickpea, Egg masala etc, a selection of which are available every night. The fish, chicken, beef etc ones tend to have overcooked meat or fish. There’s good naan bread. You can ask them to make you a fresh one, you don’t need to take the cold ones. Same goes for the tuna, they have cooked ones lying under a heat lamp that are overcooked; if you prefer medium rare, ask them to cook one on the spot.
The music they play is on a fixed timetable. Imagine you left AI alone with a Bontempi organ. I could look at my watch and predict precisely the same tortuous song every night. I wished they wouldn’t bother and we could have just listened to the ocean.
Our first drink was at the bar next to Keyma. Unfortunately although it’s got a great view there’s also a games area with a noisy electronic dartboard which spoils the sunset, so we stopped going. Meera bar was my favourite. Friendly chatty staff including Dama and her colleagues from Philippines and Sri Lanka will make you nice cocktails. The white wine is awful. The red is OK.
If you’re all-inclusive you’ll have nothing in your room fridge. All-inclusive finishes in the bars at 11pm, but they don’t mind if at you take one last one back to your room.
We stayed in a Jacuzzi Villa. They all face west on the calmer and sandier side. There are some non-jacuzzi villas which also face west but it looked like the majority faced east which was a bit windier and not recommended for swimming.
The room is huge and lovely. The mattress is very hard so we phoned reception and asked for a topper which came the same day. The pillows are also too firm but there didn’t seem to be an option for softer ones. Rooms are cleaned twice a day but you can tell them you only want it once if you prefer, which we do. Sharifu kept our room nice and clean. The bathroom has a good hot shower and supplies include shower gel, shampoo and also shower cap, toothbrushes, detergent and razors. They don’t automatically replace them, probably for sustainability reasons but you can ask for more. You get plenty of drinking water supplied every day. There's a kettle with tea, coffee, sugar, creamer etc.
The main door is at the side of the villa but the foot-rinsing bowl is at the front. It would be better if you could rinse at the side.
Diving is run by a collaboration of Werner Lau and Diverland, we were well looked-after by Sebastian, Peter, Diana and Esther. It’s very efficient and popular with divers who are about to join a liveaboard/safari. There’s no house reef. I would say there are about 10 dive sites they do on rotation, so over a fortnight you will repeat the same ones. Tiger Shark point was a big draw as was Manta point. Best avoided on a Sunday when the safari boats have just started and they drop a huge bunch of rusty divers onto a tiny site. Midweek is quieter and spectacular. If you want to dive unguided, which in effect means there is a guide there but you’re not obliged to follow them, you will need to show you can clear mask, retrieve reg and deploy SMB.
I liked that the afternoon dive was not an afterthought, like in some resorts, it was as good as the morning one. They do night dives and also some two tank morning dives. On the boat (which has a toilet – not always a guarantee in the Maldives) you get water, coconut slices, a towel and black tea. The boat crew are lovely.
This is a beautiful natural island. If they could sort the frequency and reliability of the buggies, it would be on my list to return.
