Ranveli Village And Spa Reviews

Best diving in the Maldives!
Travelled to Ranveli for Christmas 2005. Party of 9 people with 4 divers. The island itself is small and very unique. We had a fabulous holiday. All staff friendly and helpful. Evening entertainment is low key with the occasional crab race night and local entertainment/disco night. We spent most evenings playing cards and scrabble (available at pool bar). We took a trip to the nearby working island which consisted of a few souvernier shops, worth the visit, but take mosquito repellent! The spa is worth a visit, 5 members of our party visited the spa were impressed with results. The rooms are not 5* but are adequate and are cleaned twice daily! TIP - DON'T PACK ANY SHOES! You only need a pair of flip flops for any excursions, the island is all sand and you just wash your feet under the taps before entering the restaurant and rooms.

But we really want to comment on the DIVING CENTRE in Ranveli which was excellent! Dive Centre Manager Raidh Manik and his staff Modu and Jamboey did everything they could to make sure our diving experiences were fabulous every day. Ranveli must have the best house reefs in the Maldives, with two wrecks - one barge accessed from shore dive about 25 metres depth, one wreck lying 200m off the end of island (from 20m to 35m depth)with nurse sharks and sting rays. Just on the house reef we saw Ghost Pipe fish, lion fish, stone fish, loads of different moray eels, shoals of glass fish, pipe fish, turtles, sting rays, and even mantas going past overhead (all in 4 metres depth just off the jetty!). We could dive anytime day or night, and the staff asked us everyday what we wanted to do/where we wanted to go. We took two trips to Manta Point which is about an hour's boat ride away and well worth the visit - they say 99.9% chance of seeing the mantas, this is very true and they are amazing (upto 8 rays at a time swimming in formation so close to the tops of our heads. Lunch on a deserted island is also included in the Manta Trip.

As the dive centre staff are all Maldivian, we were guaranteed visiting the best dive spots with the local knowledge the staff have. Some members of our party have been to the Maldives 16 times from North Male Atol to South Ari Atols and found Ranveli to be the best diving in the Maldives.
And if you don't see enough of Jamboey and Modu in the day, you can find them entertaining in the evening also, organising crab races and playing the ";decks"; on disco nights.

Initial reaction - Wow! Beautiful little island; fantastic food (can be spicy though, so check with the chef!); fantastic staff - will do anything for you and respond quickly to requests; excellent cleanliness of accomodation and communal areas. Lots to see in waters even if you can only manage to swim / snorkel. Opportunities to dive and visit other islands, as well as fishing, catamaran, weights room, massage. Is quiet island (not for clubbers/party animals) but they do have some entertainment at nights.

On the downside, there was no alternatives if you didn't want to go on a trip / dive - we found the guests made their own entertainment in the form of quizzes, beach volleyball and football. It suited us because we went for rest and recuperation (I have an illness nad needed a quiet retreat!)and weren't disappointed. Your waiter stays with you all your stay and gets to know your likes and dislikes. Look out for their ";special touches"; that make your stay all the more memorable - birthdays, anniversaries, honeymoons, etc are celebrated in style!

Ranveli Village is a pretty little island, with only 56 or so rooms, a lovely swimming pool, fantastic beach (despite some unsightly broken sandbags in places) and a great house reef with the most amazing fish including turtles and sharks. It was our first visit to the Maldives and I think we made a very good choice. The weather was fantastic throughout the whole two weeks, hot sunshine every day. Despite the effects of the tsunami, they have recovered very well with no real evidence of the flooding they suffered other than a few broken/missing sun loungers and the spa/massage area being closed.

We were expecting a more lively resort with an Italian feel to the entertainments/animation programme, however, the resort has recently changed hands and is no longer Italian owned, with that and the low 40% occupancy when we arrived it was very quiet. Other than two 'Maldivian Nights' with a few drums and a disco afterwards, two crab racing nights (a bit of a rip-off!) and a quiz that one of the other guests prepared one evening, there was no other entertainment during our two week stay. It was fine for us, but just be prepared to chill-out and make your own entertainment! The pool bar was the place to be in the evenings with most guests socialising together. There was a mix of British, Italian and Swiss guests.

Prices of drinks are standard for the Maldives; $3 for a large bottle of water, $3.50 for a beer, $5 for a glass of wine or a Bacardi and coke, $2 for a coke or sprite.cans of beer are cheaper than draft and the bottled diet coke is nicer than the tins. Bar snacks like a club sandwich and chips were about $7-8. However, everything you buy (including trips and shop purchases) is subject to a 10% service charge. The mini-bar and cocktails are not on the all-inclusive deal. You will be asked to sign for everything you have, even if you're on all inclusive, and any payments due are made at the end of the holiday (be warned, they charged 2% for travellers cheques). We booked half-board and enquired about upgrading to all-inclusive when in the resort. After them changing their mind about the price (this is something they seem to regularly do), they settled on $45 each a day (almost half the price of Virgin), however, we worked out that we probably wouldn't spend more than $50 a day between us.and we were right, our bill was only $680 for the two weeks, and that was with drinking alcohol every afternoon and evening, it would have been over $1100 to go all inclusive. If you are not on all inclusive, lunch in the restaurant is $15 each (but check the price first, as they changed that too!!). Trips ranged from $30-$50..there were good reports about the all day island/BBQ trip but not such good reports about the fishing trips. We didn't do any diving but everyone who did appeared to be pleased with the service and cost.

The facilities are reasonably good; the rooms are a little worn with no music or hairdryer as some brochures/websites state but nice enough...take some coathangers! Plug sockets are British ones. Our room boy was very attentive and visited twice a day, decorating our bed with flowers on the last night. The restaurant was fabulous, placed on stilts over the lagoon with sting rays and fish swimming beneath us. The food was impressive and the chefs were so proud of their culinary skills and were keen for us to try everything. We were pleased that there was traditional Maldivian food as well as pasta etc. The desserts were amazing! The hot food could do with being a bit warmer and some flies buzzing around exposed food need to be dealt with but on the whole, we loved meal times! The waiting staff and chefs couldn't do enough for us.make sure you have lots of dollars for tips. Tip the bar staff regularly throughout your stay rather than at the end and you'll get extra-special service!! The bar-men, Mendez and Silva, were fab and looked after us really well.

One development area that Ranveli need to consider is its customer service; the resort staff are wonderful and work so hard but the 'management' do not give the same impression and are a bit disorganised. There was a very strong management presence in the bar area as they sat around all day doing nothing (and they did not appear to be particularly friendly) which was a little intimidating at times, especially when it was bar closing time for all-inclusive drinks (midnight) or when the female guests were in bikinis by the pool bar.

Lastly, we paid over the odds for our holiday with Virgin and many of the Thomson guests were on an all inclusive deal for less than we paid to be half board. We flew Qatar Airways who were very impressive but many people said the Britannia flight wasn't that bad and at least they didn't have a three-hour stop at Doha or a night flight back! My advice is to shop around on the internet for a good deal.

We did love Ranveli Village and I'd recommend it for couples, friends or maybe even sociable singles, but in my opinion, it's not suitable for young children. There is so much more positive stuff that I could say but I'll be here all day!.I'd love to go back but I think next time I'll choose a different island.with 86 other resorts to choose from, we'd be mad not to!

This was our second trip to the Maldives (we've been to Olhuveli previously) and this time we experienced the Tsunami and were very lucky to survive and also to be able to carry on with our entire holiday. The resort was flooded but fortunately didn't get too damaged.

The island is very small and compared to Olhuveli it is crowded on the beach (but if you compare it to a Spanish beach it's still fairly quiet). There are around 50 rooms and we sometimes struggled to find beach beds (we had to resort to being sad and getting up and trying to get beds before the Italians). There were alot of Italian there and they are very noisy and there were alot of East Europeans, many of which are quite aggressive.

The food was quite good (better than Olhuveli) and there was always a good selection of fruit. The restaurant was lovely and it's built over the lagoon and they have viewing areas and many nights a large stingray would come and feed by our table which the children loved. You could also see Moray Eels and parrot fish and trigger fish, etc. The waiters are all lovely, very helpful and friendly and they adore children.

The worst part of Ranvelli, in our opinion, is the rooms. We had one room downstairs and one upstairs. The rooms upstairs have some kind of rush matting on the floor and it's very dirty and even the children (who aren't fussy at all) didn't like walking on it barefoot. Downstairs has tiles but you can hear everything from upstairs. The furniture is really poor and there's no hairdryer and our minibar was about 50years old! The wardrobes were broken and there was insufficient drawer space (we travel light as well) - the bathroom was very basic and our loo kept flooding.

The snorkelling was very good and the house reef is good, we saw turtles and sharks, puffer fish, a leopard moray (and other morays), a sucker fish, lots of lovely starfish. The reef is very close to beach and the kids could easily swim out there and we could watch them from the beach beds.

We had a great holiday, we wouldn't return to Ranvelli mainly because of the beach being too small and the standard of accommodation being poor. There was a nice area by the beach bar (decking with sunbeds) but we go to The Maldives to get away and we aren't very social - but some people seemed to spend their time up there. We did write some comments on a piece of paper to the Management as we weren't provided with a comment card - I don't think they appreciated our comments, but they should listen if they want return guests.