Club Faru Reviews

So, you are considering going to the Maldives and in particular Club Faru, then hopefully this will be of some interest to you.

Maldives
You've undoubtedly seen the brochures and yes it is as beautiful as it looks. There are over 2000 islands of which 220 are inhabited. Club Faru takes up the whole of the island on which it is situated and you can walk all the way around the island within 5 minutes or so, you can therefore appreciate it is not that big an island. You fly into the airport which is on a small island itself next to the capital Male, don't expect to get through the airport very quickly, I'm afraid the staff are not very quick at all and you could be queing for an hour or so. Once through and you have got your bags, you will be ushered to a couple of bars close to the Jetty where your boat will pick you up. You don't have to buy anything, but if you do, confirm the price before you buy, you can get ripped off.

US Dollars are the best form of currency to use and take quite a few small denomination notes for tips. Club Faru is just 15 minutes speedboat away, but if you get one of the 'trip' boats it will take half an hour. You will get a regal welcome with drinks and a cold flannel and check in at the hotel is quite swift. The staff will carry your bags to your rooms and deserve a tip of 1 or 2 dollars per bag, it's hot work carrying those cases!

Whilst you are fairly close to the airport, this really isn't a problem and the noise is minimal, the planes do however make for interesting viewing particularly during the evening times as they come in low over the waters to land.

Rooms
Those that our group were in were a good size and albeit basic, they were comfortable and the bedding was spotless, no complaints from us on the rooms and you have air conditioning and a fan. We requested and got a first floor room with a balcony overlooking the sea and I think all rooms look out over the beaches. There's a safe in each room free of charge and the shower is efficient so long as you remember to turn on the bathroom and toilet lights! Rooms are cleaned twice a day and if its your birthday or anniversary, your bed will be decked out with flowers.

Beaches
Soft sandy beaches around most of the island and outside all of the accommodation blocks there are plentiful sunbeds. The water is always warm and very slightly tidal, but I am told it is brilliant for snorkelling, I did try, but having a moustache, I couldn't get a seal on my mask, but there are plenty of fish to be seen and a coral reef not too far out. It is usually like a mill pond, but there are currents in places so take care. You can borrow Kayaks free of charge which are great fun and you can also hire snorkelling stuff very reasonably on a daily or 5 day basis. You can also hire windsurfing and other such water sports stuff if you are that way inclined. The winds can get up and make the waters quite choppy and we had several days like that, very hot but very windy. We also had some dramatic thunderstorms, but mostly early evening or at night I'm glad to say.

Food
I read all the reports before I went and must say that some people must be very fussy, let's get this into perspective, Club Faru is a three star hotel and one of the cheaper resorts to stay at in the Maldives. The food is buffet style and whatever hotel I have stayed in around the world, your food is not going to be piping hot from a buffet like an a la carte menu. That being said, I had no problem whatsoever with the food at Club Faru, it was certainly plentiful, there was a good choice and variety and it was invariably hot, just occasionally something would not retain its heat but it certainly wasn't a problem and no one that I am aware of in our party of 33 had any stomach problems. You can also get sandwiches from the bar areas at certain times of the day. Even the fusiest of eaters would struggle to moan at what's on offer here.

Drinks
Its an all inclusive hotel and from 10am to midnight all drinks apart from your brand names are included, the Tiger lager is acceptable, but as I find lager to be like gassey pop I moved on to gin and tonics after a few days and the gin was most acceptable. A bonus was the wine, the house wines are South African and very acceptable indeed. There is also a limitless supply of tea and coffee as well as the usual soft drinks.

Entertainment
As the hotel is the island you are stuck on the island somewhat and had we not have been with friends, this may have been a problem for us as we like to go for a walk after our evening meal and look around the shops and local houses, here you cannot do that. You can sit and watch a very beautiful sunset with a GandT in hand and once a week there is a karaoke and also a disco and we did one night have a live band, but it's all very limited, but we didn't go to the Maldives for the entertainment! There was nothing during the daytime, but again not a problem.

Staff
The majority of the staff were excellent and most speak some English. They appear to like the Brits certainly more so than the Russians and Germans (we got double shots they got singles!!) We tipped our room boy $25 for the two weeks and the same for our waiter. You get a set table and stick with it for the duration. If you want to get in with the bar staff, be seen to put a note in the tip box when you go in for a drink in the evening, it works well!

Pool
There is just the one pool which is a reasonable size, invariably warm and clean. There are sunbeds around it and we had no problems until a French family arrived! Anyway, if you do want to laze by the pool, it is worth grabbing a bed when you stroll down to breakfast. There is a building by the pool which houses a table tennis table, pool table and TV with a reasonable selection of channels, particularly if it's sport you are interested in.

Excursions
You get a free trip to the capital Male once during your stay, Male is not the most interesting place in the world and certainly one trip I would suggest is more than enough for most. You will get some hassle when you get off your boat from shop owners wanting to show you around if you go into their shop at the end, but its not too bad. The island houses 100,000 locals so it's somewhat congested and there's not too many open spaces. I would suggest that the hotel shop is as good a place as any to buy your pressies and is reasonable value for most things. You sign for everything at the hotel and pay at the end, so you don't need to take a lot of cash.

Warnings
I have just two, the first is falling coconuts!! There are coconuts all around the island and amazingly, the Maldivians, unlike the Thais, make little use of them for cooking or gifts. To that end they are neglected in the trees and can often be heard falling to the ground and onto the paths, they clear the ones from around the poolside, but not the others and I came within five feet of being decapitated! Secondly, on your return flight home, beware of being over the baggage allowance as you will be stung heavily. Our group got hit hard by an overzealous official on dodgy scales, I chose a young girl to book in with and had no problems, but those who went to the supervisors machine got stung heavily. You have been warned. They don't check hand luggage though!!

Who goes there
Well obviously us Brits, but also Germans, Russians, French and we had a party of Chinese (yes they are taking over the world)

Verdict
We went as part of a touring cricket team (they have one pitch on Male) the first to ever tour the country. Five games of cricket helped to break up the holiday as I am not into snorkelling. If you are, it's a great place to go. As a honeymoon destination, brilliant or if you just love lying in the sun and doing nothing at all for the duration of your holiday then brilliant. As beautiful as the Maldives are, I do enjoy going out after dinner for a good walk and despite what my wife says, I still can't walk on water, yet! Please feel free to contact me if you want further info on Club Faru.

Just got back from Club Faru, The fight with First Choice was exellant, will recommend it to anyone, even the inflight meals were good. This was our second visit to the Maldives, so imagine our surprise to see just how close to Male we were, This 3 Star island was such a disappointment, on both visits the islands were 3 star.
Rooms
Very basic, and not very clean, room boy cleaned every day but not once did he go round with a mop, the floor got very slippy and the toilet/Shower area was quite smelly.

Shower,
Well to call it a shower is an over statement, took me on average 20 minutes to wash and condition my hair due to the lack of water coming from the shower, that is unless you don't mind it cold.
Beach towels were changed daily but only after we requested it as it took 3 days before we did get them changed, i suggest if you are going make sure you catch the room boy and get him to change them each evening when he comes to turn down your bed,

Food/Drink
On entering the dining room for our first time, we was allocated table and waiter for the duration of our stay, only to find we could not move to a non-smoking area as there were non. so while we are eating our meals we had to put up with other people smoking alaround us.
Food was very repetitive and not very often hot. Breakfast time was the worst as you even have to get your own tea/coffee. By the time you have fetched your tea your breakfast is cold or fetch your breakfast after your tea then your tea was cold. NO topping it up unless you do it yourself. Not enough plain food available for those of us who like our food plain. The option should be there. The waiters did nothing but cleared your table, sometimes even in time for you're to return to your tables with the next course. No bar waiter service either,

Location.
The location of the island was not at all what the brochure leads you to think, due to the closeness of male you are constantly hearing nose from planes, large jets and the sea planes plus boats of all sizes. It was as if you had made camp on the equivalent to the M6. Not the relaxing retreat we booked. there was no reef near to the island so the fish was none existent, however they did put on a boat trip twice a day to a reef which you could do every day twice a day should you whish to. or you could go to what was know as the pipe where you could see some fish, this pipe is the sewer pipe leading out to sea, and did not look good on your underwater pictures.
Entertainment
To end on a good note the entertainment was very good, disco and live bands well worth going to.

Our holiday overall was not to bad, we just had to make the best of what we had.

if you have never been to the maldives then you will probably enjoy this island, however, if you have visited the maldives before you will be very disappointed. we went to kuredu last year and had a wonderful time so we were very excited at revisting paradise. dont be fooled club faru is definately not paradise. take my advice and pay a little extra for 4 star and travel that little bit further it is well worth it. if you enjoy snorkling the the highlight is to snorkle along the sewage pipe where the coral grows. not for me!! if you dont mind constantly queueing for your food then by the time you sit at the table your food is cold then club faru will suit you however, we did not enjoy the cold food. the breakfast was very poor, after serving yourself with the food you then had to collect your own drinks which again left you with a choice of either cold coffee or cold food. being so close to male this is not an exclusive island retreat as advertised.

if you want to experience a truly maldivian holiday then stay away from faru it was like being on a greek island. a waste of money!!!!

Wow just returned from a week in Club Faru, Maldives. If you've read all the negative stuff and are worried don't be. What has been written may well have been true in the past (I don't know) but it certainly isn't true now.

Everyone wants to know what is wrong with a resort. Well nothing is perfect. So, yes you can hear and see the planes landing but there really are not that many and never at night. Yes you can see the little sea planes but you would see them from most resorts as they also carry out tourist trips. Yes you can see other islands but you'll be able to see other islands from most of the resorts and some of them cost loads more. That's it nothing more negative to say.

On the other hand my goodness what a wonderful time we had. It's so relaxing, the staff are really friendly. The water is lovely and clear, sea life is great. You can snorkell right out to the reef and there are so many different varieties of sea life. There are other water sports, a games room with a TV, pool table, table tennis, book swapping cupboard and other things.

The pool is a lovely infinity pool. There are two bars and they quickly get to know you and what you would like to drink. The beaches are cleaned every day. Your room is kept spotless. Clean beach towels are bought to your room every evening.

The waiters in the restaurant are great we had Wazeer he was fab and such a laugh. We now know how to talk a little bit of the native language. I'm really fussy about my food but managed to find plenty to eat every day.

Even the manager takes time to talk to you every time you see him.

The best part of our holiday was the Scuba Diving. My husband looked like zippy off of Rainbow every time he came out from a dive. A great big smile from ear to ear.

The dive centre staff are great, special thanks to Vicky and Freddy. There is a huge variety of dives from Manta Point (huge giant mantas) to Shark Point, turtles galore and a challenging wreck dive to The Victory.

There's just so much to say but lets sum it up, If you want a fabulous holiday with friendly people and great service at an extremely reasonable price then go to Club Faru and make sure you book in for some Scuba Diving.

I don't like to go back to the same place twice but for Club Faru I will make an exception and hope to see you soon Freddy for some more first class diving.

Geoff Cox

We have just returned from 2 weeks of all inclusive paradise......

First the down side..
It rained nearly every day when we were there so do do your research (still a cracking tan though!!!!!!!)
If you have this image of an island in the middle of the Indian Ocean were you can see no other land all around .. book a different hotel.
Or if you want a well organised and structured entertainments team for the kids .. Book a different hotel

Now the good stuff (and there is lots of great stuff)

The flight and transfer...
The new long haul first choice jets make 11 hours glide by (great food and fab movies) and the transfer is a 200m stroll to the jetty and a 10 min speedboat transfer with no hassle and no stress...

The Hotel..
Was the Club Med resort pre Tsumani so large and well appointed with enough room to relax and stretch out without getting in the way of others..

Food and Drink...
Branded Spirits (Smirnoff,Vat 69, Gordons etc but at these prices how much longer????!) and yummy Lion Beer (yes I know Mick not forgetting Fanta for me!!!) so fill your boots !!!!!
The food is fabulous a wide and varied range of International Cuisine is well presented and ultra fresh..A lot of Fish but you would guess that and Curry a plenty!!!!!!! (even for breakfast)..

If you are fortunate enough to get Ahmed as your waiter then you are indeed in for a treat!!!!!

What to do...
Relax...
But if you swim then pack a mask, fins and snorkel as you are in for a great time..Around the reefs close to the island you will see dozens of fish from tiny electric blue tiddlers along the pipe to a conger eel and lion fish that hang out near the dive centre.. Add to that the twice daily snorkling trips which are free you are as we did likely to see and swim with Dolphins, Manta rays, Reef Shark (only young ones no threat whatsoever honestly no really the most beautifull things about) and turtle as well as hundreds of beautifull fishies...

Excursions..
Lots organised at reasonable prices (we did the fishing trip $15each twice and yes Brownie you will never be a fisherman!!!!!) but if you hate shopping do not go on the free Male excursion which takes you around back street Male then to a crappy shop (wait till the hotel shop has 30% as it is way cheaper and better quality)..

All in all a blinding holiday and we will be going back...
Holidays wouldn't be holidays without great company (love ya Moo and not forgetting the Brownies!!!!)