leo
Contributor
I recently stayed at the Hyatt in Gaafu atoll (Hyatt is the former Alila Resort). For hotel details one might visit tripadvisor, but I'll post dive info here.
The resort requires quite a bit of travel - a MLE-KDM flight and a one hour boat ride - but puts one at the eastern part of the atoll where there is currently no hotel (but one, possibly Raffles, is due to open very soon). Located on it's own island, Hadahaa, which is only a 20-30 minute boat ride to the channels and outer atoll, it's well positioned for some good dive sites that aren't visited by any other resorts. If you like to dive sites that don't have a lot of other divers/boats, then this is one of the resort's major draws.
Another draw is a great house reef. It has shallows of 1-3m until forming an edge and then a rather steep slope into the blue (not a wall by any means, but deep enough to allow one to snorkel or freedive above reef and still enjoy peering out into deep blue). I haven't been to any other Maldive resorts, so I can't make comparisons (there are some on tripadvisor), but I was quite impressed with the house reef. I saw countless white tip and black tip sharks both in shallows and on the slope, a handful of turtles, and eagle rays in the blue. I looked hard, but never saw an eel or octopus (in Hawaii I'm pretty good at spotting these, but I'm told octopi have been well fished out in Maldives). I also saw a few lobsters, and a large crab on a night dive, but otherwise the night dive didn't present many night creatures - maybe just my bad luck.
The access to the reef from the over the water villas is great! The drop off is no more than about 10-15m from any of the villas. There is also great access from the two boat piers, each with a ladder into the sea.
The resort typically uses a Maldivian style boat called a dhoni, which is a large (about 8m length?) beautiful teak boat. The dhoni is comfortable, and has many conveniences (large benches, table sitting area for surface time snacks, a head, a front deck, a ladder), but it's rather slow. For me, I prefer speed over comfort, and on two of my days the dhoni wasn't available and the resort used one of their commuting speed boats (cruising at about 30 knots).
The resort dives the many channels to the east, where black tip, white tip, nurse and leopard sharks are very common, along with turtles, stingrays and eagle rays, eels, lionfish, large napoleon, and even dolphin. This part of Maldives has huge populations of spinner dolphins, and in addition to them playing for us around the boat I twice saw them while in the water (once snorkeling, once beginning a dive). I was told that manta sightings happen but are rare (and I was diving in early November with an inside>outside current while mantas in a channel would come with an outside>inside current).
I really enjoyed diving with the dive masters. Ash and Rilwan were great at spotting sea life, and were a touch hands off (my preference) with expert and buddied divers. After one second AM tank thila dive that IMO was not very impressive (sure, great coral, but the sea life didn't compare to a channel dive) I commented that I'd prefer two channel dives vs. the typical channel then thila plan for my future days, without so much attempting to make this a request, and the rest of my dive days we did two channels instead - great customer service.
The resort is very customer service oriented (being a Park Hyatt), and the boat provides fresh towels, service of juices, water, cut fruit bowls, mini-sandwiches, and cookie plates, and full service of equipment handling (setting up rigs, fresh water rinse each day, storage, etc.).
Prices (Fall 2011) are reasonable for an isolated, high-end, captive resort - I think the standard price is $62 for a tank dive (equipment not included) and add a $40 boat fee.
I emailed with the dive op manager in advance of my travel. I always do a lot of advance planning, and the manager was very patient with my detail emails and phone calls - she was great to work with in creating a program that exactly met my requests. In fact, all the staff at the resort were great.
I hope to return soon.
The resort requires quite a bit of travel - a MLE-KDM flight and a one hour boat ride - but puts one at the eastern part of the atoll where there is currently no hotel (but one, possibly Raffles, is due to open very soon). Located on it's own island, Hadahaa, which is only a 20-30 minute boat ride to the channels and outer atoll, it's well positioned for some good dive sites that aren't visited by any other resorts. If you like to dive sites that don't have a lot of other divers/boats, then this is one of the resort's major draws.
Another draw is a great house reef. It has shallows of 1-3m until forming an edge and then a rather steep slope into the blue (not a wall by any means, but deep enough to allow one to snorkel or freedive above reef and still enjoy peering out into deep blue). I haven't been to any other Maldive resorts, so I can't make comparisons (there are some on tripadvisor), but I was quite impressed with the house reef. I saw countless white tip and black tip sharks both in shallows and on the slope, a handful of turtles, and eagle rays in the blue. I looked hard, but never saw an eel or octopus (in Hawaii I'm pretty good at spotting these, but I'm told octopi have been well fished out in Maldives). I also saw a few lobsters, and a large crab on a night dive, but otherwise the night dive didn't present many night creatures - maybe just my bad luck.
The access to the reef from the over the water villas is great! The drop off is no more than about 10-15m from any of the villas. There is also great access from the two boat piers, each with a ladder into the sea.
The resort typically uses a Maldivian style boat called a dhoni, which is a large (about 8m length?) beautiful teak boat. The dhoni is comfortable, and has many conveniences (large benches, table sitting area for surface time snacks, a head, a front deck, a ladder), but it's rather slow. For me, I prefer speed over comfort, and on two of my days the dhoni wasn't available and the resort used one of their commuting speed boats (cruising at about 30 knots).
The resort dives the many channels to the east, where black tip, white tip, nurse and leopard sharks are very common, along with turtles, stingrays and eagle rays, eels, lionfish, large napoleon, and even dolphin. This part of Maldives has huge populations of spinner dolphins, and in addition to them playing for us around the boat I twice saw them while in the water (once snorkeling, once beginning a dive). I was told that manta sightings happen but are rare (and I was diving in early November with an inside>outside current while mantas in a channel would come with an outside>inside current).
I really enjoyed diving with the dive masters. Ash and Rilwan were great at spotting sea life, and were a touch hands off (my preference) with expert and buddied divers. After one second AM tank thila dive that IMO was not very impressive (sure, great coral, but the sea life didn't compare to a channel dive) I commented that I'd prefer two channel dives vs. the typical channel then thila plan for my future days, without so much attempting to make this a request, and the rest of my dive days we did two channels instead - great customer service.
The resort is very customer service oriented (being a Park Hyatt), and the boat provides fresh towels, service of juices, water, cut fruit bowls, mini-sandwiches, and cookie plates, and full service of equipment handling (setting up rigs, fresh water rinse each day, storage, etc.).
Prices (Fall 2011) are reasonable for an isolated, high-end, captive resort - I think the standard price is $62 for a tank dive (equipment not included) and add a $40 boat fee.
I emailed with the dive op manager in advance of my travel. I always do a lot of advance planning, and the manager was very patient with my detail emails and phone calls - she was great to work with in creating a program that exactly met my requests. In fact, all the staff at the resort were great.
I hope to return soon.
