Maldives accommodations and resort for april?

I'm flying down to Maldives on the 26th(arriving 27th) of march, to Male airport. I also have a liveaboard booked and payed for on the 6th to 16th(nautilus two). I'm wondering what a good choice of resort/accomodations would be, I would also looking to do a lot more diving besides the liveaboard trip. I've got a total budget of about €2500(not counting plane tickets and the liveaboard), so nothing overly fancy. I'm staying until april 24th. Ie: I'll need food/board for 18 days/nights, and plentiful diving(preferably 4 to 6 per day for 14-15 days). I have all my own gear(but obviously won't be flying with weights and tank), and very open to being a helping hand, I am a PADI OWSI, it would be nice to find someplace where a package deal can be negotiated.

From what I know of the Maldives 4-6 dives per day from an island resort isunheard of unless you hit the house reef. All resorts I have worked at offer 3 dives max per day with night dive once or twice a week.

200 Euro per day all inclusive including diving may be tough to find in the Maldives at traditional resorts. Some cheaper may be Kuredu or Sun Island. However Maafushi island situated close to Male should be within budget. Again you may struggle with 4-6 dives.

I guess I've been spoiled at other places where it's not unheard of to have two morning dives, two afternoon dives, and a nightdive. That's only in places with nearby reefs of course.

Still I'll take what I can get. Also the resort does not necessarily need to be all-inclusive, if there's nearby restaurants, and such, but my budget is about the same, might push up to €3000 at the very maximum for those 18 nights/19 days, but that leaves me with little to no reserves.

Maybe I can find some likeminded diver at the resort to go for some additional dives with, if there's a reef near the resort, then all I really need is a tank, weights and a buddy. I've gone diving from the beach before, and it's often still good, especially for night dives. I'm not overly picky. I've worked as a diving instructor on Cyprus and doubt there's less to see near the beaches in the maldives! I still enjoyed the dives there, especially the nightdives.

Resorts in the Maldives are based on a concept of 'One island, one resort'. All inclusive islands exist- the others are bed and breakfast, and you pay a la carte for lunch and dinner. Some charge for drinking water also.

A recent direction in Maldives tourism has been to open local islands to tourism development. It's still a new concept however. The island I am on has one hotel (with restaurant). Down the street there are a couple of cafes. There is one (very basic) restaurant within walking distance, the other is at the airport (20mins drive). Due to the import costs of everything- and I do mean everything... prices are still expensive in comparison to SE Asia and Sri Lanka.

Perhaps contacting your safari boat operator could be helpful- maybe they also know some places close to Male. Maafushi is an island with over 20 hotels and I believe there is a DC with good watersports as well- jetskis etc. However I have no idea of their prices or diving schedules.

Lonely Planet 2012/13 has a list of these new hotels- or perhaps the LP Thorntree forum may also have some up to date info.

Wrote the contact for nautilus two, lets see if he has some good suggestions.

Never got a reply on that request, perhaps it's an old email, however I have booked 10 nights on Maafushi from arrival, so at least I have somewhere to stay, and from what I can tell there's at least two dive centres there.

I stayed at Kurumba last year, and they offer two dives in the morning, one in the afternoon, and night dives on request when there are enough people to go. The diving is run by Euro Divers, and they do a great job.

As a sidenote, should I pack my 7mm semi-dry if I was comfortable diving in a shortie in Thailand? I've got a two-piece, but if it's enough with just the 5mm wetsuit shortie overgarment, I might as well skip the semi-dry to lighten my baggage load. (I'm traveling with full kit except weights/tank). In other words, does the water temperature drop much when you get down to 20-30m?

You will not need anything thicker than 3mm in the Maldives, I've seen quite a few divers here, specially coming from colder water, that don't even need a wetsuit here...

I dive all year round with a shorty 3mm, and sometimes (because it's me and because I get cold very easily) I add a 2mm shirt under.
Supergaijin doesn't use a wetsuit but a 2mm shirt and a short.

Enjoy, you can pack light ^_^

I found a 5mm shorty was more than enough for a fortnight's diving in December - most dives to 20m, and several dawn dives to 30m in the (unfortunately unsuccessful) search for hammerheads. The sea temperature doesn't change much over the year. That said, there were several folk diving fully dry, not least the DMs.