For Maldives, you need to go on liveaboard. It’s actually cheaper than Raja Ampat. For example, Maldives Aggressor II for 11D/10N November 2019 is about $4000, compare to Raja Ampat Aggressor for also 11D/10N November 2019 is about $4700. Both liveaboards are under the same management & ownership. I met & talked with one of the owners of both liveaboards, Maciej when I was in Maldives Aggressor II last month. He was there.
But the thing is that you don't need to go on a liveaboard to dive Raja Ampat for instance, and going on a liveaboard in the Maldives doesn't guarantee you to see lots of things either, it will depend for example on the ability of the cruise director to go looking for mantas or whale sharks in season.
It takes a while to get bored with Indo and you can't get bored neither say you have seen it all before diving Raja Ampat, Komodo or Alor (even though I dived them all, I still keep on returning). I think the OP hasn't dived them so far.
I’ve seen enough pretty corals & muck diving in Indonesia in the last 11 years and now want to see something different, more pelagic. I have seen tons of fish in my last month liveaboard trip to Maldives as you see in my videos. So, it depends on what your interest is. Different strokes for different folks.
Well Dan : no offense, but what I see in the videos is mainly divers and fish of the same kind at feeding station. Of course I agree you will see more sharks and rays than Indonesia or Phils with some exceptions : OTOH head to Tubbataha in season and you'll probably see more kind of sharks than in the Maldives.
As per PPina's interest, he says UW photography is one, this is where I think I can give my advise : Maldives is not very UWphoto friendly, as there' ll be lots of current, sharks in the distance, or a hump of divers swimming after the same whale shark and very little colors to fit in the frame. Don't even think about macro.
That's why my advice for him as a photographer would be to look into a list of all the "good" and photogenic areas in SEA before he ruins himself on a liveaboard or get bored with mundane dive centres and mediocre divers in a honeymoon resort (I am not the only european diver who pretends that for the Maldives ) : try first Raja Ampat, Komodo, Kalimaya/Sumbawa, Alor, Bali, Triton bay in Indonesia, Sipadan in Malaysia, Tubbataha+Anilao in the Philippines, they're all good and different then decide whether you're tired of it and want to see something else than extraordinary reefs, loads of fish and awesome macro.
If you need to see something exceptional in between, go to Reunion island or Tonga for whales, Mozambique for the sardine run, South Africa for white sharks but TBH i see nothing exceptional in the Maldives (except maybe for the price of the diving) .
