A Beautiful Island!
Apr 26, 2024 jonah789
My Wife and I spent 12 amazing nights on Angsana Velavaru and we absolutely loved our time there. We have been fortunate enough to visit a number of different Maldivian Islands and this was probably our favourite taking all into consideration. The island itself is beautiful with amazing white sand beach and the ocean has that amazing different…
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My Wife and I spent 12 amazing nights on Angsana Velavaru and we absolutely loved our time there. We have been fortunate enough to visit a number of different Maldivian Islands and this was probably our favourite taking all into consideration. The island itself is beautiful with amazing white sand beach and the ocean has that amazing different shades of blue that the Maldives is famous for, it really is stunning. The in ocean villas are not connected to the island itself so with the land villas cleverly built into the environment it felt less spoilt in many ways.
We were in room 166 on the sun rise side of the island and we loved our room which had an infinity pool in front of the room and a really secluded area for our sun beds. The view on that side of the island is completely unspoilt, just looking out onto the ocean which we loved. There is also coral on this side so if you like snorkelling then you can easily access this area and look at the amazing variety of fish and healthy corals. This side of the island is not quite as nice to swim in, particularly when the tide is out but you can still easily get in for a dip and this was also where the infinity pool outside our room proved to be well worth the extra cost in our view. There are pros and cons to each side of the island so it depends what you really like, for example the sunset side has the best area for swimming with no coral and soft white sand but the view is less appealing as you are looking out to boats, piers, ocean villas and a close ish local island so as mentioned it really depends on what is important tp you. We lost the sun about 4.30 but we would always go to the pool for sunset and cocktails so it was no issue to us.
We were on the basic all inclusive package which meant we could dine and both the Kaani buffet restaurant and the A La Carte Kuredhi restaurant which was a big positive as spending night after night eating buffet food, as good as the food was, can get very repetitive and we always find an A La Carte dinner a nicer experience. The quality of food and drinks in both restaurants was really very good and we did not have a bad meal as well as lots of lovely cocktails, the wine was good also. This can make such a difference to the overall experience and the quality and variety of cocktails in particular was a nice surprise.
The staff in Kaani (buffet) were always very helpful and friendly though we felt sometimes there was not enough staff to cater for the guests so getting a drink could be hard work.
We wanted to give a special mention to all off the staff in Kurehdi all of whom were super friendly, so welcoming and just all round excellent. Ajamal had a really good team there and we loved being there for drinks or meals thanks to the quality of food and drink but also all of the team there.
We also had one meal in each of the two other restaurants which are not covered in the all inclusive package hence you have to pay for food and drink though you do get a 20% discount. Both were really very good with Azzurro in particular being a stunning setting and it was lovely to get the ferry over to dinner. We were lucky we had a really lovely evening which of course makes a difference. The quality of food in both was really good and it was nice to experience both. It was a bit disappointing that the prices seemed so high to us and also that they would charge you for drinks that just metres away you can get for free in the AI package. As a result it seemed to us that the restaurants were always very empty, particularly Funa where there was only 2 tables occupied when we went and it looked be the same every night. In our opinion we thought there was more that could be done for guests on the basic AI package which would encourage more people to use them both. In fact this seemed a common theme for us with anything outside of AI, whether it be special food dishes or excursions, being really too highly priced which seemed to scare off demand.
I also went on 5 dives and they were all amazing so a big thanks to Ahmed and all of the dive team. They also had a free daily snorkelling trip which went to the outer reef and this was also excellent. I think this is the most amazing house reef we have ever seen in the Maldives, it really was beautiful with amazing drop offs and incredible variety of fish as well as really healthy and colourful corals. I would also add that you can get a ferry over to the in ocean villas and snorkel directly from there which we done a few times towards the end of the holiday. We loved doing this as next to no one is out on the reef in the afternoon and made a nice change from the daily organised trip which could be a bit chaotic (30 ish people per time).
We also went on the sunset cruise which was excellent. We saw loads of dolphins putting on a show and the champagne and canapes were really nice.
All in all, as mentioned initially, we loved this island and our time there and if we were to go back to the Maldives any time soon I wouldn’t hesitate to go back here and would happily recommend it to anyone.
Thanks to all the team there for making us feel so welcome.
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