Sun Island Resort & Spa will capture your heart with stunning blue lagoons, friendly and smiley staff, and lush green gardens. It is the largest resort island in South Ari Atoll and also in the entire Maldives, measuring 1.6km in length and approx. 440m in width. Island is well maintained and has more than 400 rooms. It is a modern Eco Resort, with coral rehabilitation, migratory bird sanctuary, and gardens for growing their vegetables, fruits, and herbs. Their conversation program implements plastic reduction and eco-friendly straws. It is nice to have a glass water bottle refilled every day, but on the other hand, there is still a lot of plastic used, like for toiletries, and they could avoid it with bigger reusable bottles.
Sun Island Resort & Spa is one of the five islands owned by The Villa Hotels. They arrange the domestic flight from Male Velana International Airport to the local island of Maamigli. The flight takes approximately 25 minutes. And from there, they include the speedboat to Sun Island, which takes another 15 minutes. The cost of the transfer in total is 300 USD per person round trip.
My review of the Sun Island
We reserved four nights in the superior beach bungalow and six nights in the overwater bungalow. Our check-in was a little bit disorganized, but eventually, we received the keys to our bungalow no 239. The beach bungalow looked good enough, but it didn’t have a beach nor a sea view, only some sandy area ending with bushes. Behind the bushes was just some large garden, followed by the second line of the bushes and the sea in the distance. To summarize it, we were far away from the sea. I immediately went to the reception and complained, that I cannot find the beach or the sea in front of my superior beach bungalow, but the lady at the reception didn’t understand the joke. She was polite and helpful about the issue, and the next day we were moved to bungalow no 211, which was indeed a beach bungalow. So the first impression was a bit negative, but they solved the issue. The bungalow was fine, although still not as close to the beach as I would want to. I liked the outdoor shower, and overall it was neat.
Our visit was at the peak of the pandemic, so there was not enough staff in the resort, but they did a great job nevertheless. There were only a few guests in the resort. I would say occupation was about 20 – 30%, but that is just personal estimation, considering the occupied tables in the main restaurant. Lots of restaurants and bars were closed. We were looking forward to the Sun Star Thai Restaurant since the meals for guests in an overwater bungalow are served there. But the restaurant was unfortunately also closed. Honestly, we were very satisfied with the food served in the main restaurant Maaniya, so staying there wasn’t a major inconvenience.
The overwater bungalow is a bit old and in need of renovation. But it is the closest to the ocean, and it is nice to wake up to the sounds of the waves. I would recommend the overwater bungalow for the whole stay.
The resort is child friendly, with many different activities, but the best attractions are shark and stingray feeding. Because of feeding, it is also possible to see a lot of sharks and stingrays in the lagoon while snorkeling. Although the best snorkeling is on the other side, under the Italian restaurant, and around the house reef. The feeding starts every evening at around 6:30 pm. It is recommended to reach the spot 20 minutes before the feeding time, to watch the sharks and stingrays arriving and playing around. We were thrilled to see more than 20 Blacktip Reef Sharks making circles in the water. Some of them were really big, more than 2 meters.