During July 2019 I visited the Maldives as a solo traveler. The Island Hopper tour was perfect for my intent to experience the real flavor/culture/people of the country and not the artificial environment of resorts. I arrived and was met by Shaffaf who was the perfect guide/host to hotels, ferries, experiences across 5 islands. I love Maldive island life--even more so after the busy arrival city of Male. I especially love the FREEDOM to set my own itinerary on each island after local representatives warmly welcomed me at each island ferry and presented the options of their island. Diving, snorkeling, fishing, kayaking, visiting the homes of locals, beach time and just sharing hours of lazy conversation with the locals was priceless. After returning to the USA, my heart is still in The Maldives!!
The trip was an absolutely fabulous way to explore southern Sri Lanka and the northern Maldives atolls. Brilliant CEOs, lovely accommodation and amazing sights. What an experience. I would heartily recommend this tour
The trip to Sri Lanka followed by the dhoni cruise in the Maldives was absolutely amazing. So many different experiences and so much variety. I absolutely loved all of it, from temples and elephants to swimming with sharks. The 2 different tour leaders on the 2 parts of the tour were both excellent as were their support staff. They went out of their way to give us a fantastic experience.
Looking back at our photos now we've returned to the UK we can't believe the amount we saw and the amazing experiences we had on this tour. Sri Lanka is an amazing beautiful country with some much going on - we only scratched the surface. Our tour leader Cham worked so hard to make sure that we had everything we needed, resolving our problems and sorting out food for our fussy son! His knowledge about Sri Lankan history and wildlife was immense. He even found the best place to buy genuine Sri Lanka cricket shirts for the sporty members of our group. The only thing we'd change was the pace of the second half of the Sri Lanka leg of the trip. The first half gave us time to chill and bond as a group, as well as hang out in the pool at Giritale and play cricket. The second half we moved every night and covered a massive distance, though interesting, this was quite tiring (especially for the kids), so we'd suggest that a two night stop in the middle of this element would resolve this issue easily. This was clear in the notes, however, as was the high chance of not getting the train. The pace did slow considerably for the Maldives element, with a lot of time on our boats travelling between reefs. The snorkelling was quite frankly mind-blowing, and even the more nervous swimmers loved it. The crew were fantastic, and the food was delicious. The guide knew his stuff, and made sure we had great snorkelling experiences. Our only criticism of this part of the trip was that splitting the group when we'd got to know each other and were getting on really well was disappointing. There were larger boats, and we'd have preferred to be on a single boat given how long we spent travelling separately. The crew did what they could to mitigate this by tying the boats together when we moored for snorkels, meals and overnight and that was great. All in all a thoroughly enjoyable trip, and with a few very small tweaks it'd be perfect!
Explore leader: for Sri Lanka only satisfactory. Not easy to understand, didn't seem to feel part of the group, didn't join us for meals, a poor communicator (relative to past explore trips)
For the dhoni Maldives cruise: Moosa was excellent in every way.