Emerald Faarufushi, Maldives
Highlights
- Experience an Incredible All-Inclusive Package
- Savour a variety of à la carte restaurants (lunch & dinner)
- Explore amazing snorkelling right off the house reef
- Enjoy attentive and knowledgeable staff who go above and beyond
- Relax in beautifully designed and well-equipped villas
- Bask in expansive beaches, soft sand and deep blue sea
Out of the four Maldivian resorts we have visited, Emerald Faarufushi stands out with its exceptional All-Inclusive (AI) Food & Beverage (F&B) package, breath-taking snorkelling and stunning villas. Unlike many resorts, you can dine at the à la carte restaurants nightly (and for some, at lunch), without restrictions on the number of visits during your stay.
We enjoyed the buffet at Aqua so much, we cancelled two à la carte reservations to indulge in the themed nights instead.
With only 80 villas spread across the 7-hectare site, split into six different categories, of which 38 are on the beach, the island is large enough to accommodate all guests without it ever feeling crowded. Guests often relax in their villas, which leaves plenty of loungers available at the main pool and along the beach.
Resort Overview
The All-Inclusive package includes premium “top-shelf” drinks that other resorts often charge extra for. Imagine sipping wine from your private pool, with your villa’s wine cooler stocked daily with prosecco, red, white, and rosé wines, plus a fridge full of beer and soft drinks.
We had pre-booked some evening specialty restaurants. Our villa host pre-booked our lunches as well and free dinner reservations, simplifying our stay.
In practice, The Beach Club becomes Carnivorous in the evening. While you can have lunch and dinner at the Teppanyaki restaurant, Mediterraneo and Le Asiatique are only open in the evenings.
If the pre-set schedule doesn’t suit you, changes are easy to make through the app or with your villa host.
At 1.2 km around, the island is perfect for a stroll. Explore it in about 20 minutes on foot, including stops at the piers and pontoons for photos. Alternatively, hop on a bike provided at every villa or call a buggy for a ride.
Do the piers and the distance twice round is about 5k.
Raa Time?
One quirk is “Island Time”, which we’d not experienced before. On arrival, they ask you to set your watches and phones one hour ahead of Malé time, which apparently is consistent with other local resorts. It actually makes it tricky for other apps to work (example remote monitoring of home), but really doesn’t make much of a difference except for the day you leave. You don’t mind being told you’re leaving at 9:00am (early breakfast at 7:30am) when you know you’re not going to be stressed with a transfer in Malé as you gain an hour when you arrive there.
Sand texture is key.
The beach sand ranges from fine and soft to a delightful mix of soft-shell and play-pit textures. Each morning, a team meticulously rakes the high-tide mark, removing dead coral. They repeat the process after the midday tide, creating ideal conditions for beach walkers.
Cycling the island takes about 13 minutes on inner paths, but you’ll miss some Instagram-worthy spots compared to walking the outer beach trails.
Check out my YouTube video here:
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And what about the rest of the resort?
Villas
We chose a Beach Villa with a pool, and it exceeded expectations. The villa features a central bed with a sofa at its foot, a desk behind, and a well-stocked wine cooler and fridge.
Compared to other resorts, the All-Inclusive Package extends to a wine cooler as well as a fridge.
The spacious bathroom opens to an outdoor shower and a luxurious bathtub in a private garden. The rear sun deck includes a table, chairs, a large lounger, and a plunge pool with a secondary outdoor shower.
Where’s the best spot?
Our villa sat on the southernmost beach, offering uninterrupted views of the sea and the Eclipse Bar. The wide beach and shallow waters added to the charm. This prime location provided easy access to Aqua Buffet and the pier for snorkeling. Plus, we enjoyed spectacular sunsets from our pool or loungers without dealing with crowds.
Sunrise or Sunset?
Sunrise-side villas offer longer beaches but are closer to seaplane arrivals and may experience more wind during the December-May monsoon season. Staff mentioned that our WSW winds were unusual for the season, but it’s worth considering the calmer side for a future visit.
The island faces ongoing coastal erosion, with some paths narrowing during our stay. Maintenance efforts continue, but villa locations may influence your experience.
Food & Beverages
The All-Inclusive package delivers exceptional value, with very few items incurring extra charges. For instance, Champagne choices elevate the dining experience far above resorts that settle for sparkling wine.
Aqua
Breakfast is served from 7:30-10:00 and you can either order a special of the day – Eggs Royale or Benedict – or choose your own selection from the small but diverse buffet.
The buffet is sensibly enclosed an air-conditioned behind sliding doors, so compared to other resorts, the nuisance from birds is very limited. You can dine with your feet in the sand or in a large dining area with a superb view of the south coast and piers. There’s a fruit bar, where a mixture of fresh fruit is cut to order. An omelette/waffle station will cook what you want to order. There’s a reasonable selection of Asian and European hot fare. However, where they excel is their selection of patisseries and continental fare. We commented that even the ready-made scrambled eggs were superb and their croissants as good as can be found in France.
We were on the BA flight home (11:15am), but we had plenty of time to have breakfast before we left the resort at 9:00am.
The Beach Club
The Beach Club is just the sort of place you want to dine at lunch on holiday. There’s a mixture of comfort food (burgers and pizzas) but some outstanding dishes serving local catch fish or tuna. Sitting with your toes in the sand with a lagoon in front of you with turquoise-Coloured water is just breath-taking. The same venue converts to Carnivorous in the evening.
Carnivorous
What can be better than dining under the stars, hearing the lapping of waves a short distance away. The menu offers a self-service buffet offering a limited choice of salads and tuna and fresh fish ceviche for starters. Main dishes include tuna steak and Brazilian Picanha steak. The meals we had were filling and delicious.
The Mediterraneo Restaurant
This feature venue is not open every night and seating can be curtailed if the wind is blowing as it sits on a pier. It is at the back of the resort, but does offer the most tranquil setting if the conditions permit. We found the menu choice a little limiting for our palate, but speaking to the Head Chef, the menu is about to change anyway, so you may find more to choose from that fits your tastebuds. What was outstanding though was the creativity being employed that would be hard to find in the finest establishments in major cities. Try the Local Sail Fish Tartar and you will not be disappointed. What looks like quail’s eggs sitting atop the fish ring turns out to be a clever concoction of Campari and Citrus Pearl balls that ooze like egg yolk. Incredible and quite the feat!
Le Asiatique
If it’s Sushi and Sashimi you’re after, then you’re in the right place. A wide selection of Thai, Japanese and other Asian delights await. Where Emerald excels though is trying to make authentic dishes that really do taste as you’d find in a local restaurant in Phuket or Kuala Lumpur. Pad Thai Noodles, Beef Cheek Rendang, or Malaysian Curry Laksa Soup – these are all delicious.
Teppanyaki
We chose not to do dinner but rather lunch at this restaurant, not least as we know the routine and didn’t want to take up too much of the day. This meal was perhaps the only one that was disappointing, but it was more down to the experience than the food per se. Sitting on a beach in bright sunshine, when the waves are calling make it hard to focus on the spectacle being provided. Unfortunately for us, the other guests seemed more interested in their phones than joining in, so the Sri Lankan chef had a struggle on his hands. While the homemade teriyaki sauce that accompanied the chicken was outstanding, the beef was only reasonable and the vegetables and rice was nothing special. I’m glad we didn’t book an evening slot so we could enjoy more what else the resort had to offer.
Service
No resort is functioning as it should unless the team is all pulling in the same direction. The omnipresent Patrick, Resort Director, and Rao, manage a ship where it’s clear all the staff know the direction of travel. Head Chef Merano has created a culinary delight in each restaurant. We always make an effort to compliment good service, but there were many examples of individuals going the extra mile to ensure we had an incredible holiday. This was consistent throughout the day, from Aqua at breakfast, through to lunchtime dining, pool bar relaxing and evening dining and chillaxing.
Priyanka at Aqua/Mediterreaneo was so lovely to my wife; Smita at Asiatique was super sweet too. Bona & Ram went above and beyond to provide insights and guidance on wine pairings, and along with Joseph managed to source a few bottles not on the menu. Vishnu provided great service too and helped organise bookings for us.
Activities
Each villa is provided with bicycles with fat sand tyres, that make it fun and easy to ride round the resort. If you are staying in one of the water villas, I’m sure it would be a fun adventure getting to and from the various resort facilities. We love walking, so spent most of our time exploring the various island beaches and piers on foot and barefoot. There’s nothing quite like feeling the sand between your toes. I love how the sand acts as a wonderful skin softener for the feet, which were gently scrubbed of dead skin by the beautiful sand. After just a few days walking round the beaches, it’s amazing how buffed your feet can be!
For us the highlight was the amazing snorkelling opportunities on the south side of the island. At the end of the pier, you are just on the edge of the reef, so go from 2ft to 20ft in a matter of strokes. The huge range of fishes we encountered was breath-taking, and we were lucky enough to have glimpses of black-tipped sharks, nurse sharks, eagle rays, and a moray eel. This together with thousands of other tropical fish, you would think that you were swimming in an aquarium. Out of the 4 resorts we have stayed in, this was hands down the best experience we’ve had.
Gym or Yoga?
We are not gym goers and this time we opted out of yoga, but we did enjoy the pool aerobics and just chilling on loungers either by the main pool or at the villa.
Evening entertainment was a mixed affair and one of the few low spots at the resort. The shape of the pool bar and adjoining “live band” area might not be conducive to getting the fullest audience participation. Some thought needs to go into how this area can be repurposed to make it a highlight to end the day rather than a place with little atmosphere and a struggling performing duo.
Clientele
It was fun mixing with other like-minded folk and there’s a diverse mixture of Asian and European guests. It was very sad to witness so many young people sitting in the pool bar all day, but just staring at their phones rather than joining in. I’m no expert, but hard to tell whether this is just a younger person thing or particular to the Chinese, but it was interesting to note the number of people trying to capture the viral Insta pose and then scrolling on social media to see if it had worked.
There were a few children, but mostly of very young age who were very well behaved by their doting parents. There seemed to be a fun children’s club next to reception that included a splash paddling pool.
Summary
We thought on arrival that the weather and actual size of the resort would put dampeners on an enjoyable holiday. As it turned out, we came away with the view that it was our best destination yet in the Maldives. The rooms are very well appointed and we found it so relaxing just sipping a glass of wine in our own pool. Again, the F&B choices and All-Inclusive package go above and beyond what we have experienced both in the Maldives and elsewhere.
We had amazing sunset views too, so the only thing we missed out on was table service and cocktails. We had one resort activity included during our week and we chose to go on the Dolphin Sunset Cruise. This was a poor choice as it was still blowing 20kts with a reasonable swell, and there was precious likelihood of seeing anything other than white caps. Some guests were very pleased to get back 30 minutes early!
The staff are generous in their welcome and happy to share their stories and hear about our own. There’s a good mix of staff from India and Sri Lanka, but the only Maldivian locals we talked to worked in the Dive Centre or Water sports Centre.
What are other guests saying?
At HindlesWorld, we know that nothing speaks louder than the experiences of fellow travellers. Have you stayed at Emerald Maldives or Emerald Faarufushi? Or another resort in the Maldives? How did it compare?
Real Experiences from Real Travellers
Have a story to share about your time at Emerald Faarufushi? We’d love to hear from you!
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