Emerald Faarufushi Resort & Spa Hotel

I had a very enjoyable honeymoon here. The scenery here is fantastic, and the hotel service is excellent. Every day, I could try different dishes, which was a real feast for me. My housekeeper was named Jazmyn. She is a very responsible and attentive girl. She would help me with whatever I mentioned. We had a great chat and became friends. I will come back here for vacation in the future. Read less

We’ve been coming to the Maldives for the last 8 years and have experienced many different islands. We visit a different island every time and have loved them all with each one having it’s own personality. Yes, you find yourselves wanting to cherry pick your favourite bits from each island to create our “perfect” island, but I’m sounding very spoilt here because the Maldives is a very magical place all round. We are extremely lucky to visit once, let alone several times. To put our experience of Faarufushi in context it’s probably best to understand what we look for when choosing an island. So … We are late 50s in age and have a pretty specific criteria and a budget. I would categorise our budget as medium (borderline med-high). We also travel low season to save a few £s. Our criteria includes; 5 star island. Beautiful picturesque looking island. All inclusive dine around. Min 4 restaurants (ideally). House reef. Good - Excellent snorkelling. Tennis court. Bar with sociable evening vibe. Emerald Faarufushi delivered highly on every one of these with the small exception on the evening vibe for us. I think the island would benefit from evening events, such as a BBQ night or beach party night to help bring all the guests together in one place. We also much prefer a large bar area that tends to bring people together verses lots of scattered tables. We did have a lovely time though getting to know the staff and chatting with them in restaurants or whilst sitting at the bar. The island & resort in every other way however was perfect for us. EF is a beautiful, stunning, bare foot island. Has an excellent house reef (some of the best snorkelling we’ve experienced). We had a beautiful spacious beach villa + pool. Complimentary bikes. Nice range of restaurants (5 in total) with the Tappanyaki included in the AL (most other islands charge extra for this). Sommelier for all restaurants which is a real treat. Own dedicated villa host looking after your every need! Fabulous new tennis & padel court. Excellent range of boat trips (we did 5 in total). Lovely Eclipse bar for sunset drinks. The staff are an absolute credit to the island. They all work incredibly hard keeping the island looking stunning and their service in every single establishment on the island is exceptional. Thank you very much to each and every member of staff who helped to make our stay so enjoyable, you were a pleasure to spend time with. And thank you to Patrick and Emerald Faarufushi for such a wonderful holiday. We won’t hesitate to recommend EF to our friends and maybe one day we’ll visit again! Love Helen & Kenny x (room 206) Read less

Paradise. Literally cannot fault this place! We came here for 9 nights for our honeymoon and have had the most incredible trip. The whole team have been wonderful, the food amazing and the service exceptional. Kunal, our island host, looked after us for the whole holiday, making sure every detail was covered with total perfection. He even ensured we had a late checkout so we could enjoy the resort right up until it was time to come home. We stayed in an over water villa with a pool, which was absolutely stunning, with direct access to the beautiful house reef for the best snorkelling ever! Thanks to Shiman who kept our villa beautiful and clean everyday. Chef Moreno was wonderful too. We are both coeliac but he and his team went above and beyond to ensure we could enjoy everything on the menu, bringing fresh gluten free pastries each morning and making a special dish for our honeymoon dinner on the beach. We’ve never eaten so well! Thanks to Joseph for helping us choose wonderful wines each evening and Priyanka, Ahmed, Orl, Ram, Khalid, Heather, Krishnan, Subhankar, and the rest of the food and beverage team for always being so welcoming, helpful and smiley during mealtimes, you are all AMAZING! Faarufushi is beautiful, a real life paradise. Thank you to the whole team for making this trip unforgettable and for all the little extra touches for our honeymoon, your attention to detail in unmatched! We have LOVED every second and can’t wait to come back already. Read less

I don't write reviews often but this resort is out of this world and pretty much one of the best places we've ever stayed, not only on the Maldives but even world wide. 1) the ambiance: once you touch down you find yourself right in paradise. The champagne welcoming, the little band they set up for new arrivals, the friendliness of all staff is just unbelievable. Your own personal host which in our case was Haseen, what a lovely guy, will take care of you during your stay. Any questions, any planning of your excursions or watersports or spa, even the various dining options, leave it to him, he's there for you! 2) la cuisine: The resort has 5 different restaurants. All of them are outstanding and all of them are managed by chef moreno who is the Italian executive chef. If you would like to eat anything which is not on any of the different menus just ask him, he'll make it for you. Nothing is to much in this resort and this is pretty much the very positive vibe you'll experience 24/7 during your stay! There is no, oh sorry we can't do instead there is a with pleasure. The spaghetti with lobster are to die for, the yellow tuna tartar, the salmon he uses for salmon nigiri and the Indian curries are out of this world. 3) the drinks: By far not every all inclusive hotel in the Maldives supplies top shelf booze, well this one does! And if you fancy a glass of champagne, not talking about cheap bubbles!, but champagne for your breakfast, go for it! Oh and the cocktails, not to forget the cocktails, insanely good. Tried the mojitos, the caipirinhas, the piña coladas, all of them mind blowing good! Since we are not wine connoisseurs I can't say much about the wine but a resort that has 2 sommeliers certainly has a unique collection of wine as well. 4) the rooms: they left us speechless! See the photos I attached and you'll understand what I'm talking about! Oh, your minibar is filled with champagne of course, wine, beer and softdrinks, to many snacks to eat and will be refilled every day! For those of you that like to watch TV every now and then, plenty of English movie channels too. I shall add the wifi in the resort is the strongest we've ever had on the Maldives. Not once did it not work. 5) entertainment: Wonderful relaxing music by the pool during the day, a fantastic couple that is responsible for the live music during the evenings and plays all the sing along songs we all know to well. What you do with the rest of your day is up to you. Excursions to local island, spa treatments, paddle ball, cooking classes, games and quizzes too. And yes there is a kids club too! 6) watersports: All what you can think of! And then there is the diving of course. My hubby is an experienced diver and he said diving here is not comparable to anywhere else! It might be because the house reef is still intact as the resort is new. The dive instructors are the nicest in the world, he was with Miru and Andrea and trust me the boys had the time of their lives! They are just fun to dive with. Overall: You go, you know! The very best resort we've e ever been on the Maldives! The general manager, Patrick, very professional, kind, extremely welcoming and a good sense of humour too which is reflected in all his staff, Rao the operations manager and all the others that are simply to many to mention. The emerald is an experience on its own, outstanding in all aspects, a positive vibe that is out of this world and memories made for a lifetime! Thank you for having us! Read less