Safari Island

North Ari Atoll / Maldives, Mushimasgali Island

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1 Room / 2 Adults

1 rooms,
2 adults
  • Rooms:

    1
  • Adults:

    2
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Overview

Water Villas on Safari Island stretch out over the calm waters of the turquoise lagoon. Sea turtles, eagle rays, school of tropical fish, and even a few black tip sharks are regularly spotted patrolling the waters. The villas accommodate three guests, with extra cribs available for sleepy infants. Every villa at the resort features an open air layout, flat screen televisions, mosquito netting, private bathroom, sun deck, and direct lagoon access. The onsite restaurant serves a mix of Western, Asian, and European dishes. Excursions can be arranged so that guests may try sport fishing, snorkel with whale sharks, or visit an uninhabited island for a picnic lunch.

Our Editor Loves

  • Water sports facility
  • Over-the-water villas
  • Night fishing

Family Interests

  • All Inclusive Rates
  • Beach
  • Sailing
  • Water Sports

Family Amenities

  • Babysitting
  • Children Programs
  • Cribs
  • DVD
  • Free Wi-Fi
  • Game Room
  • Laundry
  • Meal Plan
  • Onsite Dining
  • Pool

Reviews

Holiday in paradise

by Lenka O

It was my first visit to Maledives and it was just amazing. The hotel has 3 types of accomodation, we stayed at water villa. In these villas there is a direct entry to the ocean. East side villas are directly at the reef and that's why they have nicer under sea life. The furniture in the villas is little bit older but this doesn't metter to me. Villas were clean, the room boy came twice a day to do the room.
Food in restaurant was good, a lot of curry, fish, chicken, always something good to choose. And an amazing papaya.
The reef around the island is full of life but unfortunately corals are almost death. We had seen some sharks, a lot of beautiful fish and also one moray (little bit terrifying
The island also offers a boat trip, which is included if your stay is at least 7 nights. We were on one and it was really nice. We had seen dolphins, turttle, other fish and also a colorful corals. We also had had a lunch on the lonely island. It's a shame, that there is so much waste on that island.
I hope it wasn't my last visit to Maledives I really love it.

Your personal paradise!

by dr-number2

???? General
Transfer to the island was on the hydroplane - one of the best part of our traveling. While flying we took the first row and saw everything around. When we arrived the hotel welcomed us with a juice and carefully took care of anyone. The views of the island are amazing. All the luggage is handled directly to your bungalow so after you registered for hydroplane - you don't need to care of the luggage - it will be at your bungalow without your handling.
Although the hotel was 80% full (my guess), you will never see a crowd there. You feel everywhere almost alone: while laying on balcony or in the pool; while snorkeling; playing table tennis; walking on island; going to the trips.
The room service is done twice a day and for us it was done while we were on breakfast or dinner - thus, the "room boy" NEVER disturbed us when we slept or relaxed. Also few times we asked him to change the sun umbrella which got broken due to wind. Room boy changed it without problem.

???? Living places
We conducted an investigation for the best bungalow to choose few weeks before the trip. And finally we managed to find one. Additionally, it is great that the hotel fully accepted our request for the Semi-Water bungalow. Which we got - 144. This is the best bungalow among the Semi-water ones, and may be one of the best among all of them: Beach, Semi-water, Water.
It should be said that the bungalow categories are different in prices, the cheapest one is Beach, next Semi-Water and finally the most expensive one is Water.
However, my personal opinion is that the Water bungalow are not the best choice there. They are almost all the same between themselves, so you don't have to select the one you want. But the disadvantage of them lay in the long way to the house from Restaurant or Reception. The way comes over the bridge which is exposed to the sun. So if you want to go to the beach, it may take you several minutes travel under direct sun. And thus the Semi-Water bungalow takes advantage offering you the same Water-entering from balcony, same time having close location to the Restaurant and the beach. I cannot suggest any Water bungalow to select as we were far from them and never been around.
Semi-Water is a very nice choice there: you may have the both advantages of the Beach and Water ones, but still a fine selection of exact house is required. The 143, 144 and 145 have the nearest location to both the beach on the other side and the reef entrance near the Joy Dive. Thus, they are the best to choose from. The bungalow 145 is not separated from the Joy Dive center, thus, people may see you sometimes on the balcony. 144 and 143 are fully individual and no-one almost never visit you there from water. The beach on the other side is really good as it goes deep to 3-5 meters very fast and almost no one use it - so you can fill alone on the beach too. Btw, this sector of the beach is deep and thus it is used for the boats, however, the boats do not travel here often, so you may freely swim there. Plus, no corals - you can enter water there with nude feet. The numbers from 131 to 142 - are not directly connected to the beach on the other side. The 131 and 132 are located near the beach which is close to restaurant, but it is not deep there, so it not very good. Additional, disadvantage to the bungalows of 133-140 that the corals there are really near to the bungalow water exit and the entrances to the reef are far. However, I personally was able to enter the reef border almost from any place and even at low tides (that was a bit scary to swim and worry about your belly to touch the corals). So if you are a good snork/swimmer do not care of the entrances to the reef at all.
As to conclude: the best ones among Semi-Water bungalows are 142-144. Also you may see the sunset from them if there are no clouds.
The Beach bungalows are cheapest, but they are good as they have access to the beach directly and the view out of the window is incredible. The only problem here is also the fine selection of the house. I have took the pictures of all views from them to the ocean, so you may use them to select one you like more. They are grouped: 101-112 and 113-130. The ones 101-112 go to the beach which is near the boat place. The amount of corals there is low and thus, you will need to go to the other side to snork. Plus, sometimes the smell there is not good, due to boats engines. The other side of the island is better - you may take any Bungalow. The nearest to the Spa center 113, 114, 115 have the largest area of your "personal" beach. The 123 and 124 have a great view. The 126-130 are the nearest to the deep reef entrance. Feel free to browse to the pictures to see the best view you want. Sometimes the beach in front is not so good e.g. 111,112,130, so be aware of this.
Also uploaded a marked map with the comments.

???? Bungalow interior
The bungalow has a very smart design: having an additional path from the balcony directly to your shower and the foot wash basin in front of main entrance. The furniture inside is made of bamboo which makes everything feel very comfortable. The plumbing is great. Sometimes at the night times you may see some ants in the shower, but "room boy" can help with this. The bed of king size is great and have a special rack for night reading or movie watching which I loved very much. The air conditioning is new and is NOT directed to the bed (finally someone with brain designed the air conditioning location, in compare to Greece, Egypt, Spain hotel I had stayed before :P ). The water and semi-water bungalow has a table with transparent glass - so you can see the water beneath (light is available for night times). However, the water-view table is not so great for semi-water bungalow as the house is close to coast, but still a cool interior element. There were about 4 towels per person in the closet: face, hand, bath and beach one. Mosquitoes were rare inside. The sun-beds with mattress provided on the balcony are very comfortable. We used to lay on them at night times and watched the stars and sunset.

???? Reef
The reef at Safari island is great and alive - you can see here almost everything you want. Except of the whale shark and Mantas. Everything else is here from turtles to reef sharks, lionfishes, morays and etc. There are some trips to snorkeling locations offered by the hotel, but the ones who visited them, says - nothing different from the home reef. Please, note of reef entrances - there are not much, the popular one near the restaurant, they feed sharks there around 16:30 to 17:00. Other ones near bungalow 144 and bungalow 128. Once you entered the deep reef using the entrance - then you may travel along on it to the either side you want.

???? Food
We were on HB there and I can say that it is completely enough to live without any problem. The lunch goes around 13:00 for that time you don't get hungry from breakfast if you took it around 9:00, so the lunch is not really needed. As for drinks - every day they offer you 1 bottle of water per personal on morning, and for the dinner you may bring it to the restaurant, if you want. You may order a 1.5L bottle on the dinner and leave it on the table for next dinners - this is a great option. We used 1 bottle per 3-4 dinners. The HB+ option offers you drinks, but comparing the price of HB+ and the bottle of water, we decided not to go to HB+ as we don't drink alcohol. The AI option was out of our scope. In the bungalow you can heat the water and get coffee or tea.
The breakfast have usual stuff: oatmeal, eggs, bacon, beans, omelet, salads, fruits, milk, jam. The juices offered on breakfast were not water downed from concentrate as in European hotels, but from 1L packs so they tasted yummy.
The dinner offers variety of stuff: from fish, pork ribs, meat steaks, chicken, pasta to sushi and wok. Desserts were usually the same, but sometimes were good.
The most marvelous stuff is - Papaya!! You may eat it every time you want - breakfast or dinner. This is really good meal as it contains a lot of water, so you don't need to drink water much. Just eat papaya instead. Any food plate I took at the dinner started with papaya, then meat, fish or dessert - no matter. Papaya contains special enzyme - Papain which improves digestion (meat and etc). Sol if you have problems with alimentary track - here it will be okay. Also on the last day we bought 2 full papayas at the bar to bring home in the plane.

☀️ Weather
The best part of the Maldives weather is its constant temperature. Around 30 degree Celsius. No matter what is going on – the clouds or rain or night time - you go out of the bungalow and it is comfortable. You should know that on Maldives there are always small clouds on the sky, but it doesn't mean there is no sun. There is. Almost always. We arrived on 26 August and there was rain in the evening, but the day and morning was sunny. 3 times there was a huge rain over evening and night: on the second, third and last days. We had few days (1-2) where clouds closed sun on the noon times, but it was still comfy to swim. The bungalow has cloaks for both of us, which we used to run for the dinner under the rain. I liked to swim on a rainy night - it was much better to be in water, than under the rain. Even if it is rainy, the temperature is still okay.
First 5-6 days the evening was cloudy, so we didn't saw sunset or stars, but then everything changed. And for the rest 7 days we saw each day a sunset and a beautiful sky with stars from our balcony. The Milky way and most of the stars were seen perfectly. It was really nice to lay on the balcony and watch the stars, in such a comfy weather conditions. We almost fall asleep there.

???? Internet
Internet now is available at the all places of the island including bungalows, but it is slow at prime times. I suggest taking a Wi-Fi repeater with yourself to translate signal from the reception ;)

???? Staff
The staff is really good and very pleasant. The gratuity is at your will, we passed some to room boy during the vacation and gave at the end on departure. Same with the restaurant guy. The manager of the hotel helped a lot and solved our problem fully. He said that the only thing he wanted from us is to be is HAPPY.

???? Additional stuff
I liked the departure letter - in the evening before departure day, the hotel administration sends you a letter with all the information about your check-out and departure. The letter is great in sense that an strict algorithm is provided: luggage collect time from your room, your breakfast time, your check-out time, your departure time. I liked how precise it was.
On the beach near our bungalow there is no much evening lights, this make the night even darker than usual. So be sure you take your mask and go into the water for 5-6 meters from the shore. Then start to look underwater with moving your hands - you will see the lights!! Almost like magic! The more you move hands the more lights you see.
Every 7 nights of your stay a Safari boat is offered for you - which you may use to travel any place you want: from inhabited island, to local island or Manta point. The crew consist of 3 people and a boat is avail for you from 9am to 16pm.

???? Disadvantages
• Old furniture
• Not much cleaning done in the room
Of course more disadvantages could be identified, but the overall experience from this vacation was wonderful.

???? Conclusion
This place feels like a paradise... your personal paradise. No disturbance of your soul and mind. Just relaxation and thinking of science! Exceeded expectation by every parameter. Thank you for this marvelous place.