NH Collection Maldives Havodda Resort

Checked in villa 121 on 8th July 2026 for 7 nights.

Just came back from London after a week staying there for a wonderful birthday/anniversary trip. We are glad that we booked with British Airways holidays as the resort has a dedicated guest relation manager who looks after BA holidays customers and despite having stayed at other highly regarded Maldives resorts (Jumeirah, One & Only, Four Seasons, etc) in the past, we’re pleasantly surprised by the impressive overall quality of this NH Collection Havodda stay.

I’ll start with the food aspect: This is the first time we visit a Maldives resort offering only buffet dinner because usually we much prefer à la carte restaurants. But there was no problem at all because the chefs in charge are so present and accommodating. Thank you so much to the whole restaurant team, especially to chef Moni and the head chef Pradeep who happily customise dishes to accommodate our needs. We saw them actively going round the tables to ask about guests satisfaction/needs. In the buffet, there were a good selection of salad & cold starters, cheese/ham/bread, and nicely presented desserts (cakes, mousse and a make your own sundae ice-cream section). The 2 soup choices and the day special dishes are accord to the rotating theme of the night (e.g. Italian, Asian, Maldivian…). There was a grill station for meat and fish nightly and they also have high quality pastries for breakfast. All dishes are described well on clear printed displays. On our checkout day our extra early domestic flight meant that we had to leave way before the main buffet is open. I particularly appreciate that arrangement was made that we could place our individual order for hot food to put in the takeaway box. We only mainly placed order for a fruit plate due to the early hours but they also gave us some pastries and I like that small jars of strawberry jam (Garbo, one of our fav brands for quality jam) were included in the takeaway breakfast takeaway box. I think small things like quality/brands of takeaway jams/honey provided by hotels are a reflection of their standard.

The service overall was of a high level in general (e.g. buggy and bar service) and even though most guests focus on snorkelling/diving (as did we), the resort has an activity schedule (albeit some are chargeable) if you want to stay dry. We particularly enjoyed the bi-weekly ‘movie under the stars’ and a new thing for us was coconut bowling (thanks Femina). You could also join the leaf craft activity to try to make very interesting 3D creations (thank you Shifaas - who worked in the bar and also a master leafcrafter).

I had a massage at the spa (lovely jade stone message with Nia) and would have liked to go a few more times but spa appointment availabilities didn’t quite work with our busy snorkelling schedules). I also went on a dolphin cruise with the dive centre. Even though we were unlucky in that the spinner dolphins were not to be found, the water sports / dive centre team worked really hard to find some button nose dolphins for photo ops! Thanks to Aisham who helped me take photos & videos. He speaks good English and even showed me some videos of the amazing sea life we could see on other boat excursions. Truth be told the kids club could use a revamp but my teenage daughter enjoyed arts and crafts activity there, and Sineeja is a patient lady (you know how budding artists could get very specific with their works lol) .

Obviously the standout selling point here was the out of the world snorkelling - easy reef access swimming out from water villa or from the beach to reach the most amazing coral reef we’ve seen in the past 2 decades or so! We saw sea turtles, reef sharks, numerous colourful fish of all different sizes, stingrays, two beautiful jellyfish (1 pink, 1 orange) and were even lucky enough to swim near a few dolphins (only for a few seconds before they swim away though lol)!! It’s a valid fear that no snorkelling trip may ever hit the spot again after this height haha…

The whole resort and our water villa are kept very clean (thank you Nasrulla). We particularly like that our water villa is well located for our needs (thank you to the room allocation team) and that the outdoor bathroom layout functions well. A couple of things I personally would have liked would be for the villas to have blackout curtains and for the spa to have some appointments during lunch hour (when the sun is just too strong for outdoor activity) but as I heard this resort is working on many new initiatives so may be these are already in the pipeline. A lovely resort organised sunset cruise on my birthday concluded our holiday perfectly. Thank you also for the birthday surprises!

We also took advantage of the 15 minutes complimentary photoshoot. The photographer (Maisoon) was very patient taking photos for us at locations that we specified. Last but not least, our villa host Murooj has been amazing - providing personalised service you only get at the highest end Maldives resorts. Thank you Murooj for making our celebration trip so memorable!

As said in the title, this place is a bucket list destination if you are a snorkelling lover. This is our first time staying with a NH Collection hotel and this memorable Havodda Maldives stay has really given us confidence to try out this group’s other properties in our future travels!

We have holiday at resort Havoda we really like holiday her. Staff , food everything was very good specially always help us Bek. He pick up us every time and give all information

Over water villa in an island isolated by vast blue ocean, away from civilization yet still with warm weather best comfort. Particularly the place is paradise. Amazing people taking care of everything